Gibbs 1

Have We Met Before?

I’ve settled on two different tops. The first one, a simple forest green crew neck

embroidered with navy blue thread creating the image of a lush forest. Frayed at the sleeves from

years of wear, but my favorite nonetheless. The other is a plain white button down that fits

tighter than I would like around my wrists. I knew from the moment I pulled them from my

closet which one I would choose, but now I stand in front of my mirror taking turns placing both

shirts in front of my torso. I mule it over like I’m really giving them some thought. So that later I

can pretend that my decision wasn’t based on the “first day” tips you had given to me years ago.

When I reach for my keys on the way out of the door I pay no mind to the way the ends of my

sleeves cinch around my wrists.

I arrive forty five minutes early. Inside the lobby of Citrus Hyeonie is a large assortment

of oddly shaped seating. The color orange is incorporated in various shades on various items.

There are a slew of orange chairs in the shape of deformed a “L”. They’re made out of a stiff

plastic that has no real way for me to sit in them comfortably. It’s a stark contrast to the mundane

white and beiges I’ve dressed myself in. From some place in the back of my mind I can hear

your voice. Reminding me that professionalism doesn’t come in the form of bright colors that

cause you to stick out.

“Great workers stick out on their own. It’s more rewarding when you're acknowledged

because your work is good, not because people are distracted by your color combination.” You

had said one day from your place behind me in a dressing room mirror. Your hands were busy

adjusting the color of yet another white button down. The automatic doors make a bit of a

whooshing sound whenever they open and it catches my attention. She’s only there for a second.

Stood in the entrance for no longer than five seconds, eyebrows pulled down in confusion as she
 Gibbs 2

stares at her phone screen. She looks up once and decides that this isn’t where she is supposed to

be and turns promptly on her heel. But that was enough for me. My heart clenches pathetically in

my chest as I watch her walk away. My feet itch to follow after her because it takes me a

moment to realize that it wasn’t you. The hearts embroidered into her high tops are enough for

me to realize that much, but still the adrenaline sits at the base of my spine and shows itself in

the bounce of my knee.

Whenever the clock strikes 2:00 I step into the elevator and press the button for the

seventh floor. The double doors to the meeting room are wide open with welcome signs with the

official mascot of the design department sprinkled across them, placed in front of them. Inside,

the other new recruits are sparsely seated around the room. Some are engaged in conversations

while others stick to their phones. I took a seat in one of the middle rows, a seat directly in the

middle, because you had always said it was the best spot in terms of keeping yourself focused on

the instructor. I remove my laptop from my briefcase and look over some of the work I sent in

with my resume. The same minimalist tone has slipped its way into my advertising opportunities.

My works have a plethora of mundane colors with sleek fonts. A large contrast compared to what

Citrus Hyeonie’s image is. Its use of bright colors and bubble font in many of its trademark

advertisement designs is what drew me to them. I applied to the company without telling you. I

told myself it was because I wasn’t going to get in anyways, but really it was because you only

ever talked about how immature their designs were. I said nothing to you when I got the

congratulations email.

She strolls in at 2:13 p.m. Seventeen minutes early for the new recruit orientation. But her

satchel, that hangs lowly on her waist, has been left unzipped and is losing its papers. She plops

down in a seat in the third row, an end seat. She huffs out an exasperated gust of air and pulls the
 Gibbs 3

braids that have fallen from her ponytail and into her face out of the way. Her chest heaves as she

tries to navigate her way through the abundance of papers that are spilling from her satchel. She

closes her eyes momentarily in relief as her fingers clasps around the item she’s been searching

for. She pulls free, a little round mirror and begins to tap at the areas around her eyes. Fixing

spots that have smudged due to the sweat she shed on her way here.

That aura of unpreparedness is what separates her from you. Had she sat in her seat a

little softer, zipped her satchel up sooner, made it here early enough so she could have walked

instead of ran, I would have thought she was you. The resemblance is uncanny. Down to the

freckles that adorn the bridge of her nose. Even the way she slides a piece of peppermint gum,

your favorite, between her lips. Lips closed as she pushes the taffy between them and licks the

residue powder off afterwards. It’s unsettling.

I’m staring and in a room full of twenty something people I’m sure it looks strange. I can

feel the eyes that bore holes in the side of my face. I guess she can sense my own because

moments later she’s turning around. Her eyes find mine, and although I’ve been caught I can’t

find it in myself to look away just yet. Her eyebrows pull together, wrinkles etching themselves

in the space between them. She’s racking her brain to see if we’ve met one another before.

Trying to see if she’s given me a reason to stare at her so openly. She blinks three times in

quick succession and shoots me a small smile. It’s her way of trying to break the awkwardness,

but it winds me. Makes me turn away from her abruptly, stifling a desperate cough into a tight

fist. She’s so much like you. Even in the way a content smirk tugs at her lips as she turns back to

face the white board. I thought by now the ins and outs of your little mannerisms would have left

me.
 Gibbs 4

It’s been exactly one year and three months since I last saw you. When you left, you left

behind everything that you no longer desired to carry with you, that being me included. But

when leaving a six year long relationship in the middle of the night you have to carry light. So

you left behind things like the dent where your desk chair rested against the kitchen wall, an

empty spot in the toothbrush holder, and an over abundance of kitchen cutlery. Things that I

haven’t been able to learn how to pack. Physically that is. Mentally I’ve decided that it’s best if I

just push those thoughts to the side. Let them linger somewhere in between “Did I forget to turn

the lights off?” and “What was that thing I liked in middle school?”. I haven’t thought about you

for a total of two months, thirty seven days, and currently twenty-nine minutes. That is of course

until her.

She’s situated now. Ipad being pulled from her satchel some time ago. It’s propped up on

the small table space of the lecture room chair using a pastel yellow pencil case. The face of

some animated bunny is plastered all over it. It’s something you would have never bought.

Would have complained about how childish it looks and how unprofessional it would be in a

workplace setting. She doesn’t think so. She pulls free the pen for her iPad and opens up a blank

note. She begins to drag the tip of the pen across the screen aimlessly.

The clock hanging above the smudged white board reads “2:32” when the door to the

room opens again. The head of the advertisement department, Mrs. Levine makes her way down

the center row of the meeting room. Her heels clack melodically as she walks up the small set of

steps of the stage and makes her way behind the podium. The girl sits a little taller in her seat and

pats quickly beneath her eyes one more time. Conversations begin to die down as Mrs.Levine

begins pulling files from her briefcase. She taps the microphone once and then clears her throat.

Her eyes scan over the room before awarding us all a cool smile.
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“Good afternoon.” Mrs.Levine says. A course of “good afternoons” sound off across the

room. She goes over the company introductory quickly. Congratulates us all on being chosen to

join Citrus Hyeonie’s advertisement department. She pulls up a powerpoint that she clicks

through, stopping here and there to add a few sidebars. The girl struggles to take down notes and

gives up halfway through. I can hear your scoff so clearly it makes my ears ring.

“Can you believe that?” You would have said.

“If she isn’t going to take this seriously she might as well give up now.” You’d continue

and I would have agreed.

Then we would have continued to write our notes despite the clear announcement that the

powerpoint would be sent to all new recruits after the meeting. Then we would have found a nice

little restaurant afterwards. Not to eat, not to discuss the excitement we’re experiencing after

breaking into the working world, but to compare our notes. You’d then tell me you have

something you have to do and that you’d meet me at home later. I’d then pull free things from

our fridge to make for dinner, but put them back and settle on something microwaveable.

When you finally decide to leave me alone Mrs.Levine is already wrapping up her

presentation. She’s sliding her things back into her briefcase as the girl shoves things into her

satchel.

“You guys have been here a while. There is food and drinks in the cafeteria. Please enjoy

them and acquaint yourselves with one another.” She waves to us all as she makes her way back

down the aisle and through the double doors. I grab the briefcase that I bought yesterday and

follow the herd of people as we shuffled our way through the doors. The cafeteria is already full

of existing employees and higher ups. There are balloons and banners that say “welcome.” I

straighten my collar and make sure my shoes are tied before I begin my rounds. I spent the next
 Gibbs 6

thirty minutes shaking hands and repeating “Hi my name is…”. After grabbing one of the mini

sandwiches from the bar and a sweaty water bottle I find myself at a table stashed away in a

corner of the cafeteria.

I take a bite of the sandwich and wish I had remembered to bring my own lunch. I wish I

had chosen to wear different shoes since these have been digging into my heel since the walk

here. There’s not much time to worry about that though, because I spot her as she excuses her

way through the crowd. She stops right at the edge of my table and gives me yet another small

smirk. I chew on my sandwich slowly.

“Have we met before?” She’s resting her elbows on the circular table now. She laces her

fingers together and places her chin on top of them. I bring a fist to my mouth and try to chew

the remaining bits of ham sandwich as quickly as possible. When my eyes shoot up to meet hers

she offers me a smile, not one as cool as Mrs.Levine’s or as seldom as yours. Her’s is rather

warm as she waits for me to finish struggling with the suddenly dry bread.

“Uh, no.” I shake my head and wipe the sweat from my palms onto my khaki slacks. She

nods, pulls free the seat that is directly across from me, and sits in it. She sits her satchel on the

table in between us and I notice that it’s not that it’s been left unzipped, but instead the zipper is

broken. It reminds me of how you took me shopping for work essentials every six months. You

said people would only take me as seriously as I looked. So now I sit across from her in some of

the most uncomfortable pair of slacks I’ve ever worn in my life. The ends of a thick sweater vest

layered on top of my least favorite button down are stuffed into them. All the while it’s 87

degrees outside. She sits comfortably in a skirt that flows with her easily. A nice top that matches

the tulips I passed on the way in here. She seems happy. She taps her knuckles against the table a

few times.
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“I lost you for a second there.” She laughs. I notice then the southern lilt that tilts her

vowels.

“I’m sorry. What did you say?” I sit back as far as this seat will allow me to in an effort to

feign coolness, but in reality my buttons are beginning to dig into my stomach. She smiles again

and leans forward once more.

“I asked why won’t you stop staring at me ?” She doesn’t sound mean or angry, just

genuinely curious and a little humored. I finally get the clump to slide down my throat and begin

to tap a hand against my bent knee.

“I’m sorry. I really am. You look like someone I used to know.” I say. She nods and lets

out a deep sigh as she raises her hands up and over her head. She stares out the large window for

a while before responding. She whips back to face me, sending braids willowing around her.

“I hope that’s a good thing.” She laughs and I just nod in response. I excuse myself from

the table under the guise that I have business to attend elsewhere. She lets me go easily. The walk

back to my car is treacherous despite it only being five minutes away. I thought it was cruel then.

For you to have left me so suddenly. How could you throw away a six year long relationship so

easily? How could you resist contacting me for as long as you have? After today I think you’re a

monster. The fact that you’ve perfected the ability to antagonize me while not even being in the

room is inhuman. I should be able to behave normally around a future colleague despite the

memories she provokes.

I spend the next two weeks trying my hardest to avoid her at all costs. Not because she’s

done anything in particular to annoy me, but because it’s impossible to be within five feet of her

without being antagonized by you. She sees it as me being shy so she spends the next two weeks
 Gibbs 8

trying to get me to warm up to her. She finds these bare moments where she can lean over the

dividers that separate our desk and stare at me intently as she asks me questions about topics that

have nothing to do with our current advertisement commission. I’ve come to the conclusion that

she does it for no other reason besides the fact that she likes to watch me squirm. She says that

my awkward glances make her laugh. I tell her that it’s not nice to laugh at people. She says it

isn't nice to glance at people awkwardly. She doesn’t hold back. I found that out early on. It’s

very much unlike you who hated to put people in uncomfortable situations and did your utmost

to uphold boundaries. Not because you cherished the way people perceived you, but because you

expected people to give you the same treatment that you gave them. But she sees my silence as a

space for her to speak, not the wall you’ve taught me to use it as. So we spend most of our time

like that. Me silently listening as she rambles on about whatever she feels like talking about.

“Wait, so you were a blue jacket?” She says one evening as she follows me to the

elevator. After intense hounding she had gotten me to tell her where I attended high school and

was really curious about my mascot.

“Yes.” I push the button for the elevator and watch as each floor ticks by.

“What the fuck is a blue jacket?” She laughs so loud it richoches off the stillness of the

walls. It comes so suddenly that I find myself jerking away from her. She places a hand on my

arm before I can get too far and uses it as leverage.

“It’s a wasp.” My words come out twisted, petty annoyance slipping in between them

because why does she think that even that is funny. The elevator doors open and I hold a hand in

between them and wait for her to walk inside. She’s wiping a tear as she does.
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“Wait, they're real?” She’s laughing again, so loud and not worried one bit about if

anyone else hears her. I can feel the way my lips curve and dip into a smile of their own. I press

the “Floor” button. It takes her a few moments to settle down, but when she does it isn’t

completely silent because she sniffles every now and again as she continues to wipe tears from

her face. You also have swarmed this intimate space. Your voice is floating between my ears,

saying something about elevator etiquette. Sending her annoyed glances out of the corner of your

eye. The blue number above the elevator doors reads “3” whenever I decide to speak again.

“I don’t know actually. If it’s real or not.” I say taking a moment to look at her. The

moment the words leave my mouth her face is engulfed in laughter once again. Her eyes

squeezed shut making way for the crows feet that adorn her cheeks.. Her head is tossed back and

it causes braids to splay across her shoulders in ripples. She has a hand placed over her belly,

clutching at the fabric of her dress. And for the first time she looks nothing like you. Over the

course of the next week she tends to catch me on the elevator. These quick micro conversations

transpire between the two of us. My answers get a little longer and she doesn’t feel the need to

stare at me so intently anymore.

The briefcase that I bought the day before new recruit orientation, two months ago,

acquires a rip as I take my seat at my desk. I can hear it before I see it. It has somehow gotten

caught on the end of a screw that is hardly visible in the leg of my desk. It’s an ugly gash that

reveals the white fabric that resides beneath the black exterior. My shoulders drop as I run my

fingers across the tear. I’ll just get a new one after work.

“Holy cow that’s ugly.” Lennox says. She’s just walked in. Her broken satchel is still

hanging from her hip, her shoulders clad in a funky patterned sweater that is two large for her
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frame, a skirt that swoons just above her ankles, leaving room for the orange socks with little

black cats sewn onto them. In her hands she holds two cups. She places one down next to me

before taking her seat. She rolls her chair super close to mine and the sound of the wheels

scraping the floor reminds me just how empty the office is before 8:30 a.m.

“Tell you what. I’ll take you out for ice cream afterwork. I know this really cool spot.”

She holds a hand up to cover the side of her mouth as if she’s telling me a secret. I decide I have

no plans. She takes me to a stationed ice cream truck about a fifteen minute walk away from the

office. She talks animatedly about her hometown and explains how she wishes she didn’t have to

leave, but of course she needed to if she wanted to find anywork. I think briefly of you who

informed a seventeen year old me that we would not be together any longer if I wasn’t willing to

travel eight hours away from our state for school. She tells me about the friends and family that

she had to leave behind. She asks me about me and I think of you. I think of telling her my first

day of first grade was when I met you. I had fallen over on the playground and had scraped my

knee. You knelt down beside me and asked me, “Does crying stop it from hurting?”. To which I

responded with a sob and a shake of the head.

“Then stop crying.” You then took me by my wrist and dragged me to the picnic tables.

You kept your grip there until 1 year and four and half months ago.

I decided to just tell her about being a blue jacket and the younger siblings I left behind.

She nods and hums in all the right places and asks me these questions that have nothing to do

with what I’m talking about, but I’ve learned it to be her indication of providing her utmost

attention. We began spending lunch together everyday. I find it hard to ever laugh as freely as she

does. It takes me a while of studying the way she throws her head back and how graciously she

accepts her laugh lines. I like to think at some point I began to get the hang of it.
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“Ah shit. We’re missing one.” Lennox curses one September afternoon as she begins to

pull napkins and plastic cutlery from the cute little bag with the smiling bear.

“Let’s just split it.” She says and she’s already using her fingers to split the pastry in half.

It coats her digits in fluffs of whip cream that she waits to lick off until the cake is completely

split. It’s something you would have never done. Would have slid the cake in my direction,

folded your hands in your lap, and complained of not having wanted it in the first place. But next

to me she hums around her spork as she raves about the taste and tells me I need to try it myself.

I grab my own spork and release it from its plastic, take one last peak at her before shoveling a

piece into my mouth. We hum in unison.

We’re together more often after that. Not just when we sit side by side at our desk or

when we go out for lunch. But we began to frequent one another’s home. We dedicate

Wednesday nights to teaching one another how to cook our favorite meals, Fridays are for

whatever dramas we’ve picked up through the week, and Sundays are free days. It’s nice to have

her around and it hits me suddenly and all at once just how lonely I’ve been. How long I’ve

longed for a companion since before you left. Not necessarily romantically, but unconditionally.

You had been such a headstrong character that I found it difficult to grow outside the realms of

being your lover. I had grown accustomed to feeling as if being treated as a trainee was a normal

relationship between friends and lovers. But she makes me wish I had seeked out kinder forms of

love before. She makes me wish I had asked you to be kinder to me. She makes me realize I

shouldn’t have had to.

 Gibbs 12

It’s the fifth Sunday of October when I realize I can’t remember the last time I thought

about you. It hits me when she calls back to me from the chair swing on my porch that we need

another bag of candy. On the new end table that rests right beside the kitchen entrance, lays a pile

of bags of assortment candy. As I pick up the bag of assorted chocolates I catch a glimpse of the

indent that barely peaks above the surface of the table. I can’t remember if I placed this table

here to cover it up or not. I lift my hand to run my fingers across it one more time.

“Hurry up!” She screams. “Kiddies are coming!” Lenoxx is squealing now. My hand

hovers for a moment in mid air before it drops to my side. I decided to pick up the Blow Pops as

well. When I make it past the threshold of my front door she’s bent over at the waist talking with

a small child dressed up as Kuromi. As she talks to the child she’s dropping handfuls of candy

into the halloween basket. They finish up their conversation and then she waves the child

goodnight. The orange and back lights that are wrapped around the banister of my porch twinkle

against her face in alternating intervals. Placed on each step are little mechanical pumpkins that

hum the tune of “Monster Mash”. Lennox hums along with them.

“That’s why we’re running out of candy so fast.” I say as I take a seat next to her. Her lips

pull downwards as she looks into the bowl. She makes a show of picking the bowl up and

placing it into my lap.

“Don’t leave me with so much responsibility.” Lennox uses the tip of her toe to begin to

rock us gently. The streets are filled with laughter. The sounds of children squealing with delight

and excitement cause the neighbors to migrate to their porches. The excessive chatter is

comforting.

“Hey, you never told me who I reminded you of.” She’s not looking at me, but where her

hand digs through the candy bowl. She settles on a Goodbar before she sits back against the
 Gibbs 13

wooden bars of the swing. I pause for a second and try to figure out the best way to answer that

question.

“Just an old friend.” I say. Lennox nods at this and smiles.

“Well nice to meet you again.”

It’s about a month later. I’m in line at some quaint little coffee shop around the corner

from the office. It’s my turn to buy coffee for me and Lennox. I’ve ordered and am on my way

out of the door whenever I see you. You’re sitting on one of the benches placed around the

fountain in the center of the plaza. Your hair is longer now, but still neatly kept. The beige and

white combination looks as beautifully on you as it did before. When you look up from your

notepad and squint in my direction I know it is not because you can’t see me, but because you

have yet to see me this way. Shoulders no longer slumped with the weight of the expectations

you placed upon me. Skin complimented by colors that I do, and a soft smile directed towards

you. One that tells you I’m not angry. You don’t understand my lack of a response so you don’t

smile back, but I don’t worry. I smile one more time and raise a hand to wave goodbye. I don’t

wait to see if you wave back.