The Volunteer Coordinator at My Internship

Through my stepbrother’s wife’s brother’s now-­ ex-­girlfriend, I scored an internship at a tutoring center, where my primary responsibilities were taking out the trash and improving youth literacy.

In any new place—to make that place worth going to—there should be someone you aspire to kiss. One night, I followed the paid employees to the bar Amnesia (other nights they went to the Make Out Room or the Beauty Bar, names that doubled as offerings). I stuck to the edges, unnoticed, until out of nowhere the volunteer coordinator with the good sense of humor came over and talked to me when no one else did, which meant I’d love him always.

We didn’t kiss that night. Or any other. It’s now ten years later, and I’m still extremely not over it.