Nine Years Ago Munich, Germany
Greyson
Hallie and I left the cathedral grounds and started walking, side-by-side, heading nowhere—together.
I didn’t believe in fate, but she felt so familiar, like I’d known her for years.
“Where are you from?” I asked her.
“Berlin,” she said with a laugh that lifted everything inside me like I had sucked a long drag from a helium balloon. “And before that, Provence. And Sicily. And Mykonos … Barcelona.”
“A genuine nomad.” A smile settled on my face.
“Nomad for a year,” she said. “I’m taking my gap year.
When I get back, I’m going to go to college.
And then I’ll be going into medical school.
I want to become a world-famous surgeon.
” She paused, smiling up at me through the muted grey of night.
“Not for the fame. I don’t care who knows me.
I just want to help so many people that my work becomes famous—famous for saving lives. ”
“I bet you will,” I told her.
“I’m actually from Tennessee,” she said. “Knoxville.”
“Tennessee,” I said, shaking my head. “Me too.”
“You are not!” Her laughter echoed down the street, bouncing off buildings like the ping of a mallet on the keys of a xylophone.
“Yeah, I am,” I said. “Tennessee born and raised. I grew up in a small town an hour outside Nashville. Then we moved to Nashville my sophomore year.”
“I travel halfway around the world and I meet a Volunteer.”
“It’s a small world,” I said, believing it with my whole heart at the time.
“I guess so.” She was quiet for a beat and then she asked. “Where are you headed—after this?”
“We leave tomorrow morning on the train. I’ve got my first deployment. Afghanistan.”
She nodded quietly. And we walked on—past softly lit facades of buildings, old-world architecture, the lamp glow on cobblestones.
“Are you afraid?” she finally asked when we turned down a narrow street lined with residential buildings. “Of going overseas?”
“Are you afraid of doing surgery?” I asked her. “We’re both looking death in the eye one way or the other.”
“Es ist sp?t!” A woman in a robe shouted down at us from her balcony.
I chuckled. “She’s telling us it’s late.”
“I know,” Hallie said.
“Entschuldigung Sie uns!” I shouted our apology back up to the woman.
“Ach!” she turned and went back inside.
Hallie and I laughed. It was the laughter of a shared moment, private and unexpected.
“Say something else in German,” Hallie had asked me.
I paused only for a moment and said, “Ich finde, du bist das schonste und interessanteste M?dchen, das ich je kennengelernt habe.” I think you are the most beautiful and interesting girl I have ever met.
“Something about a girl,” she said smiling.
“Yes,” I said. “Something about a girl.”