Orbit/orbiting

First he said, he talked to her about orbits in berlin, constellations of people. She liked this idea. She had thought about it often. How you can circle around someone until you are closer and closer, until you collide.

Then the other one, in a separate conversation much later, he told her she had been in his orbit for some time.

For some time ?

She pointed out they had met only a few months ago.

Oh but you were on my orbit, for six months before that

(and did he say *in my orbit* ? Or did he say *on his radar* now trying to remember she's not sure)

…?

All those nights at ping pong bar…

Every Tuesday night she was there. It was the only bar she would go to by herself. There would always be someone she knew, and iff she was broke the bartender might give her a free drink, and then there were …the boys.

It always amounted to nothing. She never hooked up with anyone, but there would be weeks and weeks of flirting. Weeks where she would be excited by the possibility of…something. Weeks where she never paid any attention to the music, to the dj, at all.

You always had on all this animal print.

You always looked all…Cleopatra-like.

She was somewhat perplexed by the comment *Cleopatra like* She decided to take it as a compliment. But what was it before that he had said? He had been aware of her for some time.

#

This phrase used to be…fatal. It was the catalyst for almost every relationship she had ever had, dating all the way back to high school. It was part of:

the pattern.

There were only two documented cases of the pattern ever being broken. Summer 1998 and most recently in winter of 2010.

For every other relationship that had transpired, the other had made it clear they were interested, and then waited and months later made it clear again.

Or the other variation, when someone made it clear not only that they were interested, but had been for some time, the magic number generally being: six months. Whether or not the person would be considered before uttering these words, was not important. In saying them, they had potential, they could be her type. The pattern was larger than her. it was fate. But why she thought this, she was never quite sure.

Now she was hearing these words again. Only something had changed in her. Now they had no effect. And she thought of how, the person she did love, was in love with, before that moment they met, had no awareness or interest in her, at all.

And then with no small ammount of amusement, she recalled that first night he had gone home with her, the first night she had taken him home with her, and it happened to be that one evening, when she had taken him, to that ping pong bar…