I’d seen you before. Not you, but every other West Point-to-Kuwait-to-Some-Other-Place guy.

Not from a past life or anything, I just knew you’d be a guy who used to be in the army. You’d be from the south and wear a lot of button-down shirts in variations of blue and you’d slick your hair back and always have the back of your neck shaved.

I KNEW YOU BY PHOEBE BROSNAN 34THPARALLEL MAGAZINE ISSUE 76

The first day I saw you I thought for sure I knew you. Not from a past life or anything, I just knew you’d be a guy who used to be in the army. You’d be from the south and wear a lot of button-down shirts in variations of blue and you’d slick your hair back and always have the back of your neck shaved. When you’d smile a real smile, you’d be shy about it, tilting your head down, in deference. Lifting your head up just at the end of the laugh, letting me catch only a glimpse of the squint in your eyes and your quaint dimpled cheeks.

I’d seen you before. Not you, but every other West Point-to-Kuwait-to-Some-Other-Place guy.

And then we spent some time together, and you were that guy. …