I hadn’t noticed you at first. Not once during the previous thirty minutes of standing in the hallway, did I lay eyes on you. I had been too busy listening to the Asian looking teenagers talking about what exactly an Internet based TOEFL test entailed. Since one surprise after the other came up in this discussion, I was a bit preoccupied to be looking around much. You were the second one to be assigned a computer and as your picture got displayed on the pc you were meant to use I finally took notice. I had to do a double take to really appreciate the details of your features. Shortly after, I was assigned a computer diagonally across from you. A few innocent neutral eye contacts later we both put on our headsets and focused on the tasks at hand. Trying to stay focused with all the people around us was difficult but I found staring at you to be far more of a distraction. I tried a weak smile but your concentration was much better than mine and your eyes did not stray from your screen, probably the reason why you were the first one to reach the ten-minute break between the two parts. You got up and walked out, making me rush along the rest of my questions so I could get out as well, to no avail.

By the time I got out of the test room and made it down the stairs, your ten-minute break was nearly over. At the entrance of the building were doors that only opened from inside to outside and not the other way around. For some odd reason you had gone through these doors and you were franticly beating on the door for someone to let you in, afraid to be disqualified from the rest of the test for taking too long a break. I rushed down the rest of the stairs and let you in, making sure you didn’t just waste 155 euros and two hours of your life on a test you wouldn’t be allowed to finish. I smiled and you blushed, quickly muttered thanks and ran up the stairs back to the test room. I felt needed for just an instant and that made my day even though I hadn’t eaten all day and the heat in the computer room was slowly starting to cook my brain into a soggy pulp. I went back for my second part of the test and offered you another smile that you undoubtedly missed. I didn’t care. As I put on my headset, you started your spoken tests and had a discussion with a computer, which was absolutely absurd in a sense.

Somehow I caught up with you in the written tests and managed to finish my essays sooner than you. I had barely managed to keep my nasty opinion to myself in the part where you had to summarize the other person’s opinion without giving yours. This act of bravery resulted in a majestic overflow of my erratic opinions on reality TV in the second essay where our opinions were asked. I had a certain glow of accomplishment when I walked out of that room. I spent an inordinate amount of time packing my things to give you a chance to finish your test. You were five steps ahead of me on our way of campus, speaking German on the phone. You hung up and we made it to the street. I asked you how you did and we got to talking. Strangely enough you had to take the same bus as me, probably because it was the only bus into town. After exchanging our opinions on the test, which were similar, we spoke about more general things in our lives. You were a German girl in Brussels for a four-month internship with the European Union with a degree in communication sciences or something to that effect. Short periods of silence were alternated with bouts of vivid conversation. We discussed life in various cities and I mentioned my winter-trip to Berlin last year. You told me I should come back in the summer. I just might, if you are there as well.

The bus stopped and as you noticed the name of the stop, you suddenly got up, grabbed your bag and rushed off, all the while wrapping up our short encounter with words of farewell. Walking out of my life just as briskly as you wandered into it. See you around, German TOEFL girl.