Standing looking into the mirror of a strange vanity, I am doing my hair and talking to him as he brings things in for the party from his car.  I realize I am the only one speaking after a moment and turn to the doorway.  He leans against the door-jam, looking at me with a smile on his face. 

What?

Nothing, he says, but there is a change in the way he looks at me.  There is a softening in his eyes, and the smile on his face is different.  It seems to be more for himself than for me, that kind of quiet smile a person can get when they realize something that makes them feel good and sad at the same time. 

It took me awhile to understand that somehow me standing there at the mirror, he had stopped seeing me as one of the guys and watching me the way he did from the doorway, he began to see me as a girl.  The softening in his eyes, the smile, was a fondness he had for me but had never known he felt before. 

He had an accident a couple of years later, it caused damage to his long and short term memory, but that moment, that moment he saw me doing my hair in the mirror, what he felt in that moment was stuck there.  It is one of the only things he remembers about me.  When he sees me, that same softness enters his eyes, the same bittersweet smile crosses his face and he reaches to hug me.