Her name was Gila

Her name was Gila. We met early in the year, when I went out with my cousin and met her roommates at Sharffmans. And that was it, for a few months although later I learned Gila had tried to "bump" into me a few times, but it never quite worked out.

Menachem, my roommate, had recently left Mercaz, and Yonason, my closest friend at Mercaz, had been kicked out. There was a void in my life, a vacuum that needed to be filled.

My cousin turned 19 in January, and had a huge birthday party at Home Pizza, far from the spying eye of Boomer. I didn't know too many people at the party, but I recognized Gila, and sat with her.

Did I call her next? Did we make plans to go out? The details blur, I have no idea. What I do know is this. Shortly after the party, Gila and I went on our first date. We saw VI Warshawski, a movie that would have been forgotten by everyone on the planet by now if not for me, remembering it for what it was, a personal milestone.

As we sat watching the movie, our hands gravitated toward one another. I had heard about Shomer Negiah as a rumor from friends, but I didn't really believe in it. Not once had a rebbi, teacher or Mashgiach ever said it there was anything wrong about touching a girl. All they said was you couldn't talk to them. Our hands locked, and stayed together for what seemed like the next few months.

The movie ended, and we walked around, hand in hand, through the cold, dark Jerusalem streets. There is something incredibly intoxicating about walking through the streets, holding hands with a girl. Something that I still feel today, walking with my wife. Maybe its pride that screams out to the world that there is someone who likes me enough to walk around, fingers interlaced, and let everyone see how we feel about each other.

We must have had a great chat, or maybe the movie went long, because very quickly, we had missed the last bus. She could not go to Sanhedria; I was stranded from Mercaz. I don't know why we didn't take a cab. Maybe we just didn't want to go home.

So we walked. And talked. And held hands for even longer. It started to rain, and we took shelter in a hotel. We went up a few flights of stairs so that the management wouldn't kick us out, and sat in the hallway on the third floor. Just talking and laughing and holding hands.

And just like that, it was morning.

I walked her to the bus stop and watched her get on the bus to go back to Sanhedria, to pack her clothes up for Shabbos. And then I took out my pack of cigarettes, fired one up, and waited for the 7 bus to take me back to Mercaz.