Ten.

Ten months tonight. It's warm, but not as warm as it was that day, not nearly as warm as it was in those air conditioned stairs. And in celebration of the events that took place on this evening so long ago, we'll recount it. Let's see how much I remember. But before that, I've found that I cannot listen to The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. It takes me back to the beginning of the school year when my world exploded. It makes me feel all those emotions again and I hated that time. So yes, now, my recollection of The Stairs:

She's looking at me and I'm hanging on every word. It's hard for me to believe that our walk has ended up here. She's sitting a stair above me, filling up her ten minutes with words. As her deadline draws near, I see that she has no intention of making it, even though I believe I knew it already. She seems completely at ease while I'm sitting there, heart pounding and butterflies tearing holes in my stomach. She seems so sure of herself, she has a confidence that I wish I could have a fraction of. But I remind myself that she knows what she's doing, and I have no idea. My brain is so noisy and so silent all at the same time as I concentrate on her words, on the moment. A gap between us is slowly closing and before I know it, I'm kissing a girl I met only the day before. Without me knowing it, this is the first of many crazy things I'm going to be doing in the coming months. I pull away from the kiss first, lungs desperate for oxygen that seems to have been sucked off of the entire earth. I see blue eyes looking into mine, the most amazing red hair I've seen in my life framing them. This does nothing for my problems with breathing. The next twenty minutes are spent in almost complete silence. Except for the sounds of kissing and breathing. We play a game and I lose, because that's what I do. We're climbing the stairs and my motor functions are failing, but I know it's just because I want to put off goodbye. Floor number five and she's kissing my neck, then my collar bone, my chest, and I cannot breathe. Nor do I want to. I'm reveling in the moment, not needing oxygen. Past my belly button and stops just above the waistline of my shorts. She just looks up at me and smiles as I take in that breath I've been holding. She kisses back up the ways she came down and with my eyes closed I clumsily get my lips to meet hers. Up more stairs to an unexplainable ledge, later to be decided that the architects put it there just for them. She's sitting on it and kissing me from above, me standing between her knees. My hands are on her thighs and without me knowing it, start to move closer to her body. I only become aware when she puts her hands on top of mine. I draw back and blush. Then she takes my face in her hands and runs her fingers along my features. Confused, I ask her what she's doing and she replies: Remembering you. I know it's something I'll never forget. I smile and lean into her and she wraps her arms around me. We stay like that for a long minute then she gets down. We kiss some more until her phone interrupts, telling her that she really needs to go. She kisses me again, looks me in the eyes and tells me she has to go. Then she starts up the stairs, up two flights when she only needs to go up one. Back down one and through a door. I get a quick glimpse of her family waiting for her and they seem to see me hidden in the stairs. Then she's gone. And I'm left to walk all the way back down and try to resume my life the way it was before she came into it.
Never did I imagine my life would change so dramatically, so wonderfully, in two days. But it did, and I've never been happier.

Erro.