Year Four/Week Four – Present
Blu was early today.
She glanced up at me the second I walked into class, but she didn’t look like her usual self.
Over the last four weeks, I’d noticed how well she dressed. It was a weird thing to notice about someone, especially when she held little importance in my head for the first fourteen days. But after coffee, I almost began to piece the puzzle together – the puzzle that was Blu Henderson.
Her hair was always down in dark waves. She wore a lot of lace tights, black mostly. I wished that she didn’t wear purple eyeshadow; it made her eyes look tired.
Today though, she looked more tired than ever before.
I decided to sit next to her.
“Morning, Blu.”
Her head was on the desk when she turned to me, barely lifting a movement. All she did was acknowledge my presence before settling back into position.
Goddamn, was this how I acted? Was this how she saw me?
“Long night?” I asked, taking out my MacBook.
Her face was buried in her arms, but she nodded and returned her attention to me. Brown eyes poked out from beneath her sleeves, a small smile on her lips.
It felt like a victory.
“I was out,” she explained, then yawned. “Had one too many glasses of prosecco.”
A heat burned my cheeks. I realized I knew so little about her friends, her social circle. Was she with another guy? Was she seeing someone? Why did the thought bother me?
I decided to ask. “On a date?”
Now her eyes fully met mine, glossy and bloodshot. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was still a tad drunk.
“Not a date.” A simple response, she’d said, with no further explanation.
If not a date, then a hookup. If not a hookup, then a meet-and-greet. If not me, then who? Who was she out with?
I turned away before I could ask any more questions. She wasn’t my problem. She was barely anything. We were acquaintances at best, strangers who knew of each other in school circumstances.
Strangers who didn’t feel like strangers.
“Okay class, today I want to start off by pairing you off.” Professor Flowers turned on the projector, loosening a silver tie around her neck. “Choose a partner and answer one of the four questions on screen.”
A few girls looked at me. Every time that happened, a flash of serotonin skyrocketed through my body.
I was attractive. I was good-looking. I became everything I wanted to become. I worked hard for this – my face, my body, my everything. Gone are the days of the scrawny twig, Jace Boland.
Before I could open my mouth, Blu slapped a palm on my desk, leaning up from her slump.
She said one word.
One word that sent all the waves of serotonin into overdrive.
One word that no one had ever said to me in my entire life. A word I craved to hear. A word that did not exist to my ears.
“Mine.”
