Year Four/Week Seven– Present
I needed to go home after the pizza parlour. I couldn’t see Jace.
Needing to do something was very different from wanting. I wanted to see him, that’s all I wanted. But the right decision was distance, I wasn’t blind.
When I refused to eat, an oddly comforting recognition formed in his eyes. He’d said that we had more in common than he thought. Did that mean he, too, struggled with poor eating habits? Or he has? Was he just trying to be nice? He didn’t owe me that.
No one did.
After that comment was made, I searched for something in him; a sign that I didn’t see before, a hint that showed me just how broken he was.
There was a sea of blue in his eyes, clear blue like calm waters. He was calm, all the time. The levelness in his voice never exceeded fifty percent – he wanted to be perceived that way.
That’s when the realization hit me that everything about him was a façade. I don’t know what did it, what clicked in my brain, but I felt more alone in that moment than I had in so long.
I had an urge to open up to someone who was fabricating a reaction, someone who probably had no idea what it felt like to be living in a universe of competition.
As I walked to Prof. Granger’s class, I made note of all the outfits I wished I could wear if I had a breast reduction, the jeans I could finally fit into, the men who would pursue me.
I wanted to be an object of desire. I craved it. I needed to know that I was worthy of love.
But no one else needed to know that.
“Hi, hi, excuse me!” someone to my left called.
I pulled out my earphone and turned my attention to a chipper blonde with a yellow raincoat. “Yeah?”
“I just wanted to say I love your jacket.” Her smile was kind, her sentiments kinder.
I grabbed her hand and held it tight. “I love your face.”
She blushed and walked away, leaving me with a serotonin boost that would last two seconds because it wasn’t a man who complimented me.
I caught a glimpse of my outfit in one of the glass windows as I passed the courtyard, allowing myself one second of appreciation for my individuality.
There was nothing wrong with being basic, dressing in the same clothing that every other girl in the city of cities wore. Me personally, well, I couldn’t get behind that.
My jacket was a black wool coat, ankle length with grey hemming. I’d gotten it off a mannequin at Zara; the lady told me they didn’t usually do that but she’d make an exception for me.
Women were always nice to me.
Maybe they felt sorry for me.
Maybe they questioned why I didn’t feel sorry for myself.
The rest of my outfit was all black – black turtleneck, black jeans and black sock boots. A red scarf was the pop of colour that brought out Blu Henderson, the confident girl with a sad soul.
My phone pinged as I opened the doors to my faculty building.
3:55pm – Jace Boland: Turn around.
His hand cupped my elbow as he positioned himself in front of me, holding me steady. God, I couldn’t meet his fucking eyes. They looked through me, they analyzed me. They saw something I refused to see.
“You didn’t respond to my text,” was all he said in the one minute of quiet silence between concrete walls.
He had texted me after the pizzeria, asking if I was okay and if I needed anything, to Facetime him. I thought it was odd that he even wanted to video chat, he didn’t strike me as the type. Then again if you looked like that, no angle was a bad angle, even on camera.
I scratched the skin underneath my fingernails, staring at the floor. “Lots of schoolwork and stuff, didn’t really –”
His fingers lifted my chin to face him, to meet that bluish-green gaze I’d been trying to avoid. “Eyes are up here, Blu.”
I was completely immobile, paralyzed being this close, being this vulnerable to someone who wasn’t mine. There was no way he cared enough; there had to be an ulterior motive here.
“Talk to me.”
My lips were dry when I said, “Class is going to start soon.”
“It already started, darling.” He slid his phone out of his back pocket and showed me the time: 4:04pm.
“Then let’s go.” I began to walk and he let me, but didn’t follow. “Are you not coming?”
A slow shake of the head. “I’m craving some coffee. Might skip today.”
We now stood at two ends of the hall, staring at each other like a stand-off. Who was going to break first? Who was going to follow who? Who would fold?
“Enjoy,” I forced out.
“I will.”
But we both didn’t move.
For a few seconds, it felt like eternity until a group of people burst through the second floor staircase and exited the hall.
“Who do you go to class for, Blu?” he asked, his tone suggesting he already knew the answer.
I stood up straight, not wanting him to hear it. “Myself.”
A small smirk stamped his face. “Don’t lie to me now.”
And with this, he pushed the glass door and held it open, waiting for me, knowing I’d follow.
And like the coward, pathetic, attention-craving sadist I was –
I folded first.
