And already I know…that I’ve ruined everything.
I wassupposedto keep staring at the sky, exhaleit’s beautiful, isn’t it?andthenlook at him when he replied,yes, it is, even though he hasn’t looked at the sky once this whole night.
That’show this scene always goes.
It’s painfully cliche.
Painfully. Cliche.
But at least I know the script for it intimately.
And, yet, I messed it up anyway.
Go me.
Honestly, what else is new?
Don’t I mess up everything?
Malcolm laughs, smashing through my degrading thoughts before they can get too deep.
I grimace, or perhaps I havebeengrimacing. It’s hard to tell what my face is doing when I’m not paying attention to it. “What?” I mutter.
Pressing his knuckles to his mouth, he murmurs, “You tell me. What’s with that face?”
I force relax the muscles in my forehead, and cheeks, and chin. “What face?”
Shaking his head, he pulls on a leather glove and pokes me in the forehead. “The face causing these wrinkles.”
I swear I got rid of the wrinkles. I scrub the back of my hand across my forehead and put a foot of distance between us. “There’s no face.”
“There was definitely a face.”
“If therewasa face, it didn’t mean anything.”
“Oh, really? But I’m just so sure it actuallydidmean something.”
Heat bubbles and rises, scalding my flesh. “Well, if itdidmean something, it was certainly nothing important.”
“If it’s nothing important, then surely you wouldn’t mind sharing with the class.”
I huff.
He tilts his great big self down so his eyes can bore through me.
My eyes roll off him. “I was just thinking how cliche this is.”
“How cliche the date that you asked me on is?” he prods.
I straighten. “I don’t know how much I’ll like or dislike something until I’ve done it. And I’ve decided that I don’t really like this. It’s…boring. And…” Uncomfortable. With an air of wistfulness that makes my stomach churn. I don’t know how to break the quiet, but it feels like I’m supposed to, and all at once I’m back in school. Sitting alone in a crowded classroom. Begging for someone to come up to me and say something interesting.
I’ve forgotten entirely how to socialize with people.
And, given how being close to people initiates panic, I’ve just…leaned into it as I’ve gotten older.
Who cares if I can’t have meaningful conversations anyway, right? Talking results in breath which results in germs, and noone wants to deal with my anxiety-ridden disposition anyway. Especially not when any of the worries ever seem grounded in anything resembling reality.
Chewing my cheek, I clutch my crystal heart.
