Can't Help but Love Him

Seeing Him Again

     Spring break was three months away, so I had plenty of time to try and see him. 

     "What's on your mind, Jay?" Gorge says, sipping on an apple juice box. I blushed involuntary, covering my mouth with my hand "N-Nothing."

     "It's love, I tell you!" Charlie exclaimed, slamming his hand on the table. 

     "Hey, Charlie! Be more considerate, will you? This is the library." Owen muttered, looking away in embarrassment. 

     "Love? What's love? Surely nothing I've heard of before." I say, waving the thought away. Charlie snickers, tapping his pencil on the table.

     "Tch, tch! I can tell when you've been enthralled, Jay." He says. "So? Who is she? Does she have cute friends??" He leans forward crumpling the papers under him. "You know, asking for myself,"

     She? Oh no. 

     Now what? What did I say now? 

     Dread began to set in as I thought about my situation. If I felt this way about Axel, a boy, what would my friends think? What would my parents have thought? I wouldn't be able to take over the House of Wilson with people knowing about us. 

     "Charlie, this is a study session. If you wanted to talk about romance, you should've passed your exams." Owen sighed, opening his textbook. 

     I put my head in my hands. What would they do if they knew?

     ______________________________________________________

     I sat in my bed, twirling the bracelet in my hands. I had the rest of the day off, with nothing to do. 

     I could just be friends with him, right?

     No, that sounded torturous. I didn't want with him what I had with my friends. I could ask where he was going for spring break? No, that was basically asking about his personal life. His personal life....

     What was this, a middle school crush? I hadn't found myself fawning over someone this closely, since, well since never.

     I sat up in my bed, stunned. I didn't know anything about him. I only had questions, and they kept piling onto of each other. I needed to see him; this was taking a toll on my mental health.

     I got up, and put the bracelet in my pocket. I was seeing him now. I still knew the way to his dorm building, and I had remembered his floor. His dorm building was identical to mine. I really meant it, it felt like I was walking back to my room.

     I suddenly started to feel intense butterflies in my stomach. The only two interactions we'd had were not so great. I wanted to get to know him, so I wouldn't feel weird about thinking about him every day. I was sure of my decision, until I got to the room with his name on it. 

     Memories of the last time I was here began to flood into my brain, and I felt the same cold sweat down my back. What should I even do, knock? What if he wasn't here? It was the weekend. I obviously couldn't go back, I was too deep into this. 

     I raise my hand to knock on the door, but it opens before I get the chance. He stands in the doorway, with wet hair and a towel around his shoulders. My whole body tensed, as I instinctively back up.

     "H-How did you know I was-"

     "I saw you through the window. You don't have any friends in this dorm, right? They're all in the West wing or something." He shrugged. 

     "Oh." I say, genuinely surprised. I didn't know he knew that much about me. He opened the door wider, walking into his room. I follow him, leaving the door open behind me. 

     "Close it," He says from his bathroom. "I apparently need to watch out for peeping idiots." 

     "That really was an accident! I just wanted to see what your problem... was..." I trail off, realizing how bad that sounded. I didn't want him to think badly of me, and seeing him really was an accident. 

     His room was bare, seeing as he had been here longer than me, it wasn't very lived-in. 

     "I had no problem with you. You just looked appetizing, is all." He says, rubbing another towel on his head. 

     "A-Appetizing?" How could he say that with a straight face? 

     "Oh, I meant appealing. Or intriguing, maybe?" He thinks aloud. That's what he thought of me? 

     "You're pretty intriguing yourself," I mumbled under my breath. 

     "So, what do you want with me newbie?" He says, coming to sit across from me. My head runs empty, and I suddenly lose my ability to communicate. My hand saves me, by moving into my pockets grabbing hold of his bracelet. 

     "You dropped something the other day," I say, taking it out of my pocket. He silently stared at it for a while, making me a bit uncomfortable. 

     "You know... I kind of wished I had lost it for good." He chuckled, looking down at his hands. I was now able to think, being freed from his gaze. 

     "What, why? The worker at its company said it was really rare." I say, confused. He scratches the back of his head, taking the towel off his head. "Yeah, I bet they did. It's the old model and everything."

     I hand it to him, confused by his hesitation. Our hands touched for just a moment, making my skin tingle. He took the bracelet, turning it in his hands. I wanted badly to ask him what it meant to him, and why he looked so uneasy with it. I wouldn't over-ask though, it was my first time having a real conversation with him. 

     "So your parents are dead, right?" He says, looking up at me. 

     My mouth dropped, and I stared at him stunned. I surprised even myself when I laughed, but the whole situation seemed so funny to me. He could do things so easily. It would take all my courage to ask about his parents.

     "Yeah, they're dead." Despite the unease that usually comes along with those words, I felt a small sense of relief. 

     "Do you miss them?" He says, keeping eye contact. Wait, was he trembling?

     "Well, I guess, but it was their time you know?" I look down at the ground, away from his gaze. "My father would not approve of me being here."

     "Where, at school?" He asks

     "No, with you." I muttered.

     I felt his confused stare focused on me. "Well it's not like he can stop you. You're the one overthinking things." 

     I was again, astounded by how easily he said it. He had single handily extinguished all my worries.