Maraschino 🍒 (gxg)

15

gobble gobble. here's an update.

./.

Julia.

The name was a piece of candy on Chelsea's tongue -- not just the name itself, but the fact that she so naturally obtained her name, and now it was in her possession, like a new set of keys. It blew Chelsesa's mind that she was able to hold down Julia for as long as she did and had a conversation with her. A fully-fledged conversation, with subjects and words and a prerogative.

Now she had to decide if she was going to tell anyone. She wanted to talk about it, to let her emotions and thoughts out. She figured she'd tell Stephanie, because she was more responsible and more responsive to Chelsea's personal feelings. Telling Carlie right away would unleash the waterfall of future wedding plans, which would leak to Manny, and Chelsea didn't want to ruminate on what happened last time mystery girl was the topic of conversation around her. So she went straight to Stephanie.

"Her name is Julia?" Stephanie and Chelsea were walking around campus. It was Thursday after class; Manny was doing whatever she did, and Carlie was doing her mysterious, solo things. That seemed to be the theme: Manny had her own agenda, and so did Carlie, but Carlie only appeared when she wanted to be seen, and that seemed to never be around campus. Manny, on the other hand, attended any gathering for a nugget of gossip. "For some reason, I thought her name was something totally different."

"I didn't even have a guess before," said Chelsea honestly.

"So what are you going to do now? Are you going to ask her out?"

Chelsea sighed, stopping for a second to get off her board. "I don't know. I've never been in a relationship relationship. How do those things even start? Do you just ask the person out and that's what happens?"

"You have no idea at all?"

Chelsea shook her head, trying to hide the embarrassment.

Stephanie smiled. "I can help you, don't worry. Although she doesn't talk to anyone -- or talk at all, for that matter -- she seems decent enough."

"She's... definitely strange," Chelsea mumbled. "But, yeah, a nice person. A good soul."

It was the next day, Friday, and Chelsea was sitting by herself at lunch, contemplating her conversation with Stephanie and what she should do next. Should she ask her out? Or just keep going as it is? Was it a one-time thing and now Julia isn't interested in her, especially since she pushed about Lake?

As she was overthinking things, a shadow passed over her table. She looked up to see Julia there, curly hair in its usual mess and the usual scowl on her lips. She took a seat across from Chelsea. Chelsea felt as if all the eyes in the cafeteria were suddenly on them.

"Hey," Julia greeted casually, no break in her stonelike expression. She didn't bring lunch with her, or a backpack or books. She leaned her arms across the table, making eye contact with Chelsea.

"Hey, what's up?" Chelsea greeted her back.

Julia shrugged. "I saw you and figured I'd say hi."

Chelsea didn't know what to say. She quickly glanced around the mess hall to see a collection of eyes staring in their direction, but thankfully not as many as she thought. It was an awkward silence -- neither of them had anything to say -- they didn't talk about much yesterday -- which confused Chelsea as to why she came over in the first place. Did she go out of her way to be nice and try to make conversation? She was a mystery even when Chesea knew her name.

Suddenly, Julia stood up, the seat behind her scraping on the linoleum. She reached into her pocket, dropped a folded paper on the table, and swiftly left.