She is a fever, longing still

chapter 2

( 2169 words :)

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I walk towards two girls chatting. I stop in front of them. They stare at me.

"Sorry. Hi."

"Hi," one of them says while the other offers me a polite rather than genuine smile.

"This will sound weird, but I'm searching for someone. Her name is Andrea."

"Andrea?"

"Do you know her?"

She laughs, "who doesn't. She's not here yet."

"Oh."

"Why are you looking for her?" the quiet one asks.

I stare at her. What am I supposed to say? That I'm her boyfriend? That I'm her ex-boyfriend? That I'm in love with her and need to find her so I can let her know once again? That she's my favorite person? That this isn't any of your goddamn business?

"She's... I'm a...uh."

"I've never seen you around."

"Yeah. I...yeah." Get a hold of yourself for fuck's sake. "She called me."

"I'm sure you can wait for her in her lecture hall," the talkative one says before turning to the other one to ask, "you know what classes Rea has, right?" Rea. What the fuck is that. Whatever. "Sophie can lead you there, I was about to leave anyway."

I look at the quiet one and she doesn't say anything. She just looks at me. Up and down. Analyzing me. And when the wind gets the hair away from my face—the hair I didn't bother taking care of except for that white strand of hair, which I've been careful to redo under my hair so I could hide it and be the only one to know what it meant—they both start gawking at me with wide eyes.

I wonder if she still has it. I wonder if she took care of it like I did. But maybe it only was significant to me. How she annoyed me until I said yes to go get hair whitening shampoo because her blond was piss yellow. Fuck I love her.

"I'll take him there," Sophie says. She gives me a look to follow her and we leave the other girl in place. After a few steps, she asks, "why are you searching for her?"

"She called me" I repeat.

"Are you guys friends?"

I think. "She's my best friend."

"That tattoo" she stops to point at my face, "she has the same one on her other cheek."

No shit. "Yeah."

"Why do you hide it?"

"I didn't hide it, I just" I cut myself off, "can we just get there?"

"No. Are you a stalker?"

"What?" What is happening. "Sophie. That's your name right?" She doesn't say anything, "my relationship with Andrea is none of your business."

"I'm not particularly friends with her but I like her. I'm pretty sure she likes me more than most people too. So if you're here to hurt her, it's definitely my business."

"I'm not that kind of stalker." She frowns hard, "wait."

"Are you fucking with me?"

"I'm aware of how that sounded but that's not what" I sighed, "I'm her..."

She raises her eyebrows, "her what?"

"I don't know, okay? But to me, she's...everything?"

That was so cheesy I can actually smell it. Am I always like that?