Desperate

~ twenty ~

        Shreyas and I are very different. So different in fact, that some people credit our differences with being the thing that kept us apart for so long. Shreyas was inching around the six-foot range, while I could barely count as five-foot-one. I could barely run a lap around the track and Shreyas was on the varsity basketball team. He was full on Indian, complete with chocolate skin and close-to-black eyes, basically absolutely gorgeous while, despite my mixed ethnicity, I got stuck with all the shit genes. I got my short stature from my Japanese side, my tanned skin and unruly hair from the Armenian side, and everything else from the unfortunate mix of the two. He was sweet and kind who only played defense, while I was standoffish and almost always played offense.

        People used to say I was too good for him, but I know he is too good for me.

        He always has been, I was just too dumb to see it.

        Ever since I talked to Shreyas, he has been more than relentless in an attempt to make me speak again. He would ask questions he knew I would be itching to answer, but I knew better than to fall for his tricks. He started to read my favorite books in an attempt to start me on an excitement rant.

        He had no luck.

        With finals right around the corner, and the latest addition to my favorite series coming out tomorrow, I needed to not only study, but also read all of the books previous to the new one. The world of the books sucked me in. So much that even Shreyas and his annoying questions couldn’t penetrate the page. But it was no longer just his questions. It was his stares. Over the past couple of weeks he had slowly started to stop talking and start staring. Sometimes he would go the whole half hour just looking at me, studying my face. Thosestares, they were the things that cut through the book like a knife. He stared at me like he was trying to learn something and like he was trying to remember something.