matters of the heart

1

Come on, say it! Apologise for being late.

But I can't. It's like my brain is frozen, and all I can think about is that everyone is staring at me, and it makes me want to crawl in a hole and hide away forever.

"I'm sorry, am I talking to myself here?"

"No, Prof." A voice answers next to me, putting me out of my misery. "Apologies for being late, but we were trapped in elevator purgatory. Not only did the elevator take its sweet time coming to this floor, but one of the idiot first-year students pressed every goddamn button, I swear. It wasn't us."

The lecture room erupts in laughter as my neck turns to look at the face of the person who just lied for me and saved me from a lifetime of embarrassment. But all I can see is his firm jaw and dark brown hair peeking out of his black baseball hat, which casts a shadow over his face.

"Is this true?" Professor Byrne throws the question at me, and I tear my gaze away from the stranger next to me.

"Yeah," I mumble quietly, feeling my cheeks heat up by the lie. I look away from the professor's intimidating gaze, afraid that he'll catch on to the lie.

"Take a seat, and this better not repeat itself."

Glad that the whole ordeal is over, I sink into the closest seat I can find, and relief floods my body. Although everything happened in minutes, it felt like I was standing there under the scrutiny of everyone for hours, and I wouldn't say I liked every second of it. I can only be thankful that guy walked in.

I take note in silence for the rest of the class, hating the fact that I'm sitting in the front row. I always get that feeling that everyone can see what I'm doing, and it makes me so anxious that my palms sweat and I can't concentrate. Getting a good seat in the back row is one of the reasons I arrive early. But most significantly, I'm finding it challenging to sit still because my whole existence is itching to turn around and find the guy with the baseball hat and maybe throw him a thankful smile. But always like, my fear and overthinking get the best of me, and I don't.

I'll wait till after class to say thank you.

But by the time class is over and I'm packing up my stuff, I look around the almost empty lecture hall in hopes of finding the baseball hat guy, but he's gone.

And I can't help the sinking feeling I get in my belly as I wonder to myself who it could have been.

***

"Can I please get a large caramel latte?" I smile politely at the cute barista behind the till at Starbucks. He punches in my order while asking if I want anything else, but I decline before swiping my credit card. He flashes me a cute grin, and I know I should try to make small talks with him like any girl would but pair having a crush with anxiety issues, and you get a recipe for speech poverty.

No, literally, for almost a year, I haven't worked up the courage to say more than 'can I, please, get a large caramel latte'. I spend half of the time walking to Starbucks pretending I'd say something to him, but I get here, and everything goes poof. It's pretty pathetic.

A few minutes later, he arrived with my order. "Here you go," He says, giving me that suggestive cute smile once again. "Caramel latte, enjoy."

Come on, Lorraine. Say something. Say-

"Thanks. Bye."

I roll my eyes at my patheticness and walk towards a table by the window where I usually sit so I can wallow in my failure and secretly gawk at him and imagine what cute babies we can make together-all whilst doing some school work, of course, because if I'm going to stare at a pretty boy I'm never going to talk to, then I might as well be productive so that it's not a total waste of my Tuesday afternoon.