La Douleur Exquise

The peak.

A year and a half before///

I'm early as usual. I'm always early. I don't particularly like crowds, especially crowds that I could get so easily lost in so I avoid them altogether by getting to classes early despite being the first one there.

It's not so bad, it means I don't rush to get my things out before the teacher begins the lesson.

The class slowly starts to fill up and then he walks in. He smiles in my direction before sitting next to me like he always does.

"Hey" He says.

"Hi" I reply.

It's funny that. How something so simple can mean so much? It made my stomach do somersaults and my head go into a fuzzy daze kinda like when you're tuning the radio and you get that weird white noise. Yeah, like that. He made me feel like that. I was so flustered around him, I'm surprised I managed to form functioning sentences when we spoke.

He smelt good. He always smelt good. His aftershave was never too strong, nor too weak, it was the perfect amount; like goldilocks. Except he had dark hair, hair so dark it looked like melted chocolate. It was always styled so perfectly, he was very cautious over his hair. I would often catch him sneaking glances into his phone mirror to make sure his quiff was perfectly styled; which to me it always was. Even when it got to those few days before a haircut and it was all long and floppy but he still made it work, he still looked great. I could never understand that.

When I first met him, I hardly gave him a second glance. I was too self absorbed. I had came into the class late so everyone already had a seat. I saw my friend up the back but she already had someone next to her. There was a seat in front of her, however but there was also a boy there too. She motioned for me to sit there and at first I was hesitant. The seat was probably taken, he was sitting jotting something down in his book and I slowly walked up to the desk unsure if I should just find somewhere else to sit.

"Is this seat taken?" I asked quietly.

He looked up at me, almost surprised I was asking and he shook his head indicating a no and that I could sit there.

I gave him a smile and thanked him before turning round to my friend and talking about the latest episode of Glee. (Yeah, I was that girl)

And now it's different. Falling for him wasn't the usual 'Love at first sight' thing. It was more of a gradual process. For a while I didn't talk to him and he didn't talk to me. I talked to my friend behind me and he took down his notes quietly. Then every now and then we would make conversation, sometimes just about the assigned homework, sometimes about more exciting topics such as music and school gossip. We talked more and more and I realised he was in some of my other classes. We started talking in them too and I realised we had a lot in common. We enjoyed the same music; rap- if you were curious. Conversations became an every day occurrence.

Then I realised I was falling for him. I loved the way he kept a constant smile on his face when he talked about something he loved and the way his eyes would light up when he laughed, sometimes his nose scrunched up too. I loved the way he'd stick up for me when the other guys were being assholes about my Justin Bieber obsession (which has now passed by the way). I loved the way he was so confident in everything he did, he didn't care what others thought of him. He wore fashionable jackets and long coats that made him look like he'd come of an ASOS advertisement and it was nice compared to the usual guys in tracksuit jackets and nike airmax. I loved the way his face would sometimes go red when his friends embarrassed him and he would tell them to shut up acting like he didn't care.

I've fallen for him and the best and possibly worst thing is, I never saw it coming. I didn't plan it, I didn't particularly see it coming but that sure as hell didn't stop it from happening.