Hey There, Delilah

The doorbell echoed throughout the empty house and I slid off my bed, glancing out the window and seeing Matt's shiny, dark hair gleaming back up at me.

I ran down the stairs and flew the door open, "Hey, you're here a bit early." By eight minutes on the dot.

Not that I was counting or anything.

Matt shrugs and works his way past me, a heavenly scent trailing behind him. "I left thinking it would take longer to get over here than it did. Sorry if I interrupted something?"

I shake my head, "No, it's fine. I just - never mind. My books are upstairs, do you want me to bring them down here or...?"

"Upstairs works," he says indifferently, following me toward the staircase, lugging his backpack further up his shoulder. Our arms brush as he does this and I try to ignore how the entire room seems brighter, how electricity is pulsing between the small space between our arms.

"Uh, in here," I say, pushing open my bedroom door and shoving my hands in my pockets when he runs a hand through his hair. My hand wanted to move forward, fix the one strand standing up on end.

He's Meghan's boyfriend. Ben is my boyfriend, not Matt. I think to myself when I don't even understand why I'm thinking about fixing his hair.

"Sorry it's really hot up here." Or maybe it's just me flipping out. "The window's open and the fan's on as high as possible."

Matt looks around, glancing at me as I say this. "My room is just like this."

I shrug and grab my calculus book from my backpack, "Most rooms around here are just as hot - the humidity is the worst part."

"No," then he tilts his head to the side, causing his hair to move slightly, "Well, yeah, my room's crazy hot too - it was worse in Boston - but I have that same Harry Potter poster, on the wall across my bed. And that 2004 World Series flag? I have that, too."

I feel my eyebrows shoot up in disbelief, "That's...a coincidence."

Matt smirks, "And here I was thinking I could never have anything in common with you."

I flop onto my bed and turn on my iPod. "I honestly don't see what Meghan sees in you."

Besides the fantastic looks.

"Wouldn't you like to know?" Matt wiggles his eyebrows suggestively. There's a pause in his movements as he listens to the song playing from my speakers. "Death Cab for Cutie. Never would have pegged you as a fan."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," I say, tracing the scar on my wrist. "So are we gonna get started or what?"

Matt flops down next to me and open the textbook, the new spine crackling as he turns to the correct page. "Alright. So what is it that you didn't really understand?"

I sigh and try to ignore the way our arms are touching, how my skin is crawling with anticipation every time he moves this way or that. How my thoughts are going all hazy, as if they're being intercepted by those cell phone scramblers teachers aren't supposed to have but carry in their too-big-to-be-inconspicuous bags. I try to ignore the way he's looking at me so intensely with those hazel eyes, waiting for a response.

"Everything." The word is choked out of my throat, and I realize I had been holding my breath the entire time. "Mr. Ryler's entire lesson sort of went right over my head."

He exhales slowly but doesn't complain. Matt just goes into the lecture, while I listen...sort of. Part of my mind was actually focusing on the logistics of the lesson while the other part of my mind focused on the flow of Matt's voice, how smooth it was, how measured.

"Get it now?" He asks after a couple minutes of explaining.

I nod my head even though I probably couldn't even told you what I was agreeing to. Maybe to jump off a bridge? Or that I was the cause of some sort of smell floating around the room?

I move to do a problem and Matt helps me through it at a painstakingly slow speed, but I complete it - and with a correct answer. "I never knew you could be this patient."

He scoffs, "Please, some of us super models do have real human-like qualities."

"And the respect I just had for you has now disappeared."

"Oh come on..."

"But besides that, I still the need to repay you for these tutoring sessions." And I need an excuse to spend more time with you. "So, I will tutor you in the subject of your choice in return for these lessons."

"Hmm...any subject of my choice?" There's this mischievous look in his eye and I force myself to look away.

"Like English, or history, or something," I say hurriedly, making sure he doesn't get any ideas.

"I do fail at writing English papers..."

"It's settled then," I stick out my hand, waiting for him to shake it. "You tutor me in calc and I'll tutor you in English."

He shakes and nods, "Sounds like a plan."

Matt's fingers graze over my scar and I yank my hand back out of habit. He looks down, seeing the scar, and I trace over the heart it forms quickly, multiple times in a row.

He takes my arm back and looks at it, dragging a finger lightly across his, goosebumps raising all over my skin. "What happened?"

"I was in a car accident, a few years ago." I freeze after I say this. I've never told anyone this when they ask, I usually just come up with a pathetic lie to keep things as simple as possible. What made Matt so different?

"Oh," he keeps tracing my scar and I fight the urge to close my eyes against his touch, "Did your parents get hurt, too?"

"Actually," I say, pulling my hand back reluctantly, "They weren't involved. It was with a friend." I pause, Alex's image pushing its way toward the front of my mind, "We're no longer on speaking terms."

"I'm sorry to hear that." Matt says, his voice actually sounding sympathetic.

I laugh and shake my head, "I'm not. He was an ass."

Matt looks at my scar again, "That's interesting, it almost forms a heart."

"I know, most people don't notice because it's so small and faint, but I actually like knowing it's there. It's like...I don't know. It's like wearing my heart on my sleeve, and since I do, it works."

Matt scoffs, "You do not wear your heart on your sleeve." He leans over and pulls out his own notebook from his back pack and copies down a couple problems onto the paper. That little crease appears between his eyebrows again and I want to lean over and smooth it out with my finger. "You have so much buried up there," he taps my forehead with his pencil, "that nobody ever knows what your thinking, let alone feeling."

I consider this as I write down another problem. Matt has obviously tried to figure me out, he wouldn't have been able to come to that conclusion otherwise.

But he had no idea what he was starting.

I was a gigantic jigsaw puzzle that had half of the pieces missing already - those missing pieces being the ones I've locked away, the ones from the past.

Matt was starting something he could never finish.

I look up from the paper and see him looking at me. His blue-green eyes are sparkling with something I couldn't quite put my finger on and there was this adorable, real smile pulling at his lips. But as I look back at him, the way he moves a little closer to me as if there's a gravitational force pulling him forward, that smile wipes away and he says quietly, "Delilah..."

My name hangs in the air like an unspoken promise between us and I fight the urge to say something, to break it.

"Can't we be friends?" Matt whispers, "I'm done having to fight with you every time I see you. We
obviously have a lot in common and...I'm just done arguing about the smallest things with you."

"I am, too," I whisper.

There's a real smile on his face now, "Great."

I didn't notice how close we were and I can't stop thinking about it. My breath is all hitched in my throat, I can't breathe, and then Ben's face appears in the front of my mind. My boyfriend.

I come crashing back down to reality then, off of the cloud Matt and I had been sharing for the past few minutes - or even ever since he arrived here.

I pull away quickly and I think I hear Matt sigh. "So, how exactly would I start this problem?" I question, feigning confusion when I'm very aware of how to begin.

But the one thing I didn't have to pretend was how blind I felt, how juvenile, I felt laying here with Matt right now. Whatever this thing was between us was so different I didn't even know what it was.

And I was scared. But so addicted to whatever this was already.