Let's Pretend It's Love

Ever since her kiss with Harry, nothing about Elise’s life made sense. Not chemistry, not physics, not even simple calculus.

Her studying was met with thoughts of his curly hair and green eyes, instead of equations and chemical formulas. She could barely hold a beaker in her hand without it trembling at thoughts of his hands against her. During lecture, instead of hearing her professor’s voice droning on, her ears were filled with Harry’s smooth voice.

She tried so hard, but every attempt at thinking of anything but Harry seemed useless. Elise was always so good at doing whatever she put her mind to, but this was different. This, she couldn’t control so easily, and she hated it.

As she sat in the sorority house, her butt placed firmly on the sofa, she kept her eyes fixed on the television, as she was determined not to leave that spot. The rest of the girls had gone to a small party at one of the frat houses, but Elise had elected to stay home, simply because she knew Harry would be there and she didn’t want to find out what seeing him would do to her body.

She had done a pretty good job of avoiding him thus far, and she wasn’t quite ready to give up on the hope that she’d be able to avoid him for a few years until they graduated. It was a pretty large campus.

Her fingers pressed against the remote, flipping through the channels, as the light ding of the house’s doorbell began to fill her ears. It was a soft, sweet chant that the girls had spent far too long picking out, but it fit them all well.

Elise had never been one for answering the door, as awkward conversations with people on the doorstep had never been her forte, but she was home alone, so she didn’t have much choice.

It was a Friday night, so her worry of some freshman fundraising was nearly nonexistent and the usual thought was replaced with simple confusion as to who would be knocking on the door that late at night, and along with the confusion, was worry that it would be one of the campus’s fraternity pledges doing some embarrassing form of hazing.

Last time she opened the door this late on a Friday night, a pair of boys stood on the porch in speedos, with their hair dyed red and a tube of lipstick in their hands. They begged her to sign her name across their chests in the red gloss and she reluctantly agreed, but if it was another set of pledges on the doorstep that night, she wasn’t sure she’d be able to be so nice. Her mind was too preoccupied for her to be nice.

Wrapping her hand around the door knob, she turned it slowly, fully prepared to see some naked men on the front porch, but when she opened the door, she was met with those forest green eyes that she hadn’t been able to get out of her head all day.

“Elise,” Harry said, his voice low and smooth.

She gave him a small smile, while she kept her hand wrapped around the door. “Harry.”

He bit his lip, running his fingers through his perfectly curled hair. Elise had been picturing him doing that all day, but it was even more mesmerizing in person. She silently scolded herself for thinking about him that way again, as she gripped the door so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“Can I come in?” he asked, his perfect eyes looking into hers.

Elise shut her eyes tightly, biting her lip just as he had done. She wanted to turn him away – tell him to go back to whatever party he had been at so he could find a girl to take home – but at the same time, she didn’t want to.

He worried her more than any other boy ever had, simply because she knew his track record with girls, and all the shattered hearts he had scattered around the campus. She didn’t want to be like them. She needed to keep him at an arms distance. But that was easier said than done.

“Sure,” Elise responded, pulling the door open just enough so he could walk in. He stepped past her, the breezing blowing through her as he did. It whipped her hair back just a little, and had a small chilling effect on the heat Harry was causing inside of her. She took a deep breath, using nature’s air to settle her rumbling stomach.

“I think Liam’s at a party with Rhi,” Elise continued, as she shut the door behind Harry. “I don’t imagine they’ll be back until way later, if they even come back at all.”

“I know,” Harry chuckled, before taking a seat at the far end of the sofa. “Rhianne was just taking a round of shots when I left, and I don’t imagine they’ll be sitting well will her, but I didn’t come here to wait for Liam.”

“Oh, then you –”

“I came to see you,” he said, finishing the sentence for her, and with an answer far different from what she was expecting.

He gave her a soft smile, but even that soft one cause his dimple to take over his face. She tried not to blush – to hide what she was feeling – but that was something she had never been good at. Harry knew it, too, because when he saw the color creep to her cheeks, his smile widened, and she gave herself another mental curse. She couldn’t let him see that he was having an effect on her. She needed to stay strong against the boy who had been so dutifully nicknamed “the panty dropper”.

“Oh, I’m just –” She paused, looking around the room before her eyes landed on her closed textbook. “I’m studying.”

“On a Friday night?”

“Yes.” She nodded. “I have a lot of things to look over.”

Harry scoffed. “Elise, you’re a brilliant girl. You don’t need to spend your weekend studying. You’ll be the best in class whether you study or not.”

Elise’s eyes tightened at his compliment – one he had used on her before. It was obvious he knew how to play the game well, just as he should after his years of practice. He knew exactly when and how to compliment her, when to smile, and when to make her blush. He had it down to a science that was more exact than the ones she had spent her college career studying. He had it all figured out, and she hated him for it. She had to get rid of him, and she had to get rid of him fast, like ripping off a band aid.

“Who told you to say that?” she asked, tossing her hands on her hips.

“Told me to say what?”

“That I’m smart. Who told you to tell me that I’m smart?”

“What?” Harry asked, his eyes wide in confusion. “No one told me to say that. It’s just true, Elise.”

“So you just came up with it all on your own then?”

“Came up with it? What?” Harry stood from the sofa, shaking his head at her. “What on earth are you going on about?”

Elise scoffed, letting out a deep breath. She was going to get nowhere with him, and she knew better than to waste her time trying. “Nothing, Harry. I’ve got some studying to do, so if you’ll just excuse me, I –”

“No way,” Harry interrupted, taking a few quick steps towards her. He placed his hands around hers, holding her fingers ever so gently in his palms. It sent Elise’s body in an uproar, with her chest tightening and her heart racing inside of the closed off area. She felt like her whole body was going to burst, as his soft eyes looked into hers. “I’m not going to let you run away from me again.”

“Harry, I –”

“You have feelings for me, Elise. I know you do.” He paused for a moment, his teeth chewing on his tongue. His eyes were roving over her face, attempting to gauge her unreadable reaction. “You can’t honestly tell me that you don’t feel something.”

Elise licked her bottom lip, as she took in a short breath. She knew she did have feelings for him, but she hated those feelings, and more than anything, she wished they would stop. Harry was bad news. He was more than bad news. He was like death himself, walking through the sorority house door to blacken her heart and crush her still kind soul. Boys like Harry ruined girls like Elise, and being as logical as she was, she was determined not to let that happen.

“It doesn’t matter what I feel, Harry,” she said, shaking her head. “It matters that you’re, well, you’re you.”

“I’m me?” Harry paused for a moment, his eyes wide, before realization washed over his face. He gave out a small laugh, shaking his head.

“Oh, I see what this is,” he continued, as he dropped his hands from hers. Elise’s body went cold from the loss of contact, but all she could do was look into his hurt eyes. “I didn’t think –” He let out a breath, which was followed by a shamed laugh. “I thought that, of all the people on this campus, I wouldn’t have to worry about you.”

Before Elise had a chance to question him further, or ask him exactly what he was worried about, Harry was out the door, stomping down the road and back to his black car that he didn’t even need to drive, leaving Elise alone in the living room of her empty sorority.

And as he pulled away, his music booming through the streets, Elise let out a deep sigh, while she dropped her head to her hands. She only barely knew Harry outside of what she’d heard, but she knew the way he made her feel, and that he caused a fire to light inside of her that she’d never felt before. And even though she knew so little about him, she felt her body aching at the loss of him, but it was the best ache she’d ever felt, because she knew she’d ripped off the band aid.