Forelsket

I felt like I was back in the library, because I was staring, once again, at my least favorite person.

“Seth. His name is Seth.”

“Considering he’s been ruining your life all semester I’m surprised you didn’t already know that.” I looked at Gabby with a glare. She was right, it was odd that I’d been working on a paper with a kid whose name I never got but that wasn’t what I was most interested in right now.

“Keep focused, Gabs. He’s a Delta Chi! How didn’t I already know that? He doesn’t have a button on his backpack and I’ve never seen him in boat shoes—“

“Keelyn.”

“What?”

“”Now you’re not focusing.” I stopped talking and meekly looked at her. “He can help you figure out who this prince charming of yours is.”

Suddenly I was shaking my head furiously, brow furrowed. I put my hands out in front of me and gave a hard chuckle. “Oh no. No no no no. Gabriella, I’m not even remotely friends with this guy there’s a snowball’s chance in hell I’d ever ask him for help.”

“Don’t you want to find out this mystery guys name?”

“Yes but—“

“And Seth could tell you who it was.”

“Yes but—“

“And then you could find him and tell him to shut his trap about the banner.”

“Yes but—“

“No buts! Add him as a friend and get some answers!” I just stared at the page, reluctantly hovering over the Add Friend button. I was weighing the pros and cons of everything.

This all seemed so trivial after all. Maybe I just wasn’t as fun as everyone else our age—you know, too serious. I’d been the Debbie Downer of every plan our group tried to ever make, coming up with overly rationalized reasons why we shouldn’t do them. That same rational part of my brain was trying to shoot down this too. All of this effort just to find out the name of a college guy I’d probably never even date? It seemed stupid. But at the same time… The more adventurous part of me that I’d been suppressing since my last breakup was screaming at me to find this guy. Call it a gut feeling but I just needed to know, and if Seth was the only way for me to figure it out would that really be so bad? I’d just have to pretend to be nice to him, right? I pretend to be nice to detestable people daily, everyone does, I just needed to stop being such a pussy about it. And then of course, there was Annalie and fixing this stupid banner issue with her. It didn’t seem like a huge deal to me but it clearly was for her and was my stubbornness really worth potentially ruining my friendship with her?

Gabby answered for me by pressing the send button before I could. I looked up as her surprised. “What? You were taking too long.” I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to studying for art history, looking up more often than I might admit to see if Seth had accepted. It just made me anxious, and I couldn’t tell you why. I didn’t want to hear his smart-assery or for him to get the wrong impression.

Hours passed uneventfully and I was starting to get tired.

“You know Keels,” I turned my head to look at Gabby. She had previously been lying back in bed with her laptop watching what I gathered to be Lord of the Rings based on the noises coming from her ear buds. “He’s pretty cute.”

“Who?”

“Seth.” She had the most shit-eating grin on her face and I could tell she’d been sitting on that for a while just waiting for the right time to push my buttons. I grabbed the closest pillow off my bed and hurled it towards her head.

“I’m going to bed.” She laughed as I turned off my desk lamp and plopped back into my bed facing the wall. As her laughter died down and she settled into bed as well I could feel my eyes getting heavier. So heavy in fact that I’d almost forgot to set my alarm. I rolled over staring into the dark room looking for my phone. One of the rays pouring in from the lamp outside reveled it on my side table. I plugged it in and pulled up the application to set my alarm when the phone vibrated.

Seth Reynolds has accepted your friend request.

I stared at it, waiting. There was no way he wasn’t going to say anything was there? I waited, and waited. Nothing. Maybe he didn’t realize it was me. What if he was creeped out?

Miss me so much you couldn’t wait for me to text you, Princess?

Right on time. I rolled my eyes while trying to type a message back. I must have written it ten times before giving up. I didn’t want him to think I was just using him (though I was) and shut me down. I decided to save the meat of my reply for our next sit-down meeting. Instead I simply wrote: Don’t be so full of yourself. Meet me tomorrow at Espresso News so we can get this stupid paper done.

A lot of thoughts run through my head as I'm nodding off: homework assignments, what I'd wear the next day, how cold it would be, highlights of my day, you know the lot. For whatever reason though, I couldn't stop thinking of Gabriella's comment. He's kind of cute. Was he?