Strangers // Part One.
strangers, part one
When he walked into the living room, ducking his head under the door frame as to no muss that fluffy blonde head of his, I knew I was in trouble.
There was something so pristine and nice about him. Like the way he fiddled with his collar, making sure that it sat just right at the top of the neck of his jumper, and how he refrained from rolling his eyes when someone slurred, "Well, you're tall, aren't you?!" He greeted everyone around the room, smiling politely, looking them right in the eyes. When it got to me, I instantly had to turn my whole body away to avoid his gaze.
'No,' I scolded myself, 'I am not doing this to myself again. And I don't even like blondes, anyway.'
As the night went on, people drinking plentifully and laughing raucously, I focused all of my energy in not glancing over at him, to not entertain falling into pools of aquamarine eyes and never coming back up again. I didn't want to be interested in him, but damn, did I want him to be interested in me.
"He's an old uni friend," Daria slinked up next to me, as if she had read my mind, "He's recently gotten back from travelling around Asia for the second time."
Of course. Of course he was the kind of person who travelled extensively around Asia, not just once, but multiple times. But at the same time, I couldn't imagine him in anything other than chinos and a nice jumper, and instead slumming it in some flip flops and a loose vest.
"And..." Daria snaps me out of my thoughts, "he's been asking about you. I know you're currently busy being a nun or whatever, but I thought I'd give you the ego boost. And to tell you to stop being a dick and go talk to him."
My face felt hot and I knew that my cheeks had flushed with embarrassment, but then I smiled, relieved that my best friend knew me well enough to know when to tell me to get my head out of my arse.
My eyes searched for him across the ensemble of moving bodies, and found him sat in the corner chatting to someone. I couldn't tell if he was just causally listening, or if he was engrossed in a deep, meaningful conversation. His body was slumped in his chair, like he and it had become one entity in itself. But his face was completely locked on, lapping up every word his conversational partner was saying. Then suddenly, his gaze drifted over to me, and our eyes fixed onto each other in a fleeting yet eternal moment. He smile one of the easiest smiles I had ever seen, like we were long lost friends seeing each other for the first time in years.
Yet the look in his eyes all but screamed, "Well, I'm intrigued. Aren't you?"
*
This is part of my creative writing series, Shorts. This was initially developed in the Superlatively Rude Level Two workshop, The Nuts And Bolts of Moving Stories Forward. Part two coming soon...