I stared at him.
I stared at him and his simple, uncomplicated brown hair. His soft blue sweater and dark jeans. He was wearing very white sneakers. He was also squinting at me in the cold sunlight, waiting for my response, and he finally tugged a pair of sunglasses out of his pocket and put them on. They were nice sunglasses. They looked good on him.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s okay.”
10
Ten
We walked to IHOP.
It wasn’t far from campus, and it seemed like an innocuous enough destination for cheap food and a little change of scenery. But then we were sitting in a booth, sitting across from each other, and I suddenly had no idea what I was doing. What we were doing.
I was trying to think of what to say, how to say it, when Ocean seemed to suddenly remember he was still wearing sunglasses.
He said, “Oh, right—”
And took them off.
It was such a simple thing. It was a quiet, completely unmomentous moment. The world didn’t stop turning; birds didn’t suddenly start singing. Obviously I’d seen his eyes before. But somehow, suddenly, it was like I was seeing them for the first time. And somehow, suddenly, I couldn’t stop staring at his face. Something fluttered against my heart. I felt my armor begin to break.
He had really beautiful eyes.
They were an unusual mix of blue and brown, and together they made a kind of gray. I’d never caught the subtleties before. Maybe because he’d never looked at me like this before. Straight on. Smiling. Really, smiling at me. I only then realized that I’d never gotten a full smile from Ocean before. Most of the time his smiles were confused or scared or a combination of any number of other things. But for some reason, right now, in this extremely ugly booth at IHOP, he was smiling at me like there was something to celebrate.
“What?” he finally said.
I blinked fast, startled. Embarrassed. I looked down at my menu and said, “Nothing,” very quietly.
“Why were you staring at me?”
“I wasn’t staring at you.” I held the menu closer to my face.
No one said anything for a few seconds.
“You never came back online over the weekend,” he said.
“Yeah.”
“Why not?” He reached forward and gently pushed the menu away from my face.
Oh my God.
I couldn’t unsee it. I couldn’t unsee it, oh my God, someone save me from myself, I couldn’t unsee his face. What had happened to me? Why was I suddenly so attracted to him?
Why?
I reached around blindly in my mind for walls, old armor, anything to keep me safe from this—from the danger of all the stupid things that happened to my head around cute boys—but nothing was working because he wouldn’t stop looking at me.
“I was busy,” I said, but the words came out a little weird.
“Oh,” he said, and sat back. His face was inscrutable. He picked up his menu, his eyes scanning its many options.
And then, I just, I don’t know. I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Why are you hanging out with me?” I said.
The words just kind of happened. They just came out, breathless and a little angry. I didn’t understand him, didn’t like what was happening to my heart around him, didn’t like that I had no idea what he was thinking. I was confused as hell and it made me feel so off-kilter, off my game, and I just needed to break this thing open and be done with it.
I couldn’t help it.
Ocean sat up, put down his menu. He looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I mean”—I looked at the ceiling, bit my lip—“I mean I don’t understand what’s happening here. Why are you being so nice to me? Why are you following me out of class? Why are you asking to have dinner at my house—”
“Oh, hey, yeah, did you ask your parents about tha—”
“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” I said, cutting him off. I could feel my face getting hot. “What do you want from me?”
His eyes widened. “I don’t want anything from you.”
I swallowed, hard. Looked away. “This isn’t normal, Ocean.”
“What isn’t normal?”
“This,” I said, gesturing between us. “This. This isn’t normal. Guys like you don’t talk to girls like me.”
“Girls like you?”
“Yes,” I said. “Girls like me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Please don’t pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about, okay? I’m not an idiot.”
He stared at me.
“I just want to know what’s going on,” I said. “I don’t understand why you’re trying so hard to be my friend. I don’t understand why you keep showing up in my life. Do you, like, feel sorry for me or something?”
“Oh.” He raised his eyebrows. “Wow.”
“Because if you’re just being nice to me because you feel sorry for me, please don’t.”
He smiled, a little, and only to himself. “You don’t understand,” he said. It wasn’t a question.
“No, I don’t understand. I’m trying to understand and I don’t understand and it’s freaking me out.”
He laughed, just once. “Why is it freaking you out?”
“It just is.”
“Okay.”
“You know what?” I shook my head. “Never mind. I think I should go.”
“Don’t—” He sighed, hard, cutting himself off. “Don’t go.” He mussed his hair, muttered, “Jesus Christ,” under his breath, and finally said, “I just think you seem cool, okay?” He looked at me. “Is that so hard to believe?”
“Kind of.”
“I also think you’re really goddamn beautiful but you just won’t give me a chance to be cool about this, will you?”
I thought, for certain, that my heart had stopped. I knew, rationally, that such a thing was impossible, but for some reason it felt true.
The only time anyone had ever called me anything close to beautiful was when I was in eighth grade. I’d overheard someone say it. She was explaining to another kid that she didn’t like me because she thought I was one of those girls who was really pretty and really mean. She’d said it in an unkind, flippant way that made me think she really meant it.
At the time, it had been the nicest thing anyone had ever said about me. I’d often wondered, since that day, if I really was pretty, but no one but my mother had ever bothered to corroborate her statement.
And now, here—
I was stunned.
“Oh,” was all I managed to say. My face felt like it had been set on fire.
“Yeah,” he said. I wasn’t looking at him anymore, but I could tell he was smiling. “Do you understand now?”
“Kind of,” I said.
And then we ordered pancakes.
11
Eleven
We spent the rest of our IHOP experience talking about nothing in particular. In fact, we changed gears so quickly from serious to superficial that I actually walked out the door wondering if I’d imagined the part where he told me I was beautiful.
I think it was my fault. I kind of froze. I’d pushed him so hard to give me a straight answer but the one I got wasn’t the one I was expecting and it threw me off-balance. I didn’t know what to do with it.
It made me feel vulnerable.
So we talked about movies. Things we’d seen; things we hadn’t. It was fine, but it was kind of boring. I think we were both relieved when we finally left IHOP behind, like we were trying to shake off something embarrassing.
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked him. We’d been walking in silence, side by side, heading in no particular direction.
He glanced at his watch and said, “Third period is almost over.”
I sighed. “I guess we should go back to school.”
“Yeah.”
“So much for ditching.”
He stopped walking and touched my arm. Said my name.
I looked up.
Ocean was quite a bit taller than me, and I’d never looked up at him like this before. I was standing in his shadow. We were on the sidewalk, facing each other, and there wasn’t much space between us.