Motive

Her

~Mateo Easton~

She looks so tired. I watched her scroll through something on her phone even though we were supposed to be studying.

Her eyebrows furrowed and her nose scrunched whenever she sees something she doesn't like. She would glance around the library occasionally when she got bored of being on her phone. Her curls were lazily placed on her forehead and her eyes were thin with bags under them.

If something was funny, she'd do that funny-sounding snort. I don't think she realizes she even does it sometimes.

I hated how pretty she was.

This isn't supposed to be like this.

I don't like her. At all. She's annoying, seriously. Everything was normal before she came and now she's brought a hurricane into my life. I could do without the extra drama.

But, it never hurt to admire something pretty.

She looked at me with confusion, "What?"

I blinked, "What are you saying 'what' for?"

"Because you're looking at me like you want to stick my head in a meat grinder. What did I do?"

Nothing. She did nothing, I just wanted to look at her.

"You're breathing too loud."

She scrunched her face again, "Control your attitude for 20 minutes, christ. I'm not even doing anything."

That was funny. I rolled my eyes and she mocked me.

I sighed and flicked my pen at her, "I'm bored."

She didn't move, just looked up at me from her phone. "Go on your phone or something."

"There's nothing interesting on there."

"But my face is?" She tilted her head slightly.

Yes.

"No, you idiot. Just talk to me, you've been quiet all day."

She placed her phone on the table, "Just 2 minutes ago you were telling me to not breathe loudly and now you wanna talk?"

"Yes, exactly. So, talk to me."

She sighed and ran her hand through her curls. "You're so weird. Pick a topic."

"Saturday."

"No. Another topic."

"Rivera's wedding." I pressed.

"Sure. I got Louis's number, he's pretty cool. The food wasn't that good though, did you try the-"

I cut her off, "I'm not talking about that."

She played clueless, "Then, I have no idea what you're talking about. Are you feeling alright, Easton? You look kinda pale, maybe you're sick and having memory loss. You should get that checked out, Alzheimer's are really common to start developing at this age, actually."

"Shut up."

She gasped dramatically, "What if you forget about the $20 you owe me?"

I furrowed my eyebrows, "What $20-" I realized, "You're not funny."

She laughed. Snorted actually. It was the first time I heard her laugh today and it was genuine.

I smirked softly and shook my head, hoping she wouldn't notice.

"Was that a smile?" She leaned in slightly, teasing me.

Of course she did.

"I don't like you."