The staircase.

one glance

I see him. he gets out of his car, i'm at a distance behind him, and yet i recognise him in a split second. His green checkered shirt, those black shoes he wears, and the black trousers. He puts his left hand through the other strap of his bag. I lose my mind having only one glance of him. Those dark fluffy hair, his wide athletic shoulders and his way of walking, it's all too good to be true. I get dropped a few steps ahead of him, closer to the destination than he was. I start walking towards the institute. I know he's behind me, the guy I've been crushing on for a year now and yet never had the courage to tell him straight up just because of all the part-time overthinking I do. I know he's walking in my direction even though he's not following me. I freak out so just to try and act a bit normal, i check the time on my watch but obviously didn't notice it at all. I walk through the main entrance and start pacing up the stairs. I wait to check what floor his class is on before checking mine. His 3rd, mine 4th. He had already entered the building by then. As much as i wanted to talk to him, i was apprehensive of it. I see him from the corner of my eye and continue to walk up the stairs. He's behind me. For some reason my shoes make more noise today as they tap against the floor. I wonder if he notices the sound. I wonder if he notices me. He only had a few glimpses of me before so i don't blame him even if he fails to realise it was me. We reach the second floor and just as i was about to turn for the third one he calls out my name. HE CALLED OUT MY NAME. I never loved the sound of my name more ever before. It barely lasted for a second but it rang in my ears for the whole day. It was the moment I waited for. I turn, almost bursted out with happiness as i see his face after 22 days but tried to restrain it because i didn't want him to think that i was just another girl who was obsessed with him. I give him the jolly "hey". The one i probably hadn't given to anyone yet. I didn't hear him respond because the excitement in my voice probably overlapped it and all these release of Dopamine made my brain too high to hear anything else for a few seconds. I couldn't think of anything to say at that moment as an opener but i didn't want to let go off this chance of having a proper conversation with him in real life. We had been talking online for 5 months now and yet hadn't talked face to face properly. I asked him about the time of his dispersal, probably fumbled a lot so i had to repeat myself. 7:45 he says, followed by "you guys have just one class i guess?", "yep, till 6." he knew about my class duration, there were two possibilities how: it was either that his friend who was in my batch told him in some random convo or he looked it up from the notice board. He starts moving towards the wrong floor, did he get carried away in the convo like i did and forgot what floor he was on? i continue walking up the stairs and land on the wrong floor myself. I ask one of the administrators about my class and he says it's upstairs. I move out as he walks in. He was an inch away from me. I thought of saying a "bye" but then dropped the idea, It'd be too creepy i thought. I walk up the stairs again, thinking of him the whole time, cursing myself for not being in the same batch. I think of a billion things related to him as i move up. I enter the 4th floor, get myself marked present, enter the class, sit, take out my books and pens, the teacher enters, he starts teaching, but did i really study?