Uncontrollably Fond

TWO

Chapter 2

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If there was an emotion Andrew could banish to the deepest and darkest portions of nondescript galaxy somewhere far, far away, it would be this gut wrenching, pulse-quickening, and mind-blowing abomination of inexplicable chaos thrumming through him.

Feeling mad, sad, and glad is just peachy, because he masters these emotion, but he could never stand it when his emotions are too confusing for his own good.

Let's not forget the added stress of final exams. If he were honest he'd admit that it's eating at him a lot more than he's letting on, but he's perfectly content with lying to himself, if only to keep his sanity intact.

Lisa has always had this unique ability to render all six feet of him inexplicably incoherent, from the whirring of his thoughts to the fumbling of his feet. It sent butterflies down his stomach once. Now it just makes him want to dry heave, and he doesn't think the other crammers in the library around him would appreciate the sight of his breakfast all over the wooden floors.

Lisa, on the other hand, is stuck on her side of the library wishing she had a waffle-to-go. She never usually went without breakfast, but she woke up late (which never really happened), misplaced her books (even rare of an occurrence), and forgot her wallet (just the third time ever).

Now she's sitting across someone when she really rather just let the ground swallow her whole, so all in all it's turning out to be an absolute wonderful day.

Her stomach grumbles and she wonders if it's laughing at her sarcasm.

Andrew notices the way her hand flies to her stomach, and he flinches as a particular memory shoves its way to the forefront of his thoughts. She had the appetite of a lion once, and he's tease her mercilessly about taming her growling stomach with food.

But now her hallowed cheeks and too-thin arms made him feel a pang of loss, as if he were responsible for it.

He shook his head. That was an absurd notion. If anything her revived advocacy of trying to like the perfect Barbie doll is her own doing.

Or rather, undoing.

It still hit him though. Right where it hurts. He thought he'd finally gotten through her thick head that the amount of food digests doesn't have a direct correlation with how she fared in the beauty scale.

Apparently not.

He doesn't know that she doesn't do it on purpose, though. Not anymore. He did get to her, like how everything he ever did and say and thought got to her, practically crawled under her skin and wrapped around her like a blanket, clutching at her and vowing to pursue the art of never letting go.

Lisa, on more than one occasion, itches to strip it all off, but she doesn't bother fooling herself by thinking she ever can. Andrew had never done things by halves, and whether he's aware of it or not, the memory of him and his entire being is ingrained in her, almost as if they're one and the same. She may have shoved it inside of the dark recesses of her mind, but it's there and she hates it and wants it gone; but it stubbornly stays as if it belongs there, as if it were home, and maybe that's why sometimes she finds herself opening the metaphorical door and letting the feelings down her - because it feels a lot like home.

A home Andrew and Lisa both left.

She shakes herself out of the path her thoughts had taken, blinking it all away with renewed focus. She has an exam to study for, and so she lets the numbers in front of her comfort her the way she wishes a real, concrete, heart-beating person can. The way Andrew once did.