One Liners | One-Shots | Short Stories

Post-Incident

It's the morning after.

Across the hall, I can see Sean threading a hand warily through his hair while staring at his math book. His head is bent down, eyes panelling on almost as if he were bored.

I can't take my eyes off his back, even though I know he hasn't seen me yet. And when he does, he will probably think I'm a stalker, or weird.

Eventually, he seems to give up.

He snaps the book shut, which I realise he had been holding with just one hand, and chucks it into his open locker. He grabs a couple of bucks that seems had just been lying loosely in his locker, and slams it shut.

He heads down the hall at a fast pace, slipping between cracks of people to get to lunch.

My eyes follow him until they are straining to catch a whiff of his threaded dark hair.

I am jolted back to life by the sound of Maeve's voice.

"BOO!" She screams, directly next to my ear.

"Aghh!" She does this five times a week, but I still scream every time. I glower at her as she doubles over, laughing. "Stop it!"

People's glances had swerved to stare at us, at Maeve's rambunctious gesture. I pretend not to notice that she's just made a scene, turning back to my locker as if saying I don't know this person. Nothing happened.

"Now who was that?" Maeve says smugly, once I've gotten my purse out for lunch. It takes me a moment to realise who she's talking about.

"What?" I play dumb. "What do you mean?"

"I mean," and she leans closer so that she's digging me in the ribs wth her elbow. "who was that?"

Maeve can be so annoying like this.

"That was nobody," I say this forcefully, almost convincing myself that it's the truth.

Maeve's light has kind of died down at this, as if she had been hopeful. "Really," she says, bland.

"Really," I repeat.

She sighs, subtly, but it doesn't go unnoticed. In most ways, Maeve is probably the most annoying person I know. But still somehow, we still manage to click, stick together like magnets. Never seen one without the other.

"What are you having for lunch?" She asks. And that's how that conversation ends.

§§

I can't believe he hasn't noticed me yet!

He is sitting right in front of me in Math, absorbed in his math test, like I probably should be. But how can I do math at a time like this?

Why hasn't he recognised me yet?

The whole classroom has dropped to an eerie quiet, intent on doing the math test. But I can't focus with Sean just sitting there, barely five feet away from me, still having not seen me yet.

Didn't he see me when he walked in? God! I was like, RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM.

I can't take it.

I can't do frickin geometry like this.

I decide to be daring for once. At the moment, my pen is twiddling idly between my fingers, grazing the table with each twiddle. I stare at the pen in my hand, and twiddle it more.

An exaggerated twiddle. I loosen up my fingers and suddenly —

The pen flies from my hand.

It lands with a loud clatter under Sean's seat. The noise is disruptive enough that he notices, but sadly, so does half the class.

I try to bite back my red cheeks as I focus in on Sean and the pen. He's scooted back his chair already, to pick it up for me.

I wait, holding my breath like my life depends on it.

"Thanks," I wheeze out, my voice quiet and awkward. I almost miss the pen because I am only looking at his face, waiting for his reaction.

At first, he makes no move to respond as he hands it back to me. But then his gaze flicks up to my face. He stills for a moment, realising something, and then his eyes widen.

Finally. He recognises me.

But he isn't smiling.

"You," he says, and the entire class looks up from their papers.