Mind and Matter

09 | Emerson

I didn't know why I kept writing when I knew he could read it, but I did. After a minute, the words started to blur and none of what I was saying seemed to make sense.

"I'm making myself feel like an idiot," I told him, placing a hand against my forehead. "I don't know what I'm saying."

He pulled the notebook away from me gently, as if trying to spare me more embarrassment.

"You're so..." he began, twirling his pencil between his fingers, "unusual." When I raised a brow, he seemed to regret saying that, looking away and resting his knuckles against his jaw.

"I've gotten that before," I said tightly. "It's fine."

He leaned forward in his seat. "No, I don't mean it in the way people have probably told you. I'm not sure how to explain it."

I eyed the word conformity on the paper and looked back at him. "Do you feel that way the more you talk to me?" My voice was growing terribly small and shaky, something that never happened. I'd always been confident in my speaking abilities, especially after having been on the debate team all of middle school.

"Sort of, maybe," he answered, nodding his head slowly. "It's just... Maybe we should just get this project done already."

The rest of the time he didn't talk to me outside of what we had to do for the assignment. I wanted to say something to defend myself—my unusualness—but couldn't bring myself to when he didn't seem interested.

"See you around, Emerson," he said quickly, before grabbing his pencil from his desk and walking towards the door. I slouched in my seat more as I watched him leave.

For a reason I couldn't fully understand, I felt bad about myself. I felt like I said or did something that put him off from me, but it wasn't a feeling that was foreign.

I rushed out of the classroom and down the bustling hallway, not even caring if my shoulders bumped into random people. I opened the door to the restroom—which seemed to know I was coming because it was entirely empty—and leaned my hands on the edges of the sink, refusing to look at the mirror.

I wiped away the one pathetic tear that hardly trickled out of my right eye and washed my hands. My moment alone was cut short when a herd of girls entered, so I squeezed past them back into the hallway and to my next class.

☆

"Em, are you even listening?"

My head snapped up from staring at the pages of the book on my phone, which admittedly, I wasn't reading. It was boring but not boring enough for me to delete it just yet.

Except Kalani wasn't too pleased.

"You were talking about Franco, right?" I said, shutting my phone off. I looked over at Flynn sitting next to me. Unlike me, he was focusing. Not on Kalani's story though, but on her.

His brown eyes behind those large glasses were glued to her face. He leaned his cheek against his fist, looking away when he seemed to think she was about to glance at him.

"Excuse me for a second," I said, grabbing random wrappers and bags from around me to make it look like I was getting up for a reason. Kalani hardly noticed and instead turned to the girl sitting at the edge of the other table who complimented her nails.

I threw the trash away and walked out the back door to get some fresh air. There were the usual drama and arts students who liked eating lunch on the grass, but there was one girl sitting under a tree I didn't expect to be there.

It was Haley—with no sign of Neve around her—leaning against the trunk of an oak tree and looking up at the sky. I walked past where she was and briefly paused, trying to forget there was a point we'd known almost everything about each other. I never had many friends to have experienced that kind of thing before, which made her betrayal hurt a little more sometimes.

She looked up at me and tucked her long hair behind her ears. And for the first time in ages, she acknowledged me.

"Emerson, hi," she said, standing up.

"Hey," I said back, finding it difficult to make eye contact with her.

"Been some time," she began, running a hand through her hair again. "It's crazy how we're seniors now. It feels like the first day of freshman year was yesterday."

"It passed by pretty slowly, if you ask me," I said with a shrug. I pondered saying anything else to her, but in the corner of my eye, I could see Neve and a group of their friends coming our way.

I knew what would happen if I didn't leave—Neve would probably make some comment that would make me feel worse than I had after Leo's in class earlier. I bid Haley a quick goodbye and jogged across the grass the other way. I knew my way around the campus by heart, but for a minute, I wandered between buildings like it was the first time I'd walked across those grounds.

I holed myself up in the corner by the outdoor entrance of the library. Leaning against the brick wall, I closed my eyes and relaxed my shoulders, fully feeling the effects of my insomniac night as my knees sagged.

The sound of someone saying my name made my eyes snap open and me enter into a partial defensive state. When my eyes trailed up to the face of the person in front of me, I placed my fists by my sides again and let out an airy breath.

"You scared me," I told Leo with a frown.

"Sorry," he said and took a step forward. He was definitely tall—around six feet—but he felt like a giant with me slouched down against the wall. I tried to straighten my knees, but I was too tired. "For scaring you and if I offended you earlier. If you even care."

"I wasn't offended," I said coolly. "Just confused."

"I'm finding that hard to believe..."

I smiled weakly. "I know."

He leaned one hand against the wall beside my head and made eye contact with me. This close, I could smell his scent of cologne and the fainter scent of cigarettes. It was an oddly nice combination, but it reminded me I still had four more reasons to give him. He cut off my thoughts when he placed his other hand on the wall to my left and leaned in to whisper into my ear. My heart rattled against my ribcage as the heat of his body enveloped mine. I'd never even been this close to a guy before let alone felt the kind of warmth surging through my veins as his mouth dropped to my ear.

"Don't feel bad about the way you are." He leaned away before adding, "Some people like it."

He said that in such an offhand way I couldn't even decipher if he was those "some people." He definitely tolerated me enough to apologize for something that didn't even need atonement.

He was right. I was kind of unusual, but it was the way I was.

I'd never known anything else.

"Want to hear reason number four?" I told him, finally straightening up.

"How could I say no?"

"It's your birthday tomorrow, and I'm sure you want many more than just eighteen. Average lifespan for males in the U.S. is currently seventy-three and counting."

"How'd you know my birthday?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. I smiled, because little did he know I took a peek at the I.D sticking out his back pocket when he leaned into me.

"Lucky guess?"