As I Am

What About Us?

Ava sat down next to me. I spied, from the corner of my eye, that the other group of three were watching us with their mouths open. None of them said anything, however.

"Hello, Palmer," Madeline said. Ava shook her head gently.

"Ava's fine," she said. "I don't really like my surname. It was unpleasant memories for me," she said and glanced at me, smiling. "I wouldn't mind changing it," she said.

My entire face flushed completely red in like one second. How could she say something like that so casually?! In front of other people, no less. Alright, it's only Madeline, but she doesn't know her. I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again, then closed it a final time because I couldn't say anything.

Madeline giggled. "Bold, Ava. Alright, I'm going to like you a lot, if you can do that to her so easily. Call me Maddy then — Or Madeline, if you really want to," she said.

Ava smiled at her and moved her hand to touch mine. "Alright, Maddy," she said. "Have you teased her enough for today? Can I have her now?" She said and grinned.

Mandy snorted. If It was possible, I probably would've given out smoke like in comics. My whole face and neck were red and radiated heat. Madeline nodded at her.

"Sure, you two lovebirds can have this table, I need to hurry to a meeting with Mr. Uniform anyway," she said and grimaced. She packed her stuff, got up and waved us goodbye.

Ava squeezed my hand lightly. She had been holding it all this time. She took a deep breath and breathed it out slowly, almost shivering. "That took every drop of courage I've ever had," she whispered. I looked at her and she was blushing in an awfully cute way and her eyelashes fluttered. I raised my eyebrow at her. What took courage? Talking to Madeline?

"I'm not used to talk to people, like you know," she said quietly and fiddled with her hair with her other hand. "But I wanted to give a good first impression to your friend, that's why I did.. that," she said.

I smiled at her and squeezed her hand. "You silly goose, you don't have to pretend to be anyone that you are not," I said. "Not with her. Maddy will understand whatever," I said and looked the way she went. "Or. I'll kick her but, that's another way," I said and grinned. I turned to look at her and raised my eyebrow. She was looking at me with such a weird expression.

"Thalia..." she muttered quietly and drew her hand away from me. She fiddled with the hem of her shirt and her cheeks turned slightly pink. "What about us, now?" She asked. "I mean... what are we?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but closed it as I realized I had no answers for her. "I..." was the only thing I managed to utter aloud. What were we? Classmates? Friends? Music Partners? Considering last night, Friends With Benefits? I had no words. This was all new to me anyway — and to her, I reminded myself. She had as much words for it as I. I smiled at her.

I turned toward her, took both of her hands in mine and squeezed them tightly. "I don't know, Ava. I have no words for us. But I do know that I want us to stay together. I don't want to go back to being alone at school. At the very least, I would like to consider us friends, but..." I said, let go of her other hand and placed mine on my chest. "Here," I said, "In here, I want us to be more than friends, but I don't have words for what it is."

She nodded at me, placed her free hand on top of her other and mine, and looked me in the eye. She shook her head very slightly. "Me neither," she said, "I don't have words for it either. But like you, I don't want friends to be all that we are. We share something... more than friendship," she said and blushed wildly. "And I don't mean only last night either," she said and smiled nervously.

I was about to open my mouth again, when a group of four or five people walked to us. Third-year students, from the look of it. One of them was from the group of three from the other table. I glanced over there and noticed it was empty. They must've left, and I didn't even notice when I just stared at Ava.

"Palmer," one of them — a tall white guy with neat black hair — said. I was slightly taken aback, since I expected them to come and make fun of us or something, but the way he said it was entirely too kind for that. "Sorry for bothering you, but we really wanted to see what was it that made you act so differently," he said.

The others nodded around him. Another one — a round, kind-looking, very dark-skinned girl with shockingly blue hair — stepped forward. "Sorry there student, we're Palmer's classmates and.. well, she hasn't ever looked happy before today, and..." she said and shrugged, then waved her hands in the air. "We just really wanted to see where she was going with that grin on her face."

Ava was blushing furiously at my side. Oh my goddess. She's so cute my brain can't probably take this. I want to kiss her so badly right now. I have never, ever had a feeling like that before in my entire life. What is happening to me? I cleared my throat nervously.

"I'm... I'm Thalia. Thalia Watson. I'm a second-year student, on the Music oriented side," I said and felt my own ears getting red.

They nodded at me and smiled. "Nice to meet you, Thalia," the first guy said. "I'm Harrison, this girl here is Isabel, my girlfriend", he said and nodded towards the round happy girl. Then he pointed at the rest of them, "These are Margaret, Helen, and Fred," he said. Each of them nodded at us.

Margaret was a super-tall, muscular girl, taller than Harrison by at least a couple of inches. If she wasn't an athlete, I'd eat my socks. Helen could've been Madeline's sister. Both were very really pretty caramel-colored girls with curly black hair. Fred had to be Irish. He just had to. There's no way anyone was that white and red-headed without being Irish.

"Anyway, Watson," Harrison said. "We have to thank you. I mean, we've known Palmer for what, almost four years now, most of us. And to our knowledge, she hasn't smiled once during those years when not playing. She's like a goddess on the keyboard, and she looks happy playing, but she doesn't smile outside of that. Not until now."

I glanced at Ava and she was red as a beetroot and looked like she wanted to slither into the Earth as quietly as possible. I smiled at her. So cute! Cute, cute, CUTE! I looked shyly down.

"I didn't do anything, really, it—" I said, but Harrison lifted his hand.

"No, we don't need to know," he said. "It's enough that she's happy."

"I'm right here," Ava said quietly. "You're talking about me like I wasn't here," she mumbled. I squeezed her hand lightly.

"Sorry, Ava," I said. She shook her head and smiled at me.

Harrison put his hand to the back of his head and scratched his neck. "Eh, Sorry, Palmer," he said. "We—I'm just used to talking about you, not to you, since, eh, you know, you never really spoke to us before..."

Ava looked at me and grinned sheepishly, then turned to look at them. "Well, I guess I didn't really..." she said.

Helen suddenly poked Harrison in the side. "Hey Harrison," she said, "We need to go now! I just remembered we have the debate class today!"

"Oh crap!" Harrison said, and they all looked at each other. They turned to leave, but then Margaret turned to face us.

"Palmer, you coming?" She said.

Ava looked at me, smiled, squeezed my hand, and stood up. "I need to go, Thalia. See you after classes. I'll think about a word," she said. I nodded to her. She turned toward them. "Yeah, I'm coming," she said and walked away with them. I watched her walk; how her hips swayed from side to side, how her legs moved gracefully. I swallowed, thinking about last night.

I sat alone at the table for a few minutes. What are we? Friends...? But if that's not enough for either of us... Are we...? What does all this mean? I'm not even sure what's our status now. Like, are we going out together now? Is that what you say? Or are we just playing together? I don't know.

I put my head on my arms and sighed. What are we? Confused, that's for fucking sure. I don't know about anything else, but we are fucking confused. I stood up and walked to the classroom.