It Was All About You

Her - 1

She was nothing like I had ever seen before. She was cute. Had her hair short and pearlescent brown. Cute and wide smile that compensated for her small mouth and lips. Bright, white teeth that I could feel shining through her skin, even when she kept her lips shut. I didn't know how to translate into inches during Year Nine so I guessed she was one-meter-forty. Maybe shorter. Her expressive hand gestures and energetic body language helped her to keep the conversation alive and exciting. I was almost jealous that I couldn't join in but I didn't even know anyone's name. I didn't know her name.

Instead, I spoke to a lad one year above mine who was known as a Mexican because of a long-running joke that stuck to our friend group for years. His sister, who's a year younger than me, joined in sometimes, but she was as shy as a snail in its shell and put minimal input into the conversation whenever we asked her for an opinion. We discussed some irrelevant shit that probably wouldn't be so irrelevant if I didn't try eavesdropping on her to find out some of her interests. Favorite subject. Future events. At least her name.

She had a very sweet voice. Soft and calm, yet full of life. Her voice would be perfect for voice acting for a kid's cartoon or something alike; she sounded friendly and I thought it accurately reflected her personality type. I could have slammed twenty British pounds(it's all I had as a child) on a betting table and vowed to everyone around me that the spinning metal ball of destiny was going to land on the 'That Girl Is a Great Person' pocket. I placed a mental bet on an imaginary roulette wheel on a girl I've never met, knowing that I'd lose everything if I was wrong. I knew I'd miss out on an amazing personality if I didn't give it a shot, so it gave me a reason to find out who she was. It gave me a reason to get closer to her and get to know her. I wanted to know her name. I wanted to know what she liked. I wanted to simply talk to her.

Being the silent type, I had no clue how to strike up a conversation with someone new. Force from a mutual that could connect us was the only thing that could have made me talk, but I knew no one that knew her. I gained anxiety and became extremely jittery just thinking about it, and I was unable to hide it.

"You cold or something?" the Mexican spoke up at the worst time. Or I was just zoned out and didn't hear him the entire time. I didn't know.

"Its like four degrees, of course I'm fucking cold," I barked.

It was February. It gave me an excuse.

"Why don't you bring a coat then? You never do."

"I only wear one when it's snowing. They make me feel claustrophobic and my mum always buys small sizes," and that was true.

"Why don't you go buy one yourself then?"

"I fucking hate shopping, man. Especially with my mum. She spends hours looking at stuff we're not even there for. I'd rather just be cold," my irresponsibility is already showing itself, isn't it?

"Then prepare for The Beast from the fucking East. You shouldn't have any problems with it anyway. There's no proper heating in any houses back in your shitty country so you should be able to handle this no problem. Just don't forget your shit-stained ushanka, you commie," he laughed with pride, as he did at every Russian joke he made.

I sighed and rolled my eyes, "Says the guy who wears a sombrero around the house. You'd fucking freeze like a dry tortilla in open air if you keep wearing that paper-thin jacket."

"I'm not the one bitchin' about the wind."

"Whatever man."

His laughter turned into an evil giggle as I just turned away from him and plugged earbuds into my drums. I was not in the mood. I used to laugh at his nationalist jokes about communists being idiots. Not today.

I bopped my head to the radio and stared at the bend at the end of the road from where the bus usually came from. There was nowhere else to look. Well, there was her, but I didn't want to keep glancing. Direct eye contact with strangers was one of my worst fears and I tried to avoid it at all cost. But I couldn't help but keep an eye on her. She was just so eye-catching that I felt restrained by my own brain when looking elsewhere. That feeling you get when you're trying extremely hard not to pay attention but feel attracted to it is the reason I kept fixating her in my sight; I didn't want to feel those invisible strings tugging on my cornea and begging me to look at her. I just complied. And it felt nice. Watching her felt like relief.

She was petite and adorable. Skinny to the point that if I hugged her, I could completely wrap my hands around her torso and reach my fingertips at her chest. Twice, with the given length of my arms, if they had abnormal elasticity. She must have been at least one year below me. She was way shorter than the Mexican's sister, which is what made me think that she could have been whole two years younger. Two years. This was perfect. I always thought that it was harder to impress someone when they're older and thought I missed my opportunity when I reached Year Nine; most girls became Instagramthotties near that time period and I hated them. And the fact that the boy's school and the girl's school were separated by a three-minute drive didn't help either. But I noticed that her friends had the same grey uniform – it suited her well with her black skirt, fluttering as she spun around – and they were not only girls, but also guys. Have the schools merged? With visible confusion, I turned back to the Mexican and questioned him about it. The response I got should have been obvious,

"Do you ever fucking listen to anything? It was announced by the school like last year. Where the fuck did you have your ears for that long? In a shit bucket?" He insulted me with a shocked expression. It seemed to me like he was genuinely concerned as to how oblivious I was to everything for so long, and for once mock me with a purpose other than to shame. I thought that it would include our years too and I made sure he was informed of my out-of-the-ass assumption. Seconds after, he points out that they will be in our site in two years, rather than the girl's site. I was excited to talk to her during the school day but I'd already sensed that I'dhate everyone else. That's why I was hesitant to openly smile.

The yellow, single-decker bus arrived and I let her friend group enter first by standing back and gliding my hand at the inward gliding door. The driver didn't bother lowering the hydraulic so the young ones had to put a palm against their knee as support. I never liked him. He always targeted me and pinned problems on me, despite my withdrawal from the chaos in some cases. We had several drivers before him, as they changed every year, and every single one of them was much more polite and kind. And the passengers treated them nicely too. That's how it always worked: if they were cool with us, then we'd give them respect in return.

They got on one by one whilst joking about, but she waited to get a seat before joining in with them. She was silent and was last in the queue before I boarded. She was the only one that said smiled at me as a way of saying 'thank you' and I appreciated it. The scent coming from her hair was a regular shampoo and I could tell because my mum loved to drag me to beauty shops for herself while shopping for me and it was the same chemically constructed smell that hit hard whenever we'd enter the hair care aisle. Simple, but fragrant. The bus was packed as always. We were all like matchsticks in a small box, fighting for a seat. But not her. She, along with her friends, already had a designated seat near the front of the bus that she sat on every journey. The seats were elevated and were arranged like a square such that four people could talk to each other without having to twist or turn to look at each other. Two sat next to each other and two others were across from them. The Mexican and I walked past them and sat right at the back, where seats were the highest on the bus due to the engine located directly below. She was loud. Incredibly loud. I could hear every joke they made and so could my friend. We both made fun of their edginess the entire ride. And I thought she heard us too because she kept looking at me whenever she laughed, which I was startled at because we were behind one row of seats that was raised to the same level as ours. She had to intentionally search for me with obstruction in the way; there was no way we looked at each other several times like that purely on accident. She was not looking at her friends. She was not looking at anyone else. She was looking at me.

We finally locked eyes for a few seconds, about a minute before she had to get off – the bus drove to the girls' site first, and only then to the boys' – and she gave me a very subtle smile. Subtle enough so her friends didn't notice, but obvious enough for me to detect.

And I smiled back.