I Never

Icebreaker

I could wear her clothes.

...What?

I didn't know why it was my first thought when I noticed that Daisy Lewin was my height. I blinked away the weirdness and continued our icebreaker.

"So you're majoring in Chemistry too, right?"

"Yeah. And Accounting. I'm double-majoring," she said dryly. She scared me.

"Dang... And you're on the soccer team, too. How do you even keep up?" I chuckled nervously. I could barely survive my Chemistry major and a part-time job at the local tea shop. These women were a different breed of University student.

She just gave a polite smile.

"Yeah, it's a lot of work. OK, so, what do you do as a hobby?"

"I like video games and music... And sometimes I write, too. A-and hiking I like to hike! I'm a big hiker." I had to tack something on the end that sounded less loser-ish. She just nodded and jotted my answer down.

Come on, Lee. It's just a stupid icebreaker, not an interview.

But I kept glancing all over the room, from the blank walls to her long dark hair to the desk to her pink shirt to my paper to her strong facial features to my pencil to her-

"I like to hike, too. You can write that down." Daisy looked up at me and I realized I had forgotten to write anything down.

"Uh, Yeah! Right. Right," I said rapidly. I quickly jotted down her majors, extracurricular, and hobby, my handwriting getting messy from being observed. "Sorry, I got a little distracted. Hey, what hiking trails do you like? I'm a big fan of just going to some of the waterfalls nearby that are like a mile or two out."

She was responding, but I wasn't fully listening. I was just watching her face, and wondering if she was really as bored or annoyed as she looked. I just kept saying stuff that I thought sounded like small talk in between long pauses in between icebreaker questions. When class was over, I sprinted away like a bat out of Hell.

Four hours and a muttered string of curse words later, I was driving home from EMU, still thinking about how stupid I felt. University years were supposed to be my years! But the only thing I could stand to do was go to class and come home. And why was I struggling to keep conversation with that classmate? She was my age, with no extra authority over me, but it had felt more intense than most conversations between my elderly manager at work.

I collapsed on my bed that afternoon and looked her up on social media. Daisy Lewin... Daisy Lewin... Her Instagram was easy to find, and she pretty quickly accepted my follow request. The first post I saw, she was wearing the biggest, sweetest, most welcoming smile.

Why couldn't she do that earlier today?

...Lee, you're staring. Cut it out.

I felt my face go a little warm. What was wrong with me?! I hadn't been like this since I was thirteen, following some poor boy through the halls after school like a greasy, cryptid girl from a YouTube horror video. I dropped my phone as if it were radioactive and got up to get some water. I knew nothing about this chick, and I didn't date women anyway. I never dated them. Never really liked them. I never...