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MY PHYSIOLOGICAL RESPONSE to Sydney's presence was unbearable.
Chalk it up to coincidence or precognition, but when I walked out of my dorm room this morning, something in me just knew that I was going to see him today. Maybe because he'd come back to Grace's Place and ask for the same coffee order. Maybe because I'd be too in over my head to not try and catch his eye in PSY 208. Maybe because I'd want to get another whiff of his cocoa lotion and take a step too close. Despite how certain I was of either of those possibilities, and despite the throbbing ache in my skull, I still walked across campus wondering if that thing was going to happen where he saw me but not the other way around. I wondered if I looked better than I felt.
But the clinic was the last place I expected him to actually be at, much less after I'd let myself brush off the consistent thought of him. And the brain fog was the last reaction I expected.
It was as if my brain thought I was a completely different person from who I actually was. It visualized me doing and saying and feeling things I couldn't, responding differently. Up until now, I was a mixtape of social conditioning, picking up habits from everyone else, because they always seemed so natural, so genuine, so valid, coming from them—the way they talked, the way they walked, the way they angled their legs when they sat, the gestures they made with their hands and bodies. In theory, I knew the right ways to behave. But whatever it was that fogged up my functioning never let me get out of my head enough to practice them.
It was why I froze at the sudden sight of Sydney Miller, why I consequently locked up. I was almost certain the shock was painted in my eyes, and whatever confidence I thought I'd built leading up to here evanesced like a ribbon of smoke.
Though still painfully aware of him, I stared into my phone and was reminded that briefly before I left the dorms, I was about to dry-swallow my pride and request fifty dollars on Venmo from my sister.
I should've thought against it, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I'd just sent the request through when Jason Rivera lowered himself into the seat next to mine.
My mom told me years ago that you could tell the extent to which a person was loved based on the way they smelled. She didn't mean something extravagant or fancy like deodorant or cologne, but intimate. Clean. And beneath the heady fragrance of his body products, Jace smelled like fresh laundry. Homely. It was funny how easy it was for me to identify now, how much I understood, when the only thing I did those years ago was think my mom was a little out of it.
When Jace beamed at me, I could tell he was most likely smothered with affection as a child. He had that air about him.
He handed a bottle of water to Sydney, who kept his focus on the form resting on his left knee. I bit down the guilt of barely acknowledging him before it built in my chest.
"We meet again," Jace said in lieu of a greeting, his voice slightly muffled by the mask over his mouth.
