Between the Distance

s i x:

"Walk much?" She asks rhetorically as she takes her glasses off all the way. She tucks them at the top of her sleeveless tee. The edges look as if they've been torn away, but I'm guessing that's just the style.

"Yes I do actually," I say back, mocking her tone. "But running is another story." I shake my feet around trying to let out the coffee that's soaking through to my socks. The sugar and whatever other sweeteners and creams that are added are making my toes stick together and it's almost the worst feeling in the world right now.

Almost.

The worst feeling is this slightly above warm coffee sticking to my body. It's thick and heavy against my torso and it's making my stomach itchy.

"Hmph." She chuckles slightly, her mouth opens a little revealing a gap between her otherwise perfectly straightened teeth. Her eyes meet mine for a second, but she catches herself and shakes her head a bit to stop herself from zoning out.

Is someone actually getting lost in me? Nah.

"Well it looks like you owe me another coffee." She adds.

"Are you serious?" I say trying to hold my dress away from my body to keep the above warm coffee from sticking to my skin. "You can't be serious? You had to have seen me standing there."

"Standing is a strong word." She retorts, but not in a mean kind of way, more so just joking. I think.

"Crouched over. Whatever, there's no way you didn't see me there."

"Yeah I'm just messing with you. But you did totally just pop up there." She says. "Whoa dude, you need a new shirt." She says as if she's just now noticing the huge obvious coffee stain across my dress.

"It's a dress."

She lifts her left eyebrow up in slight disbelief. It's a dress that's made to look like a shirt. I know, I know, but it's clearly too long to be a shirt.

"Whatever you say. You coming or what?"

"Going where?" I'm still holding on to the dress, looking a bit silly trying to distance it from myself.

"To the moon of course." She spits out sarcastically. I've never met someone who could ever match my level of dry sarcasm and I've got to admit, it's quite refreshing and I think I'm starting to like her already.

Like. Ugh.

I don't even know anything about her. She could be some kind of sociopath psychotic serial killing murderer for all I know.

If there's one statement that would sum me up perfectly it's that I fall in love easily. Like crazy easily. I'm not sure if it's better or worse that it's not a real love. It's more like we-both-like-all-the-same-authors or we're-having-the-exact-same-thought-in-our-head-and-then-we-both-said-it-out-loud kind of love. It's not in the least bit a real or true love, but it's some kind of love I'm sure of it.

"Shopping, genius." She continues. She walks back a few feet and throws her empty coffee cup into the trash can and walks back towards me, though this time she's standing a bit closer to me than she was a few seconds ago and I'm not sure why. Normally a stranger standing this close to me, would make me uneasy, but for some reason she doesn't.

"I'm not going shopping with you." I retort. I notice that I'm sort of bouncing around. Another one of those weird things I do when I'm nervous or anxious, or both.

"Why not?" She asks, sounding kind of annoyed, almost like I offended her.

"I don't know you. No offence, but you could be some strange serial killing murderer for all I know."

"What if I'm just a normal serial killer, not a strange one, then would you say yes?" Her eyebrow raises up again and a smirk spreads across her face.

"Well I'm not just going to let you go off to wherever you're going looking like that."

I look down at myself trying to figure out what she's talking about other than the obviously huge coffee stain that's turning my dress a putrid brown color. The coffee is starting to dry a little bit so I let go of holding my dress and when it rests on my stomach it feels heavy and sticky. "What's wrong with what I'm wearing?"

She points in a circular motion towards my stomach and directly at the coffee stain. "That." She says raising an eyebrow.

"Right."

"I'm not a strange serial killing murderer, I promise. Just let me take you shopping it'll be fun." She says elbowing me on the side as if we've known each other a while. I scrunch my lips slightly contemplating my options.

a) She's a sociopath that wants to murder me and this is her way of luring me back to her secret lair or dark basement or wherever she lures her victims before they meet their doom.

b) She's still a sociopath but she honestly just wants to buy me a new dress because she's taking a break from her murderous killing spree and she feels bad for spilling her coffee all over me.

For whatever strange reasons both my options involve this random green haired stranger being a sociopath and I'm not exactly sure why.

She snaps her fingers, snapping me out of my weird fantasies. I've really got to stop zoning out so often or at all for that matter. "You know I'd really love to take you up on your offer, but I'm kind of running late for something."

"Yeah well I'm not going to tie you up and force you to." She says winking at me. "You know, 'cause I'm a sociopathic serial killing murderer and all." She nudges me on my arm again before walks off down the sidewalk.

"I'm Theo by the way." She turns around and yells from halfway down the sidewalk. I just smile awkwardly at her, but I don't give her my name back.

Theo. That's a pretty interesting name for a girl I think. Though I'm sure her full name is Theodora. It's not a common name for a girl, in the U.S., but I used to know a girl in second grade named Theodora. She had pudgy rosy cheeks like a cherub and skin like milk and she always smelled like 75 cent bubblegum. She went by Dora, instead of Theo.

I end up waiting at the bus stop for thirty minutes before I decide to go back home and miss this day of class. Of course, I tell myself, this is going to be the day that there's some mystery pop quiz or important handout and I'm going to miss it, but strangely enough I just don't care at all today.