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t h r e e : conversations

| THREE |
CONVERSATIONS

"Hi."

It was simple. It was two letters, one syllable. It was the perfect conversation starter, too. It was the most effective way to ensure that a conversation started. Even if it was a little one.

To everyone else, what had just come out of Isaiah's perfectly shaped pink mouth was just a simple greeting. To Karim, it was the perfect way that he knew Isaiah could pick through the metaphorical ice surrounding his mystery girl. But to Isaiah, it might as well have been nothing but silence, because Nameless Girl didn't even look at him.

At all. Not even a glance.

So much for Karim's oh-so-logical plan.

Isaiah didn't know what that feeling in his stomach was. It was completely unfamiliar to him. It was tingly; he thought that was because he was around her. But it also made him frown. It made his heart slow to a stop but beat faster.

What was this? The flu? Isaiah didn't know, but it made him feel like he wasn't in his element, so he knew whatever it was, it had. To. Go.

He cleared his throat and stood a little taller than his lengthy height, making his voice just a teensy bit louder. He never felt nerves, or anything akin to nervousness, but he had a little feeling in his too-quickly beating heart that this could work. This could work.

"Hi." He said again, a little more confident.

Nameless Girl didn't even flinch, but Isaiah noticed that she tightened the grip on her coffee cup a little tighter. She had heard him.

"Hi."

This time, a girl with heavily shadowed and heavily black rimmed eyes glared at him a few tables away. He sent her a quick smile and she rolled her eyes, succumbing to the Isaiah Matthews charm.

Nameless Girl didn't respond. The feeling in Isaiah's stomach multiplied. He nodded to himself, getting ready to turn on his heel and do some damn calculus, but then he remembered the way Karim had laughed at him yesterday. The way he had guffawed and 'fawed until he clutched his stomach and wiped crocodile tears away from his eyes.

There was no way Karim wouldn't laugh at him. He would even tell Shiro and River, and then it would become a whole big thing.

River would want to meet her to ask her about her views on intersectional feminism, and Yoshiro would want to draw her and paint her and sketch her and oil her the minute Isaiah described her (because that was how beautiful Nameless Girl was), and Karim would laugh even louder and guffaw and 'faw and 'faw until the dish and the spoon returned from their elopement.

And so, in an effort to avoid that mess, Isaiah did something...strange. Isaiah Matthews nodded to himself in a psych-up, before he planted himself right opposite the beautiful Nameless Girl. And then, he smiled.

He smiled wide, showcasing his perfect teeth that had been prepared by one and a half years of braces when he was twelve. He smiled the smile that has ensured and resulted in a steady stream of female admirers, texts, and party invitations. However, all of that was moot to Her. Nameless Girl looked at him, her beautiful eyes conveying indifference. It was if she didn't care whether he sat next to her, whether he fell into a vat of oatmeal, or whether he robbed the place. Isaiah had a feeling she didn't care about anything.