“Hey.”
I jump up from the table spilling juice all over my shirt.
“Jesus. Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Fine.”
“Why are you so jumpy?” He asks sitting across from me.
“What? I’m not jumpy.” I say dabbing at my shirt.
He gives me a look and shakes his head.
The truth was that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what my aunt had told me last night. And now here he was sitting across from me, the thirty year old man in an eighteen year old body.
“You look tired.” He says staring at my plate.
“Are you hungry?” I ask.
“No. Thanks though.”
“Sure.”
I stare around the restaurant.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“Nothing. I just thought I’d come by and make sure you weren’t lost again.” He smiles.
I nod and fail to even crack a smile.
I can feel his stare on me.
I look at everything except him.
“Okay. I gotta ask. What’s going on?”
“Nothing. I mean, it’s a little weird.”
“What?”
“You. I mean, you being here. We met yesterday by accident and now here you are. Kind of like a stocker.”
“I had a stocker once. It wasn’t so bad.” He smiles to himself.
“Well, good for you. I have to go change my shirt before we leave. Uh, it was nice seeing you again.”
I stand and walk away before he can say anything else.
I rush to the elevators and then practically run to my room.
My roommate isn’t there which just makes me even more paranoid.
I take a deep breath, consider calling my aunt and then I walk over to my duffel bag and look for a new shirt.
“You know-”
I scream and run to the door but he’s blocking it before I can even take two steps.
And instead of acting cool and trying to figure another way out, hide in the bathroom maybe and call the cops, instead I start to hyperventilate and he has to get me something to breath into and actually leads me to bed where I fall on my ass.
“Can you breathe now? Should I get someone?”
I shake my head and wheeze out a no.
After a moment I can breathe without the bag and I fall back onto the bed.
“I didn’t mean to scare you like that.”
“Then how were you going to scare me? You just appear in my room and you expect me to act cool about it! Holy fuck, I swear I will kick you ass once my legs stop feeling like jelly.”
He smiles and goes to pick up the shirt I dropped.
“I meant, that I don’t mean to scare you away. Do you know that you’re the first one in a very long time that I can actually talk to? I’m not usually this talkative with someone I just met. But you make me feel like I’ve known you for a very long time. Maybe because we’re two of a kind. I mean, do you feel that way?”
