C is for Caroline

3 | dressed like santa's gucci twin in 80°F weather

I tap on the window, wait for a few seconds, and then tap again. Still though, Caroline's head doesn't move an inch. It's as if she's used to people creepily vying for her attention. She almost has me convinced that I don't actually exist because I'm literally there on the street, making a pretty big fool of myself, while she's across the glass sipping her coffee like she's deaf or something.

Oh my God...what if she actually is deaf? What if she had an accident after graduation and lost her heari—nevermind, she's looking at me now.

I smile at her, the best smile I can manage, which I'm sure doesn't do much considering I'm sweaty and dirty from a long day of work.

The expected look of disgust doesn't cross Caroline's face as she looks at me though. Instead, it's more of an 'are you fucking serious? Again? This is happening to me again??' look.

Well jeez. I didn't think I looked that bad, but then again, who doesn't look bad to Caroline?

She looks away within a second, taking another sip of her coffee as she turns back to her phone. From where I stand I can see her screen, and I see that she's scrolling through instagram, not liking anyone's pictures.

I tap the glass again, harder this time, and I half-expect her to smash down her coffee and glare at me, or break the glass and reach through to grab me by my collar, but she does none of those. Instead, Caroline slips her arms through the sleeves of her coat, not caring that it's April and very warm (I worried for a moment that she would overheat, but then I remembered cold-blooded reptiles rarely every catch heatstrokes. She would be fine).

I watch as Caroline picks up her sunglasses, puts on her hat, and then grabs her phone and coffee, strutting calmly out of the Starbucks.

For a second I think she'll walk up to me as she exits the building, but again, I'm too hopeful. She begins to walk the other way down the street and so I have to run after her to stop her and get her to actually talk to me. I run in front of her, cutting her off in her path, but instead of anger, she looks at me with that same indifference she's had ever since the 9th grade.

God, she's more beautiful than I remember her being. Her hair is short now, which is a big contrast to how long it was the last time I saw her, but I like it nonetheless. And she probably didn't intend for it to be, but considering her hair had been one of her most famous assets in high school, this was a statement.

If you ask me though, I say she should have done the chop earlier. Something about the way the short hair just shapes her face so perfectly makes me want to—well, let's just say I'll have a lot better quality wanking material tonight.

I smile at Caroline and she raises an eyebrow at me, clearly not wanting to be in this interaction.

Well too fucking bad, I think, because I'm not going anywhere until we have a little chat.

Pause.

Okay, so at this point, what's going through my mind is that she most likely doesn't remember me, because, well, why would she? I wasn't anyone important to her back in high school. And whenever anyone met anyone they went to school with, even if they hadn't been friends, they were still always overly excited or at least pretended to have the slightest interest in each other's lives. Caroline was doing none of the above, so naturally, I figured I would introduce myself again.

"Hey," I say with a smile. "You probably don't remember me. We went to high school together, I'm Jerem—"

"I know who you are," she says, interrupting me (and looking hot as hell doing it). "What I can't figure out is why you're talking to me."

Wow.

What does someone even say to that that won't make them look like a complete dork? And how can I still be feeling nervous talking to a girl? I'm 20 years old!

I scratch the back of my neck stupidly and just say the first thing that comes to my mind, figuring that anything is better than me staring at Caroline silently with a dumb expression on my face. 

"Damn...that was harsh."

She looks at me flatly but doesn't speak. She doesn't even need to speak though, because the thing about Caroline is that her eyes are like fucking cat's eyes, and so when she looks at someone, she doesn't even have to be angry for them to feel like they've really fucked up.

Her eyes were brown like honey, but I could only see fire in them.

Actually...wait. If I think about it, the red in her eyes was really more of a malnourished flame. For there to be a real fire in someone's eyes, they would actually have to care. And she, dear reader, did not.

So by now, the people walking past us are giving us weird looks, and I don't blame them. It wasn't an everyday sight we were providing for them. It's strange to see a hot girl dressed like Santa's Gucci twin in 80-degree weather being bothered by an average, sweaty, and borderline-beggar looking guy.

And so I'm standing there, waiting for her to speak while sweating bullets from the intensity of her gaze and it feels like it's been hours since one of us last talked (looking back on our interaction though, I later concluded that the silence lasted no longer than 20 seconds). But only after those 20 seconds did I realize that Caroline did not plan on speaking first, and so I swallowed what was left of my pride once again.

This was basically how the rest of our interaction went:

Me: *nervous neck scratch* "It's nice to see you again, do you want to get in touch sometime?"

Her: "No."

Me: "Uh...well I was thinking we could exchange phone numbers or something."

Her: "No."

Me: "Caroline, I think it's fate that we bumped into each other here. Out of everyone in our class, the two of us meet? It's crazy!"

Her: "..."

Me: "I would like to get to know you better."

Her: *amusedly, as if I'm a 5-year-old child* "I'm not looking for a relationship."

Me: "Okay then, just as friends."

Her: "I'm not looking for friends."

Me: "Acquaintances?"

Her: "I don't give acquaintances my phone number."

Me: "Jesus Christ, then! How am I supposed to talk to you? What do you wanna do, be my fuck buddy?"

Her: *smile* "212-555-8979. Call me."

I don't know whose number that is but it's not really Caroline's. Please don't call the poor person!

<3