Out of Touch

Intensity

I watch Stella from across the booth. The way her eyes sparkled in the fluorescent library lights. The way she smiles when she's telling good stories. The way her eyes cloud when she doesn't understand. Her love-hate relationship with most things. She could see good in a lot of things. I liked that about her. 

I had no right to. She'd just escaped the heart of Andy. She was a little bruised from that. I couldn't help myself. She was gorgeous and had a way about her that I was drawn to. I looked over to find Andy and Alaina at two different screens, two different lives, but sitting together almost functioning as one. They had learned to need each other but they still kept themselves buried.

I didn't need something like that in my life. I wanted love. Someone who I could cuddle with in sweatpants and sweatshirts who would love me despite and my ideals and my thoughts and let me grow into what I needed. No one quite fit into my standards but right now, staring at Stella as she enthused about going to Roanoke College and majoring in Biochemistry and establishing a cure for cancer, I couldn't help but imagine myself along her lines. I could live that life with her. I would be happy.

I never let others touch me. If I didn't see them coming, I felt like I had to attack. They were invading me. But I'd let Stella touch me. I could hug her close. She would be the nearest to me that anyone had been in a long time. I'd have to lose my sensitivity. 

Alaina had tried to explain to me once that people needed love and affection. Children needed to be held in order to sustain normality in their lives. Baby monkeys needed a warm mother in order to learn attachment. I wasn't from a place like that. Would I be able to learn it?

I had poured myself through the book I had picked up the last time I was in here. I was so excited to be included, enthralled at the story line, I finished it in two nights. 

"I'm going to grab the second book," I stood up.

"Already?" Vinh looked at me, surprised. "What have you been ignoring your homework?"

"Maybe," I shrugged, going off instead to get the second book.

"Are you enjoying it? I see you got trapped," Mrs. Rudolph smiled at me. 

"Of course, how could I not get into this? This is the most interesting thing I've read in a long time."

Mrs. Rudolph handed the book to me and just smiled. She was talking about the book right? Or did her words have another meaning?

I was enjoying myself right now. I was enjoying Stella's presence. I was enjoying talking with Vinh, Stella, and Faith every day now. Everyone had started gathering their things before the bell rang. I looked over to see Alaina hugging Andy.

She liked him, didn't she?

As the world was getting colder, relationships were getting warmer. Maybe I did have a chance.