Please. Please don't look at me.
I think while walking through the cafeteria on campus. I had already gotten my plate of food and dessert as I marched my way through the hungry, noisy, overly-confident college students. Only looking at the tile floor beneath my feet, watching for dropped food and slippery liquids. I never make eye contact with other people -- especially in a high-tension environment such as the human watering hole. The homosapien grazing area. Ha. Ha.
Awkward joke. Anyway.
I'd halfway made it to the seating area, not looking up, when a familiar human figure approached me near the silverware section.
"Hey, Y/N."
I barely glance at his face before replying a tired "Hi".
We both grabbed a spoon.
"I'm getting soup!" He tells me enthusiastically, though I didn't ask.
"Yeah," I reply trying to sound peppy but failing. Then we go our separate ways.
That may not have seemed awkward to you, but that guy -- he's in one of my classes -- and I hate being caught off guard. I always wanna be that happy, alert person who greets others with a warm smile 24/7, but I just don't have it in me these days. Maybe it's the senioritis... the fact that I'll be graduating in less than a month with no job plans scares me.
"EWW THAT WAS SOOO UGLY. WHY DID SHE EVEN DO THAT?!"
A loud female voice from across the cafeteria took me out of my thoughts. I sigh then return slurping my tomato soup. I look over to the corner where the loud girl sat with her friends and my eyes involuntarily sweep over the rest of the warm bodies. Then I saw him.
That cute Asian kid I kept seeing all over campus. On the bus, in the student union, walking to class...
I'd always see him eating near the wall at a table by himself. Like me. With his sleek black hair falling over his eyes. He was always wearing dark colors in jackets, sweatshirt, and longsleeves which contracted against the pale color of his face.
He makes eye contact with me, his lips parted with a lost look on his face. Ahh! My eyes dart to the steamy bowl of soup before me. Gosh I hate random eye contact. I hope he didn't notice my staring.
After a few spoonfuls of soup, I curiously lift my eyes to his table again, trying not to be too obvious that I'm checking him out. Checking him out?! What! Psh, I didn't say that, that's not what's happening right now. I'm just admiring his soft, innocent looking features... And the fact that he seems quiet and loner-ish like me. Always by himself. Eating, sleeping, showering... or maybe not. Whoa, why did I just picture him shower--
And why am I feeling tingly in areas I can't explain?!!
..
I sit in my senior seminar workshop with my notebook and pencil resting on the desk, ready for the action. This is the last required class I need to graduate. People say it's a piece of cake... I hope so. I can't spend anymore time in this place; it's making me insane.
The words "Are you okay?" filter through my head as students fill up seats around the small lecture hall. The guy from my class, the same one I bumped into during lunch, asked me that right before my presentation for another class. I hate when people ask that, because I have to put on a smile and act as if my internal world isn't in shambles.
I tap my short fingernails against my thick notebook, trying to let the latest kpop single fill my mind, but my insecurities won the race:
Why are you so quiet? Why can't you function in social environments like a normal person? What is normal? Will you ever have friends? Will you ever stop worrying about what others think? Why can't you be cool? Where's my personality? Am I unapproachable? Threatening? Mysterious? Ugly?
