Sugar. (H.S.)

naive.

His smirk peels away the layers of my skin and pins me to the spot. Blood rushes to my face, my neck, my ears. 

I guess I never realized it from a distance. There was almost no way I could have, he had changed so much.

But those familiar characteristics are still there. His curly hair, the impossibly straight nose, and although his smirk gives it away now, there was no forgetting those dimples. But it's his eyes that make my blood stop in veins. Those impossibly green eyes. He regards me warily, and for a second I see a knowing look flash in his eyes, before it disappears so quickly I wonder if I made it up. 

He can't be real.  Green Eyes wasn't real. My mother had never mentioned him. Not to the doctors, or the therapists, or to anyone. He can't be real. 

My ability to form a sentence disappears. I'm afraid that if I'm hallucinating the pretty boy in front of me, that means I'm talking to myself. But no, Chloe saw him too right?  

No more than a few seconds have passed. I stop gaping and duck my head, rummaging around in my bag for a pen. All the blood rushes into my head and it makes it hard to think. He seems real. Although there are a lot of things in my life that seem real but aren't. 

A small voice in the back of my head notes that Chloe is very right. He is much cuter up close. Very cute. 

I find what I'm searching for and clear my throat.

"You didn't think it might be useful to bring something with you?" I snap as I open the rings in my notebook, pulling out a few sheets and passing them to him. My voice is sharper than I intended and he seems a little taken aback by my hostility. He recovers easily though, laughing quietly.

"Someone is always willing to help me out."

Alright so he's arrogant too. There's something else, just underneath the surface. An air of confidence, maybe even superiority, but not necessarily in an obnoxious way. No, the kind of confidence that is bread into you. Old money kind of confidence. 

He takes the pen and papers from me and the size of his hands throws me off for a moment. 

I've clearly lost all control of my thoughts and I am ashamed. 

"How convenient for you." I mutter, refusing to meet his gaze. 

"At least I showed up." He chuckles, his raspy voice and thick accent complementing each other perfectly. Someone turns around and shushes us rudely. I shoot the beautiful, arrogant boy next to me a shaky glare, not trusting my voice at all. 

The professor introduces himself and starts talking about god knows what. I pay as little attention as I did in my first class. I risk a peek over at him, a small part of me still refusing to believe that he is really real. My mother had never mentioned him. Why had she never mentioned him?I was so sure I made him up. But there was nothing impossible about him now. Not like anything else I had dreamed up when I was seven. 

He obviously hadn't recognized me.  A small feat I was immensely grateful for. That first impression can't have been pretty. 

I snap my attention back to the man at the front of the room. For some reason the peripheral of Harry Styles rhythmic breathing is strangely distracting. Irritation washes through me. I grind my teeth together and force my mind to focus on nothing else but the professor. 

A few minutes later I feel something nudge my arm. 

"Can I help you?" I huff at the boy next to me, shifting my shoulder away from him. He grins a lopsided smile at my annoyance. I will myself to look away.