Why I Liked You

Chapter 1

We met at the wrong time....that's what I keep telling myself. I lay in bed at night and picture us years from now seeing each other again in a coffee shop somewhere far away from here. Then, and maybe then, we could give it a shot.

Life wouldn't be so complicated if I had never met him. But I did. And I never would have liked him either. To be honest, I hated him. He annoyed me so much. I didn't want anything to do with him. Then things started to changed. Our fifth hour teacher just had to sit us next to each other.

I remember that day like it just happened. He smelled like someone that had just stepped out of a cologne commercial. But it wasn't an overpowering cologne smell. Maybe that's why I liked it.

Days, maybe even a week or two went by and I still hated him. I was warming up to the fact that I was stuck sitting next to him for the next semester. He told me how much he hated algebra, and how he wanted to get kicked out. I told him that I would defiantly help him, one less problem that I would have to deal with, right?

He wanted to get kicked out by being difficult I guess, since he always pestered the teacher and I with questions about anything and everything. I was always patient and helped him if he had trouble with his work. He must have wanted my help because he kept asking for it.

My best friend, Daphne, sat two seats over, so I would always lean across my desk so I could talk to her. We both knew the alphabet in sign language, so we would always sign each other things. He would always joke around and tell the teacher that we were talking about him, which we weren't.

After he did this a couple times, I taught him how to sign his name in sign language so he would know if we were talking about him or not. The next day I purposely used his name in my sentence to see if he was paying attention.

"You used my name! They're talking about me this time!" He hollered.

"So what if I was?" I asked.

"Then I would want to know what you were saying," he replied.

"That's classified information," I said, teasingly. Although I'm pretty sure he didn't know I was teasing.

Weeks continued to go by. I still didn't like him. We continued to have pointless conversations and Daphne and I continued to have sign each other "secret messages."

One day as I was leaning forward to talk to Daphne, he leaned forward too, blocking my view of her. When I moved my head to the right, he moved his head to the right. When I moved mine to the left so would he. We did this quite a few times until he just stopped and stared at me. I stared back.

He locked his eyes on mine and wouldn't let them leave. It's actually kind of funny because I never realized how blue his eyes were.