The Ginger In The Alley And Desi Winters

Red Lenses

~Hey, Vince, I'm glad you called~

It only took a few days before I realised what had happened. I was paying attention to the man sitting beside me more than I was paying attention to the lecture. He'd be watching attentively, even if he and I both knew he couldn't give less of a shit about the material he was being taught, and I'd be staring at him out of the corner of my eye every few seconds, which quickly added up to more than half the class on frequent occasions. It was how I learned about all of his little ticks. How he nibbles on the ends of his pens whenever he's getting really really into the topic of the lecture, how he leans forwards slightly when he's not quite grasping the concept, the way his nose wrinkles when he finds something funny, but is trying not to laugh.

Little things.

Besides, not paying attention in class gave me an excuse to have to revise with him at the library after every second class or so. I grasped the material fairly well (considering it was an arts class and I had never cared about that sort of thing before) but my lack of notes was a great cover. 

~Well, I missed you in class today. Where were you?~

Linda noticed a change in my mood when I finally got the chance to apologise to her for ignoring her at lunch. She wasn't happy to have had been ignored, but she forgave me fairly easily when I pointed out the article I had been reading. She didn't know Charles, her being from Oregon and all, but I'd spoken of him often enough that she acknowledged he had been an important part of my life and that I missed him. A little bit of an understatement, but I wasn't about to push her away just as she had forgiven me. I needed Linda around. Maybe not as a lover, but I needed her as a friend. She did listen to me and she made me... content. But she wasn't what I needed romantically. There was no spark there, and she had to have known it for as long as I did. 

~There's actually something I was meaning to talk to you about today, but I never got the chance to come in and do so.~

Desi, on the other hand, was a different story altogether. Besides my baseball teammates, I never really had guy friends. That's what he seemed to be at first. Both of us were science majors, though studying different fields. Our dislike of art brought us together, our love of science kept us together, but it was having him as a friend that made me fall in love. 

The outing for shakes at Darla's was only the first part. I had to remind myself constantly that it wasn't a date. I was just accompanying him to treat ourselves in the middle of the day for no reason. He'd earned a treat, and I just wanted to see what the fuss was about. 

That's the stance one half of my brain took during the occasion. The other half kept whispering about how good the vanilla frosting looked smeared around his lips, how blue his eyes looked in the bright diner lighting and how easily he smiled and laughed. He was a man with joy in everything he did and said. He found joy in me when I thought it didn't exist anymore. As we paid and stepped out, I was still smiling. For no reason. Like some sort of... happy person. Who would have thought?

~Okay. What's going on?~

The second half of my brain took over the rest after our third class sitting together. I wasn't just watching his little twitchy tendencies; I was watching him as a person. As someone who made me happy just by existing.

Just like how Charles had. 

~Well, remember that flyer we passed in front of the AV Room?~

We didn't spend a lot of time together outside of class and the occasional review session, what with each of us having prior friend groups and all. But during those little times we got together outside of class, I began noticing little things. Perhaps little things that I was simply begging to be true, and pretending for my own benefit, but I chose to ignore that train of thought. I noticed how he leaned into me a little closer than he had to when I asked him to point out a specific part on the notes I had written in front of me. I noticed how when we were sitting side-by-side, he'd sit a little closer than even Linda did. I noticed how he'd always find some way to touch me when I told a particularly funny joke, whether it was giving my shoulder a playful smack or slapping my knee instead of his own.