I hang out with Christian and Alejandro for a while during break, they complain about some teacher and about some homework, and they ask me about the classes I’ve had so far, while I tell them about how the English teacher can’t speak the language to save his life I hear some familiar voices and all three of us stop talking and turn around; it seems we are each interested in someone from that group. All five girls walk past us, Eva and Christian nod at each other, Nora walks on by without looking and Alejandro observes her, Cris stops to say hi and asks me if I want to join her to get herself something to eat, I obviously say yes.
Once she buys something, she pulls me away so we can sit together and we eat lunch in silence just being comfortable with each other, when we’re done eating she turns to look at me, a new shy look I hadn’t seen, and she looks away quickly.
“I missed you yesterday.”
She says it without looking at me and had there been a little bit more noise in the cafeteria I would’ve had to ask her to repeat herself. She looks at me again and I see her looking at my lips and quickly look away.
“We weren’t able to talk at all and, I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to know how you were because I didn’t know if you were upset with me or something, or uncomfortable or… I don’t know.”
To be honest, I get a little bit lost observing her, the more she talks the more she blushes, a stray lock of hair falls on her face and I put it in the back of her ear; I could swear I feel her leaning into the touch for a fraction of second.
“No, not at all, don’t worry about that. Sundays are just aa little complicated for using my phone, that’s it.”
“Okay, yeah, no worries. Actually, I was thinking that… I don’t know, maybe we could-”
A loud noise echoes through the cafeteria and interrupts her, someone had dropped their tray with all their lunch on it, I get startled and Cris takes my hand to rub circles on it with her thumb.
“Do you want to go outside until next period starts?”
I nod and she pulls me outside and into the courtyard where we sit down, but she doesn’t start the conversation where she left off, she asks me how I have been feeling in classes and I ask her the same thing, and we get into a casual school conversation until the bell rings and we both head out to our classes.
“Yo, Cris! I’ll see you in lit class.”
She laughs, runs to her class and I’m left there wishing I could carve her smile into my brain so I can survive the next two hours of science class until I am able to see her again.
We sit together in literature and pay little attention to class, I start by drawing in the top corner of her notebook and she hits me in the leg with her foot, and that’s how we pass the class in between little inside jokes and hidden laughs. Once the bell rings and we leave the classroom, I walk her to her locker and then walk with her to where her friends are.
“Well…. I’ll see you tomorrow, Cris.”
