#larryxash

The next time they had class, she sat a little closer to him. Not right next to him, not yet, but two rows back, so she could spy a little better without looking suspicious. His handwriting was neat, but sloping. He had tattoos on his hands that disappeared underneath the sleeves of his flannel. He had worn his hair up, knotted at the back of his head, and she could see another tattoo peaking out at the base of his neck. She wondered if they all connected. A perfect tapestry of art. 

She found herself waiting for him. She would get to class early to watch him come in. She would stay behind to watch him leave. Once she caught him in the art room, sitting behind the pottery wheel. She had to stand on her tiptoes to see him through the crosshatched window, and only left when another student rudely asked her to move so she could get inside. 

She watched for weeks, but she never saw him with anyone. He always came to class alone, and left alone. There was always a circle of empty seats around him, as though he were infected with something contagious. When she saw him around campus, which was rare, he was always by himself. But he didn’t seem to mind. It didn’t seem to bother him that people cowered in his path or moved when he sat too close or avoided speaking to him as much as they could. She had thought she would feel sorry for him, but this only intrigued her more, made him an even more unattainable attraction. 

It had taken a while to gather the courage, but one week before fall break, she steeled herself and set her bag down at the seat next to him in the lecture hall. She tried to make her voice as strong as possible when she asked if he would mind her sitting there. He glanced at her, and gestured to the seat, but didn’t speak. Feeling foolish, she settled into the chair and tried not to seem eager to leave. 

Maybe he was a bad guy, she thought. After all, she didn’t really know him. They had never spoken. She didn’t think he’d ever even really looked at her. Maybe he did hard drugs. Maybe he was in some kind of gang. Maybe he was a murder. 

Next to her, he laughed. Small, stifled behind closed lips, and she jumped a little. Oh God, she thought. He can read my thoughts. I’m thinking about him murdering me and he’s laughing. She looked over at him from the corner of her eye and was surprised to find that he hadn’t been laughing at her at all. He was watching a video of a heft orange cat climbing into a refrigerator and curling up on the shelf. The camera shifted, someone was putting it down, and then a blue haired boy entered the shot. He picked up the cat and carried him off screen. A moment later, the cat ran back to the fridge, still open, and crawled back inside. The blue haired boy picked the cat up again, and the same thing happened. Finally, resolved, the boy left the door open, picked up the phone, shrugged into the camera, and the video stopped. 

Her classmate was doing his best to hold back his laughter, but it ended up backfiring and sending him into a fit of coughing. Ash laughed a little too, partly because of the video, and partly because of how flushed his face had gotten when the professor stopped the lecture and watched him until the coughing had died down. She tried to pretend she hadn’t been watching him too. 

For a while, she got caught up in notes. She had been so transfixed by him all semester, she had barely paid any attention at all, and it had shown dramatically on her mid-terms. Still, every so often, her eyes drifted to his paper instead. He took notes, though far less than she, and the edges of the page were covered in drawings. Some of them were campy, a bug and a flower, a bee in a tophat. Others were filigree and decorative. Some were realistic, half of a lion’s head, part of a palm. They were gorgeous, even the cartoons. He must have caught her looking, because he cleared his throat just loud enough for her to hear, and when she looked up, their eyes met and she blanched. 

“Oh.” She kept her voice at a whisper, which only served to elevate the shaking in it. “I’m sorry, they’re just -”

“Do you like them?” His voice was raspy and warm, even though he was whispering too. His eyes were the deepest brown she’d ever seen, never-ending and vast. She couldn’t tear herself from them. 

“Yes.” He smiled, one side of his mouth turning up more than the other, and he looked down at the notebook. She followed his eyes and saw that he was turning pages, closer to the back. He found what he was looking for, and folded the pages over so she could see. It was her. Sketches of her leaning over her desk, focused. Of her in the cafeteria drinking diet coke, holding a french fry in her fingers, laughing. A small one of her in the common area, reading a book.  She pulled the notebook towards her, awestruck, careful not to touch the graphite so it wouldn’t smudge. In the bottom corner he had written the words “Mystery Girl” in blue ink. 

“They’re beautiful.” She ignored the sudden urge to cry, and pushed the notebook back towards him. 

“I noticed you watching me. So I started watching you too.” She would have been embarrassed that he had discovered her doing what could probably been considered stalking, but she was too busy looking at the sketches. “You wanna keep them?” He asked, not waiting for an answer before tearing the page out of the notebook and sliding it across to her. 

“Oh, no. I couldn’t. They’re yours.” Even so, she put her hand on top of the paper.

“They’re you, Mystery Girl.” His eyes sparked, and her stomach flipped. 

“Ash.” She picked up the paper and slid it into her notebook for safe-keeping before looking back up at him. He hadn’t taken his eyes off her. “I’m Ash.” 

“Larry.” He smiled that lopsided smile again. “Nice to meet you, Ash.”