“No, um, sure. We can do that. If you want.” My tongue got so tied around him sometimes. I blamed it on my lack of social interaction skills.
“It doesn’t have to be coffee. We could go for a walk or go to a game or even just study at the library. Whatever you’re comfortable with.” He had been so patient. I was a little bit in awe of him for it and curious just how far he could take this.
I considered for a moment, biting my bottom lip between my teeth. Sports were definitely out. I didn’t want to do the coffee/tea thing again either.
“You wouldn’t mind doing homework with me at the library?” I asked. I always studied alone, but maybe it would be nice to have some non-annoying company. I wasn’t sure. Or maybe he would finally see how uninteresting I was and I could go back to being alone.
“Nope,” he said with a little smile. He was so upbeat, it was unnerving. I just wasn’t used to it anymore.
“Um, how about Saturday? At two or something?” I’d planned to stay in my room like I usually did, but getting out for a few hours wasn’t going to kill me.
“Sounds good,” he said, taking my purple pen from his bag. He’d used it every single class. I sighed and got out my own pen as class started.
The times that I wished I had someone to talk to were few and far between, but on Friday night, I wished for that someone. Someone who could help me analyze Coen’s behavior and help me figure out what it meant. What his endgame was. There was a reason he was doing this and it wasn’t just out of the goodness of his heart. .
I couldn’t remember the last time I cared about what clothes I put on in the morning, but I did on Saturday. That was also the day I realized that all my jeans had unintentional rips in them, and some of my shirts were completely threadbare. I finally found a pair of black jeans with rips in just the knees and paired it with a dark purple t-shirt over a black tank top, all underneath my favorite black jacket. I’d found it a few years ago at Goodwill and had fallen in love.
Ivy had called it—
I slammed the door on that thought before it could complete itself and grabbed my bag before heading out the door.
He was there first, leaning against the wall, looking down at something on his phone. As if he sensed me watching him, he looked up and shoved the phone into his back pocket.
“Hey,” he said, smiling at me as if I’d been the one to bring him a present. His hands were empty today. He must have noticed me looking because his smile grew.
“Oh, yeah. I have something for you, but it’s in here,” he said patting his backpack.
“You didn’t have to bring me anything. I don’t expect it. You don’t have to bribe me to be your friend.” Pushing off the wall, he reached for the door to hold it open for me.
“I know.”
Coen’s present today turned out to be several bags of snacks including chips, cookies, granola bars, gummies and two bottles of water.
“I didn’t know what you’d like, so I brought a little of everything.” He had to hide his stash because eating was strictly forbidden in the library, but we’d found a secluded corner and if we didn’t open the bags too loudly, we might be safe.
“You didn’t have to do that,” I said again. He shrugged.
“I thought it would make it more fun. Although, I’m not sure if anything can make our economics reading more fun. I also brought us both an energy drink just in case.” He did have a point. While economics might have been an interesting subject, our class and textbook turned it into something guaranteed to put anyone to sleep.
“Yeah,” I said, pulling out my books. Coen sat across from me, the table between us. I was used to him being beside me in class, or while we walked. Having him right in front of me was a little… distracting.
“You hungry?” he whispered, leaning across the table. I took off my jacket and spread my books out.
“Um, not right now. Maybe later.” He nodded and pulled out one of the granola bars and a bottle of water. He handed me the water and I shoved it in my bag so no one would see it. This was quite the covert operation.
“So, what are you working on?” he asked, slowly and carefully unwrapping the bar while throwing glances around.
“Um, economics, calculus, English and history.” I had a lot of stuff due in the next two weeks. Every one of my professors had assigned huge amounts of work at the same time, as if they’d planned it.
“That’s intense.” He opened one of his books and took a bite of his granola bar, chewing with his mouth closed and hiding the rest of the bar under the table.
“Yeah.” I hoped he wasn’t the kind of person who talked while he worked. Or hummed. Or tapped a pen on the table. I liked it quiet, or with music. I had my earbuds, but it seemed rude to put them in when I was with him. What was the etiquette here?
I was about to tell him that I was going to start working, but he beat me to it and was soon absorbed in his own work, sneaking bites of the granola bar every couple of minutes.
Seeing that as a sign, I focused on my own work and soon my fears proved to be unfounded. Coen was a quiet studier. The only noise he made, apart from breathing, was to turn a page, or scrawl something in his notebook, once again with my purple pen.
Every now and then, he’d shift in his seat and I would remember that he was there. It startled me more than once, and I found myself glancing up at him while he was engrossed. This was the first time I could look at him without him being aware of it.
His hair was always a mess, today especially, since he’d walked from his dorm to the library. I didn’t know for sure, but I didn’t think he used any styling products on it.
Ripping my eyes away from the top of his head, I forced them back on my textbook. I had no right to stare at his hair. I didn’t know why I’d been looking at his hair. It was just hair. Hair on Coen’s head.
He cleared his throat and I jumped.
Smiling, he pushed a bag of gummies across the table toward me.
“Thanks,” I said in a low voice. We’d been working for a while, and I was hungry. I took the bag and opened it as quietly as I could, after I checked the label to make sure they didn’t have any ingredients in them that I couldn’t eat.
After polishing off the gummies, I realized I was really hungry, so I asked him for a bag of chips. He handed it over and we both went back to work again, but this time, I was captivated by his hands.
The way they held the pen. The three freckles on the back of his left hand that formed a triangle. His fingers were thin. Not like some guys’ whose bulged at the knuckles and had chipped nails. No. Coen’s hands were nice. Just like his hair was nice. And his eyes were nice.
Just nice.
“Are you checking me out?” he said, and I looked up into his eyes. Now he was the one staring.
“N-no,” I stuttered, glancing back down at my textbook. I’d read the same page three times and had no idea what subject I was even working on.
I hadn’t been checking him out, but I had been staring at various parts of him. I needed to stop that immediately.
“Kind of looked like you were,” he said, turning a page in his book and raising one eyebrow. The one with the scar that cut through it like a pale bolt of lightning.
“Well you’re wrong,” I snapped and regretted it. I’d been too defensive, which meant that I was upset with his accusation. Nothing I could do about it now.
“Okay, sure,” he said and I could tell he was smiling. That wasn’t good. Coen being happy about me checking him out was a bad sign that this was starting to veer from friendship territory into something else. I could barely deal with the friendship aspect. Something more? No. Never.
I thought about getting up and leaving, but that would have been even more suspicious, so I just went back to work and forced myself not to look at any part of him. Not his hands or his hair or his ears or his eyes.
I finished the chapter of economics reading and moved on to my history textbook. We still hadn’t made it to the midd
le ages, so things were pretty grim. Except there were Vikings and so forth, which was good. When it came to history, I didn’t want to hear about the numbers. How many people had been killed in what battle in what year. That stuff didn’t mean anything, really. It was the stories of the people who had gone through it that were the important thing. But historians didn’t cram that into our books, so it was mostly dull reading.
“You want to take a break?” Coen asked when I was halfway through the chapter and learning about how they built houses in Viking villages. We’d both been sitting for a while and I was starting to get stiff from the chair.
“Sure,” I said, marking my place in my book before closing it.
He stood and stretched his arms over his head, groaning a little. I didn’t let myself look at the little strip of his stomach that he revealed when his shirt rode up.
“Want to go get some coffee? Or tea? I need to move around.” I didn’t really want to, but I agreed. We both packed up our stuff and headed back to the same coffee shop where our first disastrous meeting outside of class occurred.
“We can go somewhere else. I have a car. We could even go off campus if you want.” I shook my head. I wasn’t getting in a car with him. Walking around was fine, but driving crossed a line I wasn’t ready to cross. Didn’t think I’d ever be ready to cross with him.
“Okay. Then let’s not sit where we were last time,” he said as he held the door for me. There was a table on the left by a little window, so he claimed that and then asked me what I wanted.
“Peppermint tea,” I said. It was actually my favorite. Green was fine, but I preferred peppermint. He stared at me for a second.
“What?” I asked, rolling my shoulders. My bag was heavy with all my books and I wasn’t looking forward to carrying it back up the hill to my dorm room.
“Do you hate green tea? Have you been drinking it just to be nice?” I smiled again. I couldn’t help it. The notion was ludicrous.
“Yes, I’ve been drinking tea that I hate for weeks so someone I’ve just met won’t feel bad. No, I just like peppermint better, that’s all.” He closed his eyes and then shook his head.
Now what?
“You’re an enigma, Ingrid,” he said and a wave of heat went through me when he said my name.
I liked her name. It was old-fashioned and unusual. It was a name you remembered. Matched her perfectly.
I felt like a dumbass for the whole tea thing. I should have asked instead of just shoving it in her face. When I got back to the table with her peppermint tea and my latte and a plate with two cupcakes on it, she was staring out the window and I let myself look at her for a moment. I had to be careful with my glances. Couldn’t stare at her too much and risk making her feel uncomfortable.
There was just something about her that drew the eye. Something that radiated out of her and settled around you when you were with her, wrapping you up together. Even if she didn’t say anything, it was there.
“Peppermint tea and I wasn’t sure what kind you’d like so I got red velvet and vanilla with chocolate frosting.” I couldn’t imagine a world where she didn’t like cupcakes.
She eyed them warily.
“I’m vegan.” Well, shit. I should have known that. Why didn’t I know that?
“Oh,” I said, looking down at the cupcakes. “Hold on. I’ll be right back.” I took the cupcakes back and exchanged one of them for a vegan vanilla cupcake with frosting and brought the plate back over.
“That one’s vegan,” I said, pointing to it. Her eyes went wide for a second.
“You didn’t have to do that. I know it’s a pain to eat out with me.” She looked down, as if she was embarrassed.
“Hey, it’s no big deal. I was just lucky that they had a vegan cupcake. It looks pretty good.” I didn’t really know what vegan meant. Were they the ones who still ate fish? Or were they the ones who didn’t eat anything that was made from an animal or something? I wanted to ask, but it seemed rude so I didn’t.
“How long have you been vegan?” That was a safer question. She sipped her tea and winced, as if it was too hot.
“Um, five years, I think? I’ve pretty much got the hang of it now, but it’s still difficult sometimes to go places and not be able to eat anything on the menu.” Yeah, that definitely did suck, but she must have good reasons, or she wouldn’t be doing it.
“Coen?” she asked, after a few moments of silence. I was dying to have my cupcake, but I wasn’t going to make a move before she did.
“Yeah?” I asked, looking up from my latte. She took a deep breath and looked into her cup.
“You know this isn’t a date, right?” The words came out fast, and I almost didn’t understand what she’d said.
“Oh, no. I know this isn’t a date. We’re just friends. I think.” I still wasn’t sure. She’d said we could be friends, but I still got the impression if she never saw me again, she’d be fine with that.
“Good,” she said, relieved. I needed her to believe that I wasn’t in this to get in her pants. That wasn’t, nor would ever be, my intention with her. Never. That was so unimportant in the face of everything else.
I shouldn’t have flirted with her in the library, but the words just came out. I’d have to be more careful now.
At last, she picked up the cupcake and swiped her finger in the frosting before putting it in her mouth.
To distract myself from watching her, I picked up my cupcake, broke it in half and then put it together again so the frosting was in the middle, like a sandwich.
“What are you doing?” she asked me.
“This is the only way to eat a cupcake,” I said, taking a bite and showing her. “Then you get an even amount of frosting and cake and it doesn’t get all over your face or crumble.” She shook her head at me for a moment, but then split her cupcake in half and did the same.
“You’re right,” she said after she took a bite. “That’s so much easier.”
“Well, you learned something today so it’s not a total loss,” I said, joking, but she set her cupcake down and frowned.
“I’m not very good at being a friend. You should probably find someone else,” she said in a quiet voice.
“Hey,” I said, to get her to look up at me. “You’re doing fine. And I don’t want someone else as a friend. I picked you. So deal with it.” Once again, I’d meant to make her smile or laugh, but she did neither.
“Okay,” she said and then picked up her cupcake again.
We spent two hours together and when it was time for her to go back to her dorm room, I didn’t want to say goodbye. I’d see her on Monday, but I always had this fear that when she left me, she’d disappear. I’d go to class and she wouldn’t be there. Gone.
“Well, I’m this way,” she said, pointing toward her dorm. Mine was in the opposite direction, but it was getting dark and I didn’t think it was good for her to walk alone on a Saturday night. Call me sexist, but I didn’t trust anyone.
“Would you mind if I walked you? At least part of the way?” She didn’t answer right away, and I could tell she was turning it over in her mind.
“I guess. Okay,” she said, nodding. Good.
It was different when we were walking together. This part of the campus was quiet now, since a lot of students had gone home, or weren’t around. Every now and then, our shoulders would brush. Or rather, her shoulder would brush up against my arm. She was small, maybe only about five feet. Even though I was only five-nine, I felt like a giant next to her.
“So what are your plans for the rest of the night?” I asked.
“Um, I don’t know. More homework, I guess.” It wasn’t a surprise that she didn’t have anything social planned.
“Well, that doesn’t sound like very much fun,” I said.
“Whatever,” she said, shrugging one shoulder. “What are you going to do?”
“Not much. Just hang out with my roommate. He’s cool. I think you’d like him.” I was going out with Marty later
to a party, but I wasn’t going to mention that to her.
She didn’t answer.
“I don’t really have friends,” she said. “I mean, other than you. I just… I’m not a fan of people.” That was an understatement. I almost laughed.
“It just means you’re more selective. I feel honored that I passed your standards.” More than she could know.
“Well, you were persistent. It was either give in or try and ignore you for the rest of the semester. No one’s ever worked that hard to be my friend before. You’re going to be disappointed.” I shook my head. She had such a low opinion of herself.
“Well, I like a challenge. And I think that anything worth having is worth working for. And… you looked like you could use a friend.” She flinched and I knew I’d said the wrong thing.
“I don’t need pity friends,” she said, a bitter edge in her voice.
“That’s not what I meant, Ingrid. I really just want to be your friend. That’s it. No ulterior motive.” My stomach dropped at the lie. I did have an ulterior motive and someday, she would know why. Someday, but not today.
“I find that hard to believe,” she said and I had a moment of sick terror. What if she figured it out? It was possible that she could.
“Well, it’s the truth.” The second lie made me feel even sicker, but these lies were necessary right now. For me and for her.
We reached a cluster of dorms and she pointed to one.
“This is me. Um, thanks for walking me. And for the tea and the cupcake. I’ll see you on Monday?” She turned and stared at me for a second. As if trying to figure me out.
“See you on Monday,” I said with a smile and a wave as I turned to make the journey back to my building.
Ingrid wasn’t stupid. She was smart as a whip and I was going to have to be more careful.
I couldn’t figure him out. There just had to be more to it than just picking a random sad girl to be friends with. When I got back, I let my mind go crazy with all the possibilities. That this was some sort of elaborate way to convert me to a religion. That he’d lost a bet. That he was a vampire looking for his next victim. No idea was too wild, but even that didn’t help me figure anything out.