Page 4 of Back to You
For a moment he just looks at me and I wonder if he even heard me, but he stops. “Hey,” he says. “Are you, ah, feeling better?”
I blink, confused. At first, I assume he’s referring to the fact that I choked to death, except nobody should know about that, and he sounds a bit too casual.
“You looked like you were going through something back there in the economics lecture,” he elaborates.
“Yeah, I know, sorry,” I say. “I swear I don’t usually like to make a scene. It was just a ... a very long morning.”
“No, don’t be sorry. That was the most emotion I’ve ever witnessed on display in an economics lecture.”
“I’m not sure about that. The professor gets pretty worked up about stocks.” I pause. “Did he say anything after I left the lecture like that?”
He shakes his head. “I think he was a bit too shocked to speak, to be fair.”
“Well, at least I won’t have to see him again.”
“What do you mean?”
“I just switched majors. Like, literally, just a few minutes ago, that’s why I’m here. I’m doing English now.”
His eyes widen a fraction. “Really? You just went and did it?”
“I guess so.”
He laughs. “That’s impressive,” he says.
He does sound genuinely impressed, which feels like an upheaval of everything I’ve ever believed. I thought you could only impress people by achieving difficult things, by being perfect, making no mistakes.
“I should’ve done it ages ago, honestly,” I admit.
“So why now?”
“I think I had this sudden epiphany,” I tell him. “I don’t want to continue on this path I hate and then find myself three years down the line, stuck alone in an empty gray corporate office, making pitch decks for a manager who couldn’t care less if I died, wishing I’d done things differently earlier, when I was young and alive ...”
“Wow,” he says.
I’ve been talking too much. I’m sure of it, yet he’s still here, listening to me ramble. “You probably don’t remember me,” I add, emboldened, “but we went to the same high school together?”
“Oh, yeah.” He isn’t smiling, but his expression is open and friendly enough that he might as well be. “No, I do remember you.”
A thrill races through my blood until I remind myself he’s the kind of person who’d say that, whether he really remembered me or not.
“You were in the year below, right?” he asks.
“Right,” I say, surprised.
“Well, it’s nice to see you again.” He starts to turn around like he’s about to go.
“I, um, I actually used to have a crush on you,” I say. Blurt it out, just like that.
He stops and tilts his head, his reaction subdued, as if cautious about taking me too seriously. “Really?”
I’m almost tempted to say more, to confess that I’ve loved him in secret for years, when he was a sophomore and I was a wide-eyed freshman. Not like that means much—it would be as trite and unoriginal as telling a celebrity you were a fan.Everybodyloved him in high school. He was the fastest runner we had in years, but he was humble about it. When the teachers announced at assembly that he placed first yet again in the track-and-field championships, he just shook hishead slightly, with this suppressed smile, while all his friends whooped and thumped his back.
But that wasn’t when I first noticed him.
It was after class one day, in the corridor. He was talking to this girl about the posters the sophomores needed for their annual fundraiser event. She was locally famous for her art skills, and they wanted her to help them with the design.
She was nodding fast before he even finished describing the job. I could see his reflection aglow in her eyes, how tall he stood, how beautiful. “Yeah, sure, I’ll do it,” she said breathlessly. I’m sure I would’ve said the same thing. I would’ve agreed to whatever he asked for.
