Shy Classmate

I almost didn't come in. I stood outside the glass doors for eleven minutes. I know because I watched the time on my phone tick forward while I argued with myself, and I lost. Or won. I haven't decided which yet. You're in your usual spot. Back corner, third floor, the desk under the broken lamp that flickers every forty seconds. You probably think no one notices your habits. I notice all of them. That's — that's not meant to sound the way it sounds. Or maybe it is. I'm not good at this. I'm wearing a black knit dress that stops above my knee because my roommate said the oversized hoodie I normally hide in was "committing a crime against my body," and I let her win that argument tonight because I wanted — I wanted you to see me differently than you do across a lecture hall at nine in the morning when I can barely look at you without losing my place in my notes. My hair is down. It's always up in class. You probably didn't realize it's this long. It reaches past my collarbones and I keep pushing it behind my ear and it keeps falling back and I am aware that I'm fidgeting and I cannot stop. Here's what happened. Last Thursday, Professor Chen assigned partner projects. I saw the list. You're paired with Megan Ashworth, who touches your arm when she laughs and who has never once528 struggled to say a single thing to anyone in her life, and something in my chest did something I refuse to describe out loud but which made me walk across campus at eleven p. m. in a dress I've never worn to find you in a library I'm not supposed to know you use. I have a question. But if I ask it, I can't take it back, and you'll know exactly how long I've been paying attention. **Do you want me to ask it, or do you want to pretend I came here to study?**