It's really just a mindless habit, her point sharp pencil brushing curled lines across the margins of her notebook. She honestly swears that at any other given time she would be paying attention, but right now it's the last ten minutes before class lets out for the weekend. It's Friday, it's humid, it's lazy, and it quite simply does not matter what the teacher has scrawled across the whiteboard in attempts to cram knowledge into their brains.
Therefore her focus has opted to wander off, and leave her hand drawing spirals along the page's pristine white sideline. Line over line, loop crossing loop, Stevie smiles down at the design being created before her. She secretly takes pride in the little images she doodles. Setting her only rule as one where each new loop must tangle into the side of another, her doodles' outcomes can look however they like. Some may take up only a small corner of a page while others run across a whole sheet (those are more often on days when she's decided to preview the lesson ahead of time).
Lately, Stevie has been taking to scribbling down words within the spirals she's drawn. She'll find herself writing song lyrics or band names along the curves of the spirals. The words lay atop the graphite lines, following every twist and turn.
She's surprised though, today, because now it's not a band or a lyric that's printed within her loops, it's a name. It's a name she knows like the back of her hand. Heck, she may even know it better than her own due to the numerous occasions in which she's had to speak, scream or shout it to get even just a fraction of his attention.
Zander Robbins.
Now, admittedly, it's not the first time she's penned in a band member's name. Kacey has previously put her in charge of flyer designing during weekly assignments, so sue Stevie for trying out their band mates' names in different fonts! Flipping through other days' notes and scrawls you'd probably find each one a good handful of times.
But this week she isn't on flyer designs duty, and there certainly aren't squiggly Kaceys, Kevins or Nelsons accompanying this singular name. Nope, written there in Stevie's rounded printing is just the name of her best friend. And could we get a little bit more emphasis on that.
Best Friend. Bingo.
Where did her subconscious even pluck that from!? Sure, Stevie had maybe started staring into Zander's dark chocolate orbs a couple heartbeats longer, and maybe a slight stutter had formed in her speech as they stitched together song lines during their ever-occurring writing sessions. But none of that could justify how lacing his name seemingly into the spirals that cluttered her notebook spaces somehow felt like a part of her was trying to lace his name into her heart.
It wasn't going to happen.
It's not a pity party, really it's not. (She has always hated those whiny self-insecure girls constantly fishing for compliments). Stevie just knows she doesn't fall under the category of 'Zander's Type'. He is the school's biggest player, a sweet guy at heart, but still, just a complete flirt. At gigs he'll turn his attention to the ladies that gawk at his existence, all wearing either their strappy heels, silver hoops or short-cut dresses.
And sorry, but she still has her pride. Stevie is a Baskara and in no way shape or form does she feel the need to bend over backwards to reach a boy's standard, even if it's Zander, the only boy to date that has even gotten her to think twice about batting an eyelash. She just has to get comfortable with the hope that maybe someday later she, herself as she is, will be enough.
Right now it's okay. Stevie can settle with hiding his name in her wandering thoughts and playing the role of the 'Best Friend'.