"Well, you know that nobody can resist my effortless charm," he smirked. She hate when he did that, but what she hated more was that he was right.
"Ugh, you are so…infuriating. To think I actually started to…never mind. I have to go." She tried to escape quickly. What had she almost said? Hopefully he didn't hear the quiver in her voice. Maybe he would just brush it off like everything else she said. Neither hope nor luck was with her at the present. He followed her down the hallway and stopped in front of her.
"Wait! 'To think that you…' what?" He asked, folding his arms. He looked so cute when he did that. Wait…no, he didn't. She couldn't think that, ever.
"Nothing, I don't know what I was saying. I'm still a little drunk from that party, you know." Yes! Genius! Blame it on alcohol. "I can barely understand what you're saying, anyhow. So if you'll excuse me…" She tried to walk towards the stairs, but he put his arm in front of her and on the wall next to her, blocking her path.
"I've seen you when you're drunk, and you, madam, are fine. Now what did you say? I'm not letting you pass until you tell me." He could be so insistent. That's how they always were: fighting. He was so convinced that he was always right, and she had made it her mission in life to show him that wasn't so.
"Nothing, ok? I just want to go to bed," she pleaded. He put his arms up in surrender.
"Fine. I believe you. You can go, but to think that I almost…well it doesn't matter now. You obviously don't feel the same way." The way he had just mimicked her words both infuriated and frightened her. He had heard her, and she was pretty sure he knew what she had been about to admit. The question was, was he strictly mimicking her, or trying to tell her something?
"Now just you wait a minute…" she started.
"No no, go to bed. You're right; you might be a bit to tipsy to carry on an intelligent conversation. I'll talk to you in the morning, ok?" Now he was toying with her emotions AND challenging her intelligence. This was too much for her to let slide.
"What are you trying to make me say?" she demanded.
"Nothing, unless there's something you wanted to tell me?" His patronizing look of curiosity absolutely irritated her. Time passed and they were only standing there, dimly, looking at each other eye to eye.
"I like you, ok?" Maybe she really had drank too much? Her words seemed to hang between the two of them like the smoke left after fireworks. He stared are her with a look of shock. She should have known; he didn't like her back. She turned and walked away in a feeble attempt to maintain composure until she could cry herself to sleep in the confines of her dorm room.
"Hold on a second, you didn't let me get the last word," he said, stopping her at the bottom of the stairs. She looked back at him with tears brimming in her eyes. She was trying to hold them back, but she couldn't; she was so embarrassed. She had always put up a strong front in front of him and the rest of her friends, but she couldn't anymore, not with him now that he knew.
"You know I never do," she joked.
"We'll see about that," he replied and leaned in to her to give her a kiss.