The first time you see her, you feel the thick quicksand of time slowing down. The whirring shush of silence in your ears as you zero in across tabletops spilling with cheeseburgers, soft drinks, and pizzas that appear to have been ravaged by hungry wolves.

Surrounded by lipglossed and hairsprayed approximations of Madonna, she glows like a pearl hidden amongst a sea-full of oysters. You've never been into the Material Girl anyway. You prefer the virgin, the one who dreams of being touched for the very first time.

Hair like copper and skin like the inner swell of a seashell, you can't fathom how you've missed her before. How have you walked the sidewalks of this campus unaware of her existence?

Time only whirs back into motion when you're jostled from behind—the next hour is approaching, and you lose her in the throng of lemmings heading toward surefire death at the hands of bored Calculus professors and final exams.

….

Her sister is the hot one. At least that's what your friends tell you (are guys who rib you about your intelligence and quietness and funny nose really considered friends?). But still, as catching glimpses of her becomes your newfound hobby, you find yourself coveting her heat. You want to keep it for yourself. She smolders so quietly, you'd miss it if you weren't paying attention. But you're paying attention.

She's smart, you find. Perhaps even as smart as you. Perhaps even smarter. You want nothing more than to discover for yourself though. You can tell just by looking at her that her brain is the most beautiful part about her. And there are so many beautiful parts about her.

She's only a freshman and you a senior, and sometimes you feel almost dirty lusting after someone so much younger. But then her laugh trickles across the lawn in front of the library, and her tongue runs along her lips, and you need to hold a book in front of your pants for the next twenty minutes. It's lucky you always have a few to spare.

….

Dana. That's her name. You find yourself whispering it sometimes, practicing forming the words with your lips for that day when you might possibly meet. You also find yourself whispering it as you lay in your dorm room late at night (your roommate's never there—he has a girlfriend who actually knows he exists), hands pumping with a fury you've never felt before, thinking of her perfect face.

You finally finagle your way into a class with her. Chemistry. Though you show up early the very first day, hoping a shared Bunsen burner may finally be the one to introduce you, she's already there, studious and breathtaking, next to another guy. You hear the Bunsen burner as it says, "Dana, meet Andrew," and you want to yell "Traitor!" across the room at an innocent piece of lab equipment.

You watch her though. And you listen to her. And you were right. Her brain is spectacular. The way scientific terminology rolls off her tongue stuns you. The way she can pluck the correct answer from the air with such little effort, yet still find reason to arch an eyebrow at the absurdity of the question, captivates you. You find yourself salivating at the sound of her voice. You are Pavlov's dog, and she is the bell.

Her careful, assured demeanor and blue, blue eyes keep you enraptured through every hour-long lecture. You're glad you've already taken this class (yes, you signed up twice, just for her), or you'd fail, and your father would kill you for that.

One day, she catches your eye from across the room. Even through the liquid distortion of your safety goggles, it's electric, and you feel the current as it zings through your veins. Her sharing-a-secret-with-you smile proves to you that behind her erudite facade, there is a spark just waiting to be ignited. You doubt Andrew even knows how to strike a match.

….

They end up dating, she and Andrew. Of course they do. Damn Bunsen burner. You knew you couldn't trust it. You try to tamp down on your desires, really you do. Or at least that's what you tell yourself. But she's there. She's everywhere. Whereas you once had to search her out, she now seems impossible to avoid.

Sunbathing on the lawn beneath your window, tender skin pinkening from the heat. Behind the blinds, you have fantasies of sliding your hands across her shoulders, over the soft swell of her belly (her bikini is bubblegum pink, and for some reason, that makes you giddy), massaging in the sunscreen that will keep her from burning. You're sure you see her glance up at the third floor at least once, but her sunglasses make it difficult to be sure.

Studying in the library, glasses balancing at the tip of her nose like an acrobat. You watch her through the spines of the historical fiction section and fancy yourselves as star-crossed lovers from the Victorian age, kept apart by pedigree and circumstance and Andrew. Her pencil scratches as it dances across her notebook, and when she rests the tip against her lips, you wonder whether her nipples are as impossibly perfect as the pink eraser (it looks as though it's never smudged out a mistake in its life), and you grow hard in your pants once again. You can feel her eyes following you as you flee from the stacks.

Mingling at a frat party (the veritable zoo of a frat party is not your thing, but you know Andrew is the king of this particular jungle, so you brave it), her sweater tight and skirt displaying legs you could languish in for days. You round a corner into a darkened hallway, and she is there, arms twined round his neck and legs braced upon tiptoes while his mouth gives a fair impression of a Plecostomus (you somehow knew he'd be incapable of kissing a girl properly).

You freeze. Maybe if you're an ice sculpture, she won't notice you over here melting into the floor. The sight of them together makes you simultaneously sick and aroused, but neither emotion is stronger enough than the other to spur you into action. Until his fingers grip the soft, smooth peaches of her rear, and there's no way you can endure another second of this torture.

You turn to leave, but her eyes snag upon yours like velcro. And they hold. They hold and they hold and they hold, while she kisses his mouth and threads her fingers through his hair. She looks at you as your breaths turn into pants, and when your tongue slides across your lips (you can't help it—her own tongue is playing fucking hide-and-seek with you from across the hall), she gasps against his mouth before looking away.

….

They break up. You hear of it through the grapevine, and see her huddled with her gaudily sympathetic friends in various places, accepting consolation. She still looks like a pearl hidden amongst the oysters, even with tears down her cheeks and Andrew's last kisses still lingering on her lips. How is she real, you think? How is she real standing amidst a crowd full of people who are anything but?

Your friends call you a pussy for not taking advantage of her pain, for not swooping in like Superman and saving the day. They don't understand. They don't understand that she's special. She's significant. She's a delicate glass-blown ornament, and even your most careful touch could send her shattering to the floor. You've always been a little clumsy with your hands. And you definitely can't pull off a cape and tights.

You see her again in the dining hall, at the same table she sat that very first night. The night you unknowingly relinquished ownership of your heart. She's a small, quiet cardinal fit between a murder of crows, screeching and cawing so irritatingly, you feel a headache coming on.

You're about to leave when that familiar quicksand flows between your toes, surrounds your legs. Her head turns toward you in the slowest slow-motion, and the squawking fades away. You think you can see straight through to her soul when she meets your eyes, and it's pure and genuine and stunning. Your breaths fall into cadence with hers.

You don't look away.

She doesn't look away.

And time draws out like a tightrope for the fifteen seconds during which she holds your gaze (you count).

When she finally turns away, you feel the break like a karate chop. You're opposite ends of a board, with one strong arm between. It hurts almost physically.

That night, you come so violently it scares you.

….

You try not to feel disappointed when her seat is empty in class the next day. Andrew's as well. Bile rises to the back of your throat at the possible implications. You've never felt this way about a girl before—so stimulated, so obsessed. She is holding your heart in her hands, and she doesn't even know your name.

You close your eyes against the emptiness of her seat across the room. Until you feel a nudge at the tip of your elbow. Something cold, metallic. Annoying. Your eyes still closed, it nudges again. Dramatically (because you're feeling particularly intense today), you sigh as you open them. To a Bunsen burner prodding gently at your arm. Attached to the Bunsen burner is a small hand (nails painted petal pink), and attached to that hand is a lovely, smooth arm. And attached to that arm is… her.

She smiles, and held in the curve between her lips is an etiquette guide's worth of greetings. Yet she chooses simply "Hi."

"H-hi," you stutter back, and though you try to look unaffected, surely she must see your heart lurching inside your chest.

"My lab partner's not here. I thought maybe we could…," she ducks her head and grins, and you realize for certain that you love her.

"Yeah," you manage to mumble, "Yeah, that'd be okay."

"My name's Dana, by the way," she tells you, as if you haven't murmured her name a thousand times, and a thousand times more, before this instant.

"Yeah," you say, "I know."

You steal the Bunsen burner from the lab that night.

Maybe you can trust it after all.

Notes: There is a sequel called "So Much Better Than a Cherry Gumdrop" posted here as well!