It was in the way she slouched in her seat, her skin tight top and a few sizes too big jeans. How her outfit cost about as much as my manicure. How her demeanor showed how much she wanted people to dislike her. How you could almost, just barely, count how many toned ripples were on her stomach when she sat up straight and the way I got chills when she stretched exposing part of her midriff. It was how I watched as her arms would jump at any type of threat. It was how I got 0's as participation grades whenever she ran out of cargo's or Jay's old jeans and had to wear a skin tight pair. The way I knew those jeans were mine from a time when she had nothing to wear home from work.

But it wasn't only that.

It was the way she would tease me and how riled up I would get. The way I anticipated her comments, treasured them, spit a snotty remark back. It was reading a surprise text in the middle of class saying how uncanny it was the way I could capture the "just rolled out of bed" hair. The way I spent at least an hour on it every morning hoping maybe she'd like it if I tried this today. The way she'd roll up her towel and snap it on my butt at work just to see me blush and curse at her. The way she laughed at me after. The way she'd roll her eyes.

But it wasn't just that.

It was the way she'd bump into me at school and both of us would freeze. The way we both went out of our way to get to classes different routes so we'd see one another in the hallways. It was the way we'd catch each other sometimes gazing at the other. The way we purposefully sat across from each other in our classes. The way that it was understood that every day before 5th period we would use the same restroom in the west corner. It was the way she and her friends would skateboard across the gym during cheer practice, how she'd go fast right behind me and turn really quickly to see my skirt fly from the wind she caused. It was the way I loved how lusty her eyes grew and how I had a jolt between my legs the rest of practice because of it.

But it wasn't always that.

Sometimes it was the way she'd want me to go away when she had a hard day. The way she wouldn't meet my eyes when something was wrong. It was how she'd sniffled once in the break room at the movie theatre and I caught her wiping a tear away, embarrassed. The way she would stand farther from me, and closer sometimes just showing me more of the war within herself. It was how the energy and frustration between us grew when it happened because we both knew and were too stubborn to admit it.

But it wasn't specifically that.

It was how I hid my feelings for her. How with every question involving love her image rushed through my head. How my heart knew before my body who knew before my head that I wanted her, needed her. It was how I almost slipped up sometimes; let my friends find out accidentally that I was attracted to someone. The way I made the mistake of smiling at the mention of her name. The way I'd tell stories about my day, unknowingly having it revolve around any encounter I had with her. It was the way my parents looked at each other across the table sometimes, the way my brother and best friend would knit their eyebrows together confused and excited, the way my co-captain would cross her arms and furrow her brow at even the slightest notion of she and I.

It was all of those things and so much more that made me realize I had fallen for her.

I had fallen in love with Alex Nunez and neither of us were ready to break my fall.