You can feel yourself staring again, and even as you mentally berate yourself you just can't seem to tear your eyes away. She's sat at the other end of the court yard, alone with a book in her lap and her glasses perched on the end of her nose. For once her hair is down, and the fiery strands act as a curtain, almost as if protecting her from your gaze. You know that you shouldn't want to look at her, you really shouldn't. You just can't seem to quite help yourself.
There's something about her that hypnotises you. Often, you find yourself drawn in so deep that you lose all awareness of your surroundings. At the oddest of moments you find your gaze drawn to her, because you always know when she's there. Even if you continually tell yourself that you shouldn't.
It doesn't seem to matter what you're doing or who you're with, she manages to capture your full attention without even trying. Without meaning to as well, you're almost certain that she doesn't even know you exist. Not because you're not well known, but because she lives in her own little bubble. It's not quite a world of her own, but it's still almost there.
You know that you shouldn't be so drawn to her, it's very wrong of you. It's dishonest and not fair, because you're with Champ. You shouldn't allow yourself to be distracted by a pretty girl with big doe eyes and dimples that make your knees go weak and more wobbly than you would ever admit to. You shouldn't be so drawn to her, even if her laugh warms your very soul whilst Champ manages to grate on every last one of your nerves.
You catch yourself staring at her- studying her- more and more with every passing day. At first you weren't quite sure what it was, or why you studied her, or that's what you told yourself. As more time passed, you'd admitted to yourself what it was. You'd learnt to be honest with yourself, even if you wouldn't be with any one else. What had begun as a fascination had morphed into something much deeper, something that frightened and beguiled you in equal measure.
You hadn't wanted to admit it to yourself, to a point that it surpassed mere self denial. Every waking hour had been spent trying to convince yourself that what you knew, deep down, simply wasn't true. It didn't seem to matter that she was seemingly completely oblivious to your existence, you were enraptured by her anyway.
You'd found that she was a marvel to watch and she captured your attention more fully than any other had before, more than you had thought was possible. Every quirk of her lips into a one dimpled smile, any arch of her eyebrows or hand movements she used as she talked fascinated you. You'd found that it had reached a point upon which merely looking at her, or catching a brief glimpse of her through a crowd was enough to leave you with butterflies for an entire day.
The sound of her voice could leave you unfocused for minutes at a time. Sometimes you felt thirteen because you'd find yourself wondering what her voice would sound like whilst telling you that she was in love with you. Then you'd come out of your daydream and feel awful because you had Champ (whom your older sisters swore wasn't good enough for their baby and whom you knew had cheated on you multiple times) and he loved you and you didn't want to break his heart. Especially not for an idle fantasy that you knew would never become reality.
So you'd settled into a routine of watching Nicole whenever you had a spare moment, or whenever you thought that nobody was paying enough attention to care. Sometimes she'd come out of her bubble and into the real world and her eyes would meet yours. That soft, almost embarrassed smile of hers would flit across her face before she looked away and it would leave you confused for days on end. You could never quite figure out what that look meant. Knowing you, it probably meant nothing and you were simply over complicating, as you tended to do with every aspect of your life.
You're watching her in the courtyard one day and break's only half over when you feel Steph's eyes on you. It's happened a lot recently and you're almost certain she knows what is happening in your head. Your eyes meet hers and there is something almost hostile in her eyes before her expression clears and she plasters that fake smile of hers on her face. It's a smile that makes your stomach roll and twist. Matched with a spark in her eyes that hadn't been there previously, you know that she's up to something and you kinda dread finding out what exactly that something is.
You find out, less than a week later. You're round at Champ's for your weekly dinner with his family and you find that he is conspicuously absent. Naturally, you head upstairs to find him. Upon entering his bedroom you find him and Steph naked, rutting like animals against one another. When they hear the door they both freeze and turn to look at you. Champ looks like a deer caught in the headlights, but the smirk on Steph's face is victorious and more vicious than you thought was possible. Almost like she thinks she's hurt you.
It gives you the excuse you need to break up with Champ and to be wholly justified in your decision. It is concrete evidence of his infidelity and no amount of apologies will make you cave this time. Your relief is tangible and you calmly state it is over before leaving, feeling lighter and less guilty than you have in months. It almost feels like floating and until it's gone you hadn't realised the weight you were carrying upon your shoulders.
The next day, when you sit on the bench under the beech tree in the courtyard next to her, book in hand, she looks at you for a good minute. She has that soft one dimpled smile on her face that you know is usually reserved for her fiction and it makes your heart race and your palms damp and your stomach bounce excitedly. She doesn't say anything, just turns back to her book, but by the end of lunch she's migrated towards you, her shoulder pressed against yours, warm and solid.
And you smile to yourself and make yourself focus on your book, a small smile on your face. You revel in your newfound lightness and in the warmth radiating from where her shoulder meets yours against the wooden backing of the bench.