Watching you
I watch as you pull the large reference book down from the top shelf.
I watch as it knocks another book off and it hits you on the head. You grimace and rub the spot before letting out a sigh and picking the offending book up from the floor and putting it back.
I’ve watched you for the last three years, and now it is coming to an end. The last week.
Graduation.
I’ve never said anything to you, but I did once help you when your bag ripped open and the contents splattered all over the steps, leading to the library.
The library; my sanctuary. Yours as well.
We sit in the same spots everyday as if they are reserved just for us. I have a perfect view of you from there. Sometimes you sit Indian style, other times your legs stretch to the chair across from you, and only occasionally do you cross your legs like most girls do. Usually you sit with your ankles crossed while you lean forward, elbows propped on the wooden table while whatever is in front of you grabs your attention.
You go to the University library on Mondays after lunch, Tuesdays before your morning writing course, Thursdays between your Women’s Literature class and Shakespeare, and Fridays you spend most of your day there. You even love to go on Sunday mornings when it is quiet because everyone else is still hung over from the night before.
It takes me approximately two weeks, every semester, to get your schedule down.
Yes, I know. I’ve been watching you.
Yes, watching. Stalking doesn’t sound very good, negative connotations and all. Don’t worry; I don’t know where you live, just where you are on campus at almost all times.
Obsessed? Possibly. I blame you for that.
I’ve never seen you with any guys, besides your friend. And I can tell he is only a friend; he has a boyfriend. Occasionally friends stop by and you chat… well, there is that one guy, but I think he only hung around you to get close to your blonde friend.
I know you, though I don’t. Your kind and always stop to help people; you’re smart, funny, and adorably cute. Beautiful inside as well as out.
You have a beautiful blush that lights up your porcelain skin. I’ve only caught glimpses of it a few times, but I’d like to see it more. Especially against my sheets.
I love to watch when you use your pencil to hold your hair back and then get upset minutes later when you can’t find it.
I can hear your music through your ear buds sometimes. You have a great taste in music.
You get frustrated at the computer sometimes and it’s cute to listen to you rant about the ‘stupid hunk of plastic’.
Your pink pouty lips call to me and I wonder how they would feel against my own. Do you ever wonder? I doubt it. You never glance my way, even when I’m staring at you and don’t notice I am or how long I have been, which happens more often than I’d like to admit.
Only one week left.
What will I do then to see you? Our routine interrupted. I don’t know if I can handle not seeing you.
Luckily, we love the same local deli. Maybe there I will see you again. I love their roast beef, you love their chicken salad. They have good chicken salad; it has grapes.
I want to ask you to have lunch with me there.
I will ask you to have lunch with me.
One week. Before our goodbye. Not silent like all of our others.
I say goodbye, goodnight, and good morning to you every day in my head, but you don’t hear that, do you?
You are wearing your hair in a loose braid today. I want to pull the band that is holding it out. Though I love your hair like that, it’s best when it's blowing wildly around or if it’s fanned out over my pillow; like in my fantasies.
Does your hair feel as good between my fingers as I imagine? I bet it does. I’d like to find out. I’d like to grab and pull on it while I thrust into you. That’s a perfect time for your braid.
I imagine you a lot. You star in my every fantasy.
My hand has been the only thing to touch me in two years and I wish it could be your hand.
I don’t know why I stayed with Tanya for a year after I met you. Was it because I had been with her for a year already and it was habit? Maybe it was just to have a sexual outlet for my want of you. I imagined it was you when I was fucking her.
Shitty, I know. I would say I’m sorry for it, but I’m not. I could never be sorry for how I feel about you.
She broke it off. Said I had become ‘distant’ and didn’t love her anymore.
All true. Though I don’t think I ever loved her.
I think I love you.
You’ll hate me though, won’t you? I hope not, but how else would you react to my sordid story? I wouldn’t keep it from you.
It’s almost five and I watch as you look down at your watch. Time to get to work! Your bitch of a boss isn’t going to like you being late again. Good thing you don’t have much time left there, your new job will be a much better fit for you.
Time.
I wish we had more.
Not long after you leave I follow suit. No reason to be where you aren’t.
Saturday comes and goes and Sunday is here before I know it. I pack my bag and head out. It’s almost ten. You get here at ten.
I’ll ask you for lunch today. You always get hungry about one.
I find my usual spot and pull out my lap top and wait.
My head pops up at each person that enters and I’m disappointed every time it’s not you. This goes on for over two hours and I am near frantic at your absence. You are always there on Sunday’s.
I convince myself that maybe you have something else to do; a project with a class, the bitch makes you work instead, or you just don’t feel like it today.
You never showed.
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday flow the same. You don’t go to the library. I search the campus for you; all of your classes are devoid of you.
You’re gone.
By Friday night I am a complete and utter mess. My hand clenches on my chest and I am breathing hard, close to hyperventilating.
I have no idea how I do on my finals as my mind is worrying about you.
I can’t find you anywhere.
Nowhere.
Where are you? I need to see you.
Please say you are alright. Please.
One month passes and I still haven’t seen you.
I’m unpacking box after box in my new apartment and I still wonder what you are doing. Are you taking the summer session? How’s your new job?
Every day I look for you, look for some evidence of you. I’ve even gone back to the library, but you aren’t there.
I’ve been depressed; not realizing how much of my happiness relies on seeing you every day. That and not knowing if you’re ok. I’m on constant edge that I am going to hear some horror story about a local girl and what happened to her and that the ‘her’ is you.
I’ve been stuck unpacking all day, unable to leave because the cable company is supposed to be here today to install my phone, internet, and cable, but they haven’t come yet. So, I’m left with silence and thoughts of you.
By six I’m pissed; the cable company hasn’t shown and now my cell phone is dead and the charger is MIA.
Dragging my body from the wreckage of my move, I head to my neighbor’s to see if I can borrow their phone to call the assholes. I knock on the door and wait.
“Hello,” a soft voice calls from behind the large wooden door.
“Hi, sorry to bother you. I just moved in to 3B, and I was hoping I could borrow your phone. The cable company was supposed to be here at nine this morning and they haven’t come yet and my cell phone is dead and the charger is lost in a box somewhere,” I ramble.
The door creaks open and my eyes go wide.
There you are.
Standing all doe eyed and cute in 3A.
I don’t think, just react, and cross the threshold, pulling you into my arms.
In my mind I logically know you should protest in some fashion, but instead I feel you melt into my arms, a sigh coming from your lips. I draw back slightly and crash my lips to yours, doing what I have wanted to do since I first saw you on the steps of the library.
Your arms wrap around me, pulling my body closer. Your mouth opening, your tongue briefly lapping at mine.
I pull back, your cheeks are flushed. “I have been so scared something happened to you, Bella. I looked everywhere!” I exclaim.
“I’m so sorry, Edward. My dad was in a car accident and I had to leave right then. The whole time I was gone I was sick that I missed your last week.”
“I thought I’d never see you again.”
“I went to your apartment, but you were already moved out.”
I blink at your admission and I back up slightly, recalling our conversation.
“Wait…” I begin. Shock registers on your face, blush flaming red, spreads across your pale skin.
“Did I just admit that out loud?” you ask shyly.
“If you did, then I did as well.”
“I’m just… you kissed me,” you say in shock. “I’ve been waiting for three years for you to kiss me.”
“You have?” I question in disbelief.
“Uh-huh,” you reply.
I pull you closer, before my head dips down and my lips meet yours. They’re soft and sweet and better than I ever imagined.
“I just could never figure out how to approach you. ‘Hi, my name is Edward and I watch you every day’ is just a bit on the creepy side,” I admit.
“No more so than ‘Hi, my name is Bella and I follow you home’,” you say with a laugh.
“Creepy, but in this case, very endearing.”
“It was a one-time accident like thing,” you protest. “You left your second sandwich at the deli!”
I laugh, full and hearty. “That’s why there was a sandwich in my mailbox!”
You’re here, in my arms. Talking to me, laughing with me about how we’ve been enamored with one another and never doing anything about it.
I gaze into your eyes. “I should have at least talked to you earlier, but I couldn’t work up the courage to talk to you.”
“So, we’re two stupid, shy people who spent an awful lot of time at the library when we could have been out together?” you question.
I shrug. “I look at it this way. I had stellar grades and the best view on campus.”
You smile.
I love it when you smile.
My stomach growls and you laugh. I love it when you laugh as well. “I think someone needs a roast beef sandwich.”
“They also have great chicken salad,” I say with a grin.
With that we walk out, hand in hand.
One month later and your lease is up, you move in with me. And now you and I make ‘we’.
