She Just Smiles

by d2ragnarok

We bump into each other during lunch.

There's no reason for us to talk to one another, but we somehow find ourselves walking away from our friends. There is nowhere to go, so we simply (without really deciding to) wander aimlessly. I try to keep the conversation on an impersonal level, but she somehow manages to let innuendo seep through her words. She keeps her tone light, in hopes of coaxing me out of my protective shell, but I merely smile and change the subject.

Finally, after a few attempts of this and being in another part of the school entirely, she puts her hand on my arm in an empty hallway. I stop, at last feeling the dark burn of anger I kept subdued for the past few weeks.

I don't want her to touch me.

"I want you to know," she says tightly, in a voice she never uses. "It did mean something.”

I pull away without saying anything and her hand limply falls away. She looks at it like it betrayed her. Maybe it did. She never voluntarily touched me if I didn't initiate it; that was our dance, as if I were the one seducing her, as if it somehow didn't make it entirely her fault. I understood it the first time we lain together and I accepted it. I could see her thoughts processing. It was too late to feel loss, or remorse, or loneliness, or whatever it is that's written in her eyes.

My silence, if anything, should answer her.

"Good luck," she mumbles with some finality. "I hope everything goes good for you.”

I tuck in some stray strands of hair behind my ear, trying not to appear too eager to leave; being so near her is painful.

"Thanks," I reply quietly. "You too.”

She looks up then, to catch my eye. I let her near-black eyes consider what she sees, deadening my own eyes to their custom emptiness. I’m okay, but that’s just a lie too. She just smiles, apparently put at ease by whatever it is that she was looking for. "We can still be friends... right?"

I let coldness seep into me then, though there is no visible outward reaction. No. I could touch her, trace that cheekbone with the same reverence as I do when we are alone together in the dark of her room. I could say something to comfort that hopeful look in her eyes, perhaps even steal one last kiss before I tell her I would never talk to her again. But I’m not that unfeeling.

I look away, not really taking in whatever it was that I saw then, eyes turned inward in thought.How much could it hurt… just to pretend? I think I loved her—maybe a little, if I only want her to smile at me like the way she is now. It’s her genuine one; the one she keeps reserved for occasions when something means a lot to her. Eventually, I smile back at her as kindly as I can manage.

"Sure," I shrug helplessly and walk away.