“I love you

“I love you.”

He had taken too much of something, whatever it was. Just enough for his eyes to glaze over, but not enough to make her worry.

Or at least that’s what she told herself. In reality she sat holding his hand at eleven o’clock on a Friday night scared shitless. He did this every weekend, and if they weren’t in college she would have called it self-destructive. His friends had laughed at how Alexander “had the liver of a nine year old” and had long since left for another party.

She sighed and knew she would be used to it soon, but she was new and mostly stupid. She had been his friend for awhile (two months?), but not forever, unlike most of the kids at State. But knew him well enough to know he was a weird guy who needed to fucking watch himself and she knew that . . .

His similes were warm.

She shook her head, thought of the upcoming chemistry final, reconsidered her future career of “world renowned geneticist” and contemplated dentistry. To ease herself she recalled her early morning art class. She loved the paint fell against a canvas, even at 8am, and her teacher had asked more than once, “Are you SURE you’re not an art major?” But she knew that art could hardly change things. Or save people. She told her friends and father that she hated it. She wondered how long she could continue to lie.

Alex had shifted and his head now pressed against her shoulder.

The words were not true yet by any extent, card games and the occasional drink could hardly account for such emotion, but the premonition, the knowledge that it would come was certain. Frightening. She would say he was going to steal her heart, but she knew a more fitting analogy would be that she would hurl it and it would stick to his back. Yes. She had a good arm. And horrible aim.