Her body shifts in her seat as she turns, eyes hidden behind thin, blonde bangs as they fall on the boy only a few tables away. Even across a crowded lunchroom and past many bodies, she manages to find exactly who she’s looking for, and she’s not sure how or why that’s possible, but she’s not going to complain. She’s going to let her eyes linger, only moving to trace the outlines of his body, in the most innocent of ways as she stares.

And she’s not sure what’s so mesmerizing about the boy; maybe it’s a result of the human race’s fascination with things they can’t have, or maybe it’s because he’s the only boy in school who hasn’t been mean to her (though he’s never really talked to her, aside from a mumbled apology when he bumped into her, and a quiet ‘you’re welcome’ when she’d dropped her books and he’d helped her pick them up); or, maybe it’s a combination of both.

Her chest tightens with a feeling of longing as she stares, and confusion settles over her, because she doesn’t even know this boy that well, so why is she longing for him? Logic tells her it’s because she longs for a friend, something she’s never really had, but she’s come to find in her sixteen years of being alive that attempting to logically explain her emotions never really works, and only succeeds in confusing her.

When she finally pulls herself away from her thoughts, she realizes the boy is sitting alone, and she feels a pang of guilt as she wonders if the others had seen him helping her. But she wills it away as she stands up and throws her bag over her shoulder in a swift movement of her arm, because she’s not going to let her doubt or anxiety keep her from going over and plopping down right next to him. She knows how boring it is to sit alone, and how terrible the wish of having someone to sit with is.

The look of confusion the boy gives her when she sits next to him calms her nerves, as it’s not an angry look or a disgusted one – it’s confusion of the fact that the seat next to him had suddenly been filled, and she suspects it hadn’t been filled in quite some time; but she knows it’s never going to be empty again.

A friendly greeting and a ‘how are you?’ falls from her lips, and the ease at which the sounds escape her causes surprise, as she’s always had trouble talking with people, especially those she wasn’t close to. But the surprise is long forgotten soon enough, as the boy’s lips pull into a small smile, and although it is small, it seems to light up the whole room, and she feels a warmth spread through her chest at the realization that she had caused such a reaction.

As they continue to talk, words slip off of her tongue with an ease she’s never had before, the conversation flowing better than any river she’s ever skipped stones on when she found herself sitting alone as everyone else played. And in the thirty minutes they’re given for lunch, she’s already found a good friend in the mysterious boy, and she suspects that she’s never going to worry about being alone again.