But I wouldn’t feel sorry for myself.

I would just leave. Head home. Get something to eat before going to work and carrying on with the life that had been there this morning. And the day before. And the week before that.

This was a lesson learned. It had been an unrealistic hope. And the sooner it was dashed in the dirt the better.

I raised a hand I hadn’t realized was shaking and swept my hair off my face. My skin was flushed and hot to the touch. My mortification still blazing bright.

I took a deep breath and hoisted my book bag up on my shoulder.

And there he was.

Flynn walked down the sidewalk, his head down. Always down.

And then I was following him. I walked into the manicured grass, stepping over landscaped flowers as I pursued him.

I don’t know why I bothered. What did I hope to gain by stalking him across campus? But I kept going.

Perhaps I was looking for someone to focus my frustrations on and Flynn was a comfortable target.

Or maybe it was something else entirely.

My anger simmered. Just like it always did. It was my constant companion. I was a bitch with one hell of a chip on her shoulder. It’s what flavored my experiences and shadowed my thoughts. It’s what made me follow the man shuffling his feet ahead of me.

But the anger wasn’t the only thing I was feeling. There was something else. Something I had forgotten how to identify. It was a bubbling in my stomach. A fluttering of my heart behind my ribcage. A strange sort of anticipation.

And I had felt it before.

With Flynn.

He slipped into the side door of a building on the far side of campus. I entered the door behind him, staying far enough back that he wouldn’t notice me. Though I shouldn’t have worried. Flynn rarely noticed anything. He lived his life oblivious to everyone and everything around him. He had always been a person of single-minded focus.

Flynn entered the door at the end of the hallway and I hurried after him. A long window looked into a crowded art studio.

I could see a pottery kiln and several wheels. Easels lined the wall and tables were covered in a variety of art tools. I hung back and watched Flynn make his way to one of the tables containing a slab of dark grey clay.

He dropped down onto a stool and immediately picked up a long wooden stick with a metal tip. He bent down over the clay and started pulling it apart and remolding it. His hair fell down on either side of his face, his shoulders hunched as he worked.

I couldn’t see exactly what he was doing, but watching him like this was very familiar.

I could easily picture the way his hands stretched and shaped the clay in careful, precise movements even if I couldn’t clearly see it with my eyes. My mind took me back to a time when I had liked nothing better than to spend time with him while he worked. I was hit with déjà vu so powerful it shook me to my core.

Your face is pretty.

I want to draw it.

I like looking at you.

I shook my head. The space behind my eyes started to pound. I should leave. Go home. Forget about this horrible mistake of a day.

But I couldn’t move.

Flynn’s concentration was absolute. His hands swift and sure. The lump of clay forming into something else under his adept fingers.

Then he looked up. As if sensing I was there.

His eyes met mine.

Dark green. Deep and endless. Sucking me under.

I expected him to look away. He always looked away.

This time he didn’t.

The flutter in my chest progressed to violent spasms the longer we looked at each other. I had never stared into Flynn’s eyes for so long before.

I waited for him to start rubbing his hands. It was his tell. How I knew he was upset or angry or ready to detonate.

But he didn’t. And his eyes continued to hold mine.

I was finding it hard to breathe.

And then he lifted his hand in a tiny, little wave, acknowledging me.

I turned on my heel and hurried down the hallway, slamming through the door I had entered through and into the oppressive afternoon heat.

My feet never slowed as I headed back to my car. My fingernails digging into my palms as I fled.

My heart exploded in my chest in a million tiny fragments. All because of a glimpse of dark green eyes that I hadn’t realized I missed.

Not until now in the span of a moment I remembered the people we had once been.

In that flash of seconds I missed those people.

I missed him.

I missed me.

What was I going to do?

-Flynn-

Many years ago…

She’s so pretty.

I really like to look at her.

Her name is Ellie McCallum. That’s what the teacher calls her when he says the names every morning.

Her hair is blue today. Not purple like the first time I saw her.

I don’t like the blue. But I still like looking at her face. Even with the hoop in her lip and the piece of metal in her nose.

But she doesn’t like it when I look at her. She frowns at me a lot and calls me names. Her friends say nasty things to me when I leave class.

Last week a guy with a big nose took my lunch. I was really hungry. My mom made me my favorite chicken salad sandwich. It was my lunch, not theirs. I hate it when they’re mean to me.

It makes me really angry.

I yelled and told him to give it back. He laughed, though I didn’t think it was funny.

But he didn’t give it back.

And I was really hungry.

I ate a whole bag of potato chips when I got home.

“Stop looking at me, freak!”

Ellie is talking to me again. I was looking at the new ring in her nose. Why did she put it there? Her nose is pretty without it.

I point at the ring. “That’s ugly. You should take it out.”

Ellie touches her nose. I want to touch her nose. But I can’t.

I don’t like touching people.

But I want to touch her.

Ellie didn’t call me any more names. She turns around so I can’t look at her face anymore.

Her hair is all over my desk again. It upsets me.

I push it off with my pencil and then start to draw. I had been reading a book about the history of the Eiffel Tower last night. I can draw things after seeing them.

I would count the lines. I would measure the spaces. And then I would draw it.

I could draw anything.

I am drawing now. I will draw something for Ellie.

Maybe then she will be my friend.

When she is nice, I’ll give it to her.

I wait for her to look at me again so I can give it to her.

I keep the drawing.

“Freaky, Freaky Flynn!”

That’s what everyone calls me now. I know it is bad name. They say it before they do something that makes me angry.

The boy with the big nose is the worst. And the girl with the black hair that Ellie talks to a lot.

They took my notebook after school yesterday. They took my pictures of the Eiffel Tower and tore them up.

I yelled. I threw rocks at them. They laughed.

My mom had screamed at them when she came to take me home.

I had cried and Mom had tried to hug me.

I hit her.

Then she cried and I knew I had hurt her. She told me I shouldn’t do that. That I should talk about what makes me mad.

I didn’t say anything.

But I still liked looking at Ellie.

She had a pretty smile when she laughed. She liked to laugh when I yelled.

She laughed a lot.

The teacher tells me to work with Ellie for a paper in class.

Her hair is purple again. I like it more than the blue. But I still hate it.