CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR:Nervous Guy
It was the last week of school before the holidays, and Lily was seeing Nervous Guy wherever she went. He was hogging the computer in the library so she couldn’t do her research there. He was in the coffee shop one morning when she went to get her morning cuppa. He took the last pizza slice in the cafeteria so she was stuck with mashed potato and sausages. And what was worse, he seemed to live right across the street from the rented house she shared with her roommates.
Frankly it was bugging the hell out of Lily.
So when she was sitting on the porch, eating an apple and admiring her newly shaved legs in the hot sun, and she saw Nervous Guy doing the same (only he was reading a book -- and wasn’t admiring his legs) across the road, Lily wanted to scream.
She took a last bite of her apple and threw the rest in the bushes, wondering what she should do. Stay here and let Nervous Guy bug her for the rest of her college years, or confront him?
She decided to confront him.
“Hey, you!” she shouted as she walked across the road.
He looked up from his book, squinting in the sun.
“Me?” he said.
“Yeah, you.”
Lily was nearly standing in front of him now.
“What’s your problem?” She said, lashing out at him.
He blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
“Don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she sneered, “You’ve been following me around all week, stealing my stuff.”
He continued to stare at her in silence, which bugged Lily even more.
“Argh! Will you stop
doing that?!”
“Sorry, what?”
“That! Stop staring at me like I’m some kind of…”
His confused expression had now changed to mild interest.
“Some kind of what?” he said shyly, smirking a little.
“I dunno!” Lily thrust her arms out in desperation. “Who are you anyway?”
It took a while for him to answer, like he had to consider it first.
“Dirk Dreamer.”
Lily nodded and crossed her arms angrily over her chest.
“I’m Lily, though I expect you already knew that.”
He blushed a little and put a hand over his eyes to shield them from the sun as he squinted up at her again from the porch.
“I did actually,” he admitted bashfully, “We go to the same class.”
Now it was Lily’s turn to blush. This guy had lived in the house opposite her
and gone to the same class as her all this time, and she hadn’t noticed him up until now? What was she blind?
“Sorry… err… This is going to sound really bad, but I never noticed you before.”
“I’m not surprised,” he said and shrugged carelessly, “I’m not a very talkative person usually.”
“Oh. Err, right.” Lily scratched her head awkwardly for something to do. “Well, I’ll see ya around, Dirk.”
He went back to his book without so much as a goodbye, and she turned to leave.
Yeah, that was awkward… Lily thought as she walked up the stairs and in to the house, where she was greeted by millions of Leanne’s suitcases tumbling down the stairs.
“Oh, crap,” she hear Leanne say from upstairs. “Can somebody help me with that, please?”
“Sure.”
As Lily bent down to pick some of the suitcases up, she silently prayed that she would never have to endure something so awkward and embarrassing ever again.
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