Chapter 7 - Chapter 6: Theory of a player

Chapter 6: Theory of a player..






Thursday: Russ-time again. The night before, after scribbling a few final things down in my notebook, I was thinking about what could be interesting to investigate about Russ. Then I thought back about my theory. It matched perfectly with his weird behaviour yesterday, his remembering unimportant and stupid stuff related to me (like with the dishes; and him always treating me to a loaf with cheese, which I could never get my hands on at breakfast; or why I was the only person he’d lay his arm on their shoulders; etc.). The exams were only a few weeks away, and I was still the only girl uncrushed. Time was running out, he needed to be more aggressive to establish his ‘all-girls-dated’-mission.





I decided to experiment on him a little. First experiment would be all about confirming. Confirming it was indeed his intention to make me fall for him. But how?





During all my classes that day I was only brainstorming. How would one make sure such were a guy intentions? Leaning in for a kiss perhaps? But I didn’t want to kiss him. One’s first kiss should be special right? Not for the sake of an experiment.





And after so long not having shown any sign of interest (did I?), it would be weird to suddenly move in for a smooch. So… flirting? How the hell is that done? I also heard somewhere that if a guy wants you bad, he’ll go to any extend for you. So… if you got a flat tire on your bike some miles away, would that mean he’d cycle all the way over there to give you a ride back home?





But why would I cycle some place far, I never had a reason to.





Maybe I should just wait for him to give more obvious signals.





I decided to just see how today would go and if the opportunity happened to open up, I would try to stimulate the process a little for more convincing proof. Though I didn’t real know how to stimulate something. But one always fails when one doesn’t even try.





After school we did our usual walk. Russ seemed to have nothing planned, thus we were walking towards the shopping mall. The usual leftarm was lying at the usual spot on my shoulders, while Russ was talking his usual chatter and I was as usual looking around. A couple passed us by, walking in, more or less, the same manner, except that the girl was pressing herself lovingly against her boyfriend’s body.





There was a plan.





And so I moved closer towards Russ, wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head half on his chest, half on his shoulder. It was as uncomfortable as hell. How could this be a cosy way of walking, it was darn annoying! My head was forced to move along with the movements of his chest and because we were walking, his chest went slightly up and down. My head, following this movement, got sick of it.





Just a little bit more, I told my head, just bear with it a little bit longer.





As I was off thinking how not cool this way of walking was, I suddenly noticed that it was peculiarly silent. Russ wasn’t talking anymore. Huh?





As I tried looking up without moving my head too much (I didn’t want him to notice that I was trying to find out his expression), I saw a very… weird looking Russ. His eyes were wide open, his mouth was nothing but a straight line. It looked like he was about to break into a nervous sweat, and he did. Not so much on his face, as on his hands. With his face stuck to the same expression, looking straight forward, seemingly afraid to look down, he swallowed hard, and then slowly, awkwardly moved his arm down to my back, his hand on my arm, pressing me just a little bit closer. He swallowed another time and I could feel his hand getting sweaty, sticky against the sleeve of my shirt.





Well, that either confirmed my theory, or he was just in shock by my change of behaviour. Anyway, I had enough of this pose and let go. Surprised, he immediately released me.





He cleared his throat, swallowed, and cleared it again. He turned his gaze to the right, looking away from me. I observed the line of his chin (even in this ¾ perspective his face looked good, did he not have a bad angle?) and then went back to gazing at street gutters and crowds and cars passing by. Though, not for long this time, for suddenly I felt someone shyly grabbing my fingers, loosly, with their own fingers. I turned my focus back on Russ, who was still looking away from me, but his head wasn’t turned enough, and his hair was not long enough, to hide the red of his cheeks.





Okay, that definitely confirmed it, but now what? Just keep on walking like this? Only lovers walked like this, unless you’re two girls. But Russ was no girl, so this was definitely a sight of a couple walking.





“I need to take a dump.” I figured this was an always possible excuse, good for multiple use.





I let go of his hand (not that I was really holding it) and walked back, not looking back at the person I left behind.





When I arrived at home, it took me a while before I could scribble anything down. I began to doubt if it really was an ‘all-girls-dated’-mission he wanted to fullfill. Would one blush like that, when one’s not serious about the other party? I must admit, finding out how far he would go, what whole new sides of him he would show if I would still carry out these experiments, it caught my interest quite a bit. But I didn’t feel anything love-like towards him. I admired him, I liked being his friend, just as I liked being Maya’s friend. I knew they would never leave my mind, I would remember them always. But did I have that guarantee? Would they always remember me?





I learned a long time ago that other people, no matter how close, will find it easy to completely abandon me out of their life. If I wanted a permanent place in their lives, then I needed to do something unforgettable. Something drastic.





My pencil hit the paper and wouldn’t let go until late at night, long after the snoring of my father filled the house. When I was younger I made a song on that snoring-sound. Sometimes when the night became darker than black, I would sing it and cry, not able to fall asleep because I wished too hard I would. And since the snoring never stopped until morning came, I could sing it until my throat hurt from the mixture of tears and unstoppable singing. But tonight, the night didn’t seem dark at all.

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