His head was heavy in my lap, but I wasn't about to complain. The rattling hum of the subway faded, in my focus on this one thing, on the boy lying casually on the seat beside me, using me for a pillow. The brush of his hair against my arm, the lingering touch of his fingers on the back of my neck, were important, precious. I leaned over him, looking into his eyes.
“I knew it,” he said. “I've seen you looking at me. I liked it. Did you think it's a coincidence that we meet up in the doorway so often, coming and going from class?”
Well, I was a math major and there were four hundred students in calculus, more than half of us guys. I could calculate the odds. I shook my head.
“I've smiled at you,” he whispered. He wriggled a little closer to me and the weight of his shoulder on my thigh felt like pure vibrant life. “I meet your eyes every time you look my way.”
I wanted to say I had noticed. I wanted to say I remembered everything he wore, every question he asked. I was getting a B in class for the first time in my life, distracted by his presence in the next seat over, worrying when he sighed over a quiz, ignoring mathematical confusion in my general life confusion. I wanted to tell him I had been paying attention. I leaned further forward.
A heavy-set guy with pants falling off his hips and a dirty hoodie brushed past my bent head with a grunt of, “Don't block the fucking aisle, dude.”
That beloved weight on my lap vanished like a soap bubble, imagination colliding with reality. I was alone, on a dull, stale-smelling subway car, going home to my stupid single room as I had so many times this quarter already. I sat back and lifted my backpack off the floor. I hugged it against my chest. Its weight was cold and hard, and not warm breathing life. The seat beside me was empty, as always.
This really and truly sucked. We were weeks into the quarter and I was frozen, struck stupid and dumb, still scared of what he'd do, what he'd say, if I made a move. But how could being brushed off be worse than never trying? I took a deep breath, and pictured his face, finding courage that I'd no doubt gain and lose a hundred times in the next twenty-four hours. I'd made these plans before. But this time felt different.
Tomorrow when we pass in the doorway for that improbable seventeenth time, I will ask his name. Tomorrow I will tell him mine.
####
Designing Sam
~Picture prompt: A slim girl with dark hair stands in front of her full-length mirror, looking into it. From the mirror, a muscular young man with the same hair and eyes stares back.