“Yeah, so… thanks for this”, I say as I motion to the comic in my hand. He nods a bit and flashes a polite smile. For some reason I’m hesitant to leave, I kind of want to keep the conversation going.

“Wyatt, right? I feel like we haven’t really introduced ourselves, other than super quickly.”, I say. 

“Yes, we haven’t really… talked much before.”, Wyatt blushes again, the way he stopped before saying ‘talked’, makes me think he was thinking about how much of not talking we did at the beach. At least that’s what I’m thinking about. Come to think of it, he helped me reach something from a high shelf back then too. 

“We keep running into each other, like in class, and here, and at the…”, the words are out of my mouth before I can think better of it, so I just kind of trail of at the end before deciding that there’s no point in avoiding mentioning the beach. It needs to be said, cleared up. 

“... the beach, yeah”, I finish my sentence. 

Wyatt looks up a bit surprised that I acknowledged the beach, I think. 

“Oh, I didn’t think you remembered that”, Wyatt says a bit sheepishly. “I mean, you didn’t seem to recognize me in class, so that’s why I thought that.”, he hurriedly explains. He then looks a bit thoughtful and sad as he continues. 

“I mean, it does make sense, though, to not bring it up in class as you have a boyfriend.”, he says quietly, he looks a bit surprised at himself that he actually said that. “I won’t tell, though, obviously!”, he exclaims quickly, eyes widening. 

“Boyfriend?”, I ask, confused at first. “Oh, you mean, Henry? He’s not my boyfriend, we broke up a long time ago”, I say. 

“Does he know that?”, Wyatt asks, but he looks a bit less sad now. 

“Oh, he definitely does, he’s just being annoyingly clingy ‘cause he thinks I’ll take him back because our families are business partners.”, I say as I roll my eyes. “So annoying, you make out a bit with a guy and suddenly he wants to date you forever”, I complain about Henry, but after I’ve said it I realize Wyatt could have thought I was talking about him, since we did make out. “Henry, I mean”, I clarify. “I’m not saying that I think you would want to date me forever just because we hooked up once”, I laugh. But my laugh is met by silence, because now Wyatt looks almost mortified. Wait - does this mean he does want to date me? 

“You don’t want to date me, right?”, I ask to confirm. Wyatt is quiet and does not meet my eyes. 

“Yeah, no, totally”, he mumbles, finally as he flashes a quick stiff smile. 

I feel we are in awkward territory with this conversation topic, so I change it fast to comics instead. Slowly we get more comfortable and I’m almost able to forget about it all together. Turns out Wyatt was also hoping to read the new issue of my favorite series, but as it hadn’t arrived yet he was also looking for something to read as he waited. We get into a heated debate about what we think is going to happen to the characters in the next issue and it’s the most fun I’ve had in a long time. I don’t go home until much later that day, feeling relaxed and in a good mood. We decided to meet up for the class assignment soon and I’m not dreading it the same way I was before, now I’m actually almost looking forward to it.