First meeting

A sudden gasp drew my attention to the glass-paneled door and I managed to see the end of the perfectly executed cartwheel.

Who had it been? I had always been a fan of people who were flexible and agile with their bodies, partly due to the fact that she herself was such a klutz when it came to anything acrobatic.

The squeak of the black marker on the whiteboard brought me back to class and I tried to focus on the notes provided by the lecturer. It was her first years at University and Jade was determined to top the class. Success, be it in studies or love had always eluded me. Whenever I participated in a race, I came fourth and when I participated in art competitions, I always stopped just at the bottom of the podium...but I vowed that all this was going to change.

At that moment, the door was pushed wide open and a group of five boys came in. They were all in the same class as me, but I rarely paid attention to them. Apparently, one of them must have done the cartwheel. Which one of them was it? My heart started beating faster, I was not used to being so close to boys to whom she was not related, having studied in a girls-only school.

"How stupid can you be, Ash? Fawning over a boy whose face you did not even properly see...," I berated myself.

I forced my gaze back to the whiteboard, trying to slow down the pounding of my heart as one of the boys' hand briefly brushed against a strand of my hair on his way to the back of the class.

The lecturer, Mrs Cheng, was about to return the test scripts she had already marked and as names were gradually called out, I got mine.

"Hey, not bad. 12 over 15 marks," I thought to herself.

Just then a script was passed to a student behind me and I saw the 13 over 15 marks. Who could have got better marks than me? My eyes followed the script up to the pale white hand which was holding it. A splattering of fine hairs on the forearm gave it a delicate air. My eyes moved upwards and I encountered the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, hidden behind a pair of glasses. A delicious hazelnut latte with a dash of minty green joy, sparkling with glee.

It belonged to one of the boys who had just come in class and just looking at him increased my nervousness.

"Be still my heart. He's not even looking at you."

Indeed, he just turned around and went back to his seat. What did Sue tell her his name was? Dave... I kept thinking about the name and I did not even realize it, but class was already over and I was still sitting awe-struck. It had been a very short class as the lecturer had an urgent meeting.

I felt like I was trapped in a badly-written sitcom here the heroine fell in love after a mere look. This is what happened when you focused too much on your studies, ignoring the opposite sex. What was I to do? So this is how it feels to have a crush on a real live human, rather than crushing on a celebrity you knew you would probably never meet. I remembered my first crush, Alessandro. It was a boy I had met in theater class. He had got the main lead, while I got one of the minor characters. I just loved his accent and the way he was so passionate about his acting. I had felt really lucky when he had started traveling in the same ride as me each night. Once, he sat next to me and I had worn a skirt on that day. In trying to give him more space, my skirt had hiked up, revealing my upper thighs, which I had never noticed before, were quite hairy. What I thought could be an exciting moment turned into embarrassment. It was on the next day that I started shaving my legs and during Alessandro's performance on stage, I would keep rubbing my legs together in order to enjoy the smoothness. It also reminded me that the next time I would get to sit next to him, my legs would look great. So I kept thinking about him and enjoying my little fantasy world, until the last day of the performance when I learnt that he was gay. Since, I had been quite apprehensive about my encounters with boys.

Well, I did hope that at least class was indeed going to be more interesting now....