As their teacher came in she told them to take out supplies for Cornell notes for this first lecture. As they broke out their pencils and papers Miguel’s and Eric’s arms brushed together and Miguel felt goosebumps spread up his arm and across his body. He had felt warmth linger at the small point in his arm where they had touched, and barely registered most of the lecture and simply writing what he heard and then letting it pass through the other ear.

After the bell rang in Eric’s rush to get up from the desk, his paper fluttered to the floor. Being the perfect gentleman, Miguel leaned down and picked up the paper thinking nothing of it at first, then he came to notice, Eric’s sharp, clean and precise handwriting was extremely different than the loopy handwriting he was used to, from Elm's letters. He stared blankly at the equally blank whiteboard, took several deep breaths and tried to hold back his tears. He felt his eyes water, he thrust the paper onto Eric’s desk and said “I have to go to the bathroom I’ll see ya-,” and hurriedly rushed out the door and jogged, deaf to the noise around him, to under the bleachers.

Once he looked around to confirm that nobody was around he let out a shaking sob with no tears, he refused to allow tears to actually pass his eyes even when he was sad. Why had he been so attached to the idea of Eric as Elm? Did he actually have feelings for both Elm and Eric, or was he just happy to think he had found the guy he liked?

“Holy shit…” Miguel said before just staring at grass until the bell rang for the next class. He checked his watch to see how long he had been numbing his brain and feelings and saw, it was 15 minutes, not so well spent. With a sigh, he hopped back up onto his feet and dragged his feet to his classroom.

Eric glanced up as Miguel entered the classroom with worry etched into his face. “What-happened? Are-you-okay?” Eric said, returning to his old habit of forgetting what spaces were when he was stressed.

Miguel didn’t want to speak to Eric and get further attached, but seeing his face in such confusion and sadness made him say “Fine, sorry about break, my other friends pulled me aside, I haven’t really hung out with them much so they got annoyed. I might, like, have to hang out with them more…”

“Oh, okay. That’s fine I guess, I don’t expect you to put your other friends on hold so you could hang out with me, that would be really selfish,” Eric said with a rejected look he tried, unsuccessfully, to hide behind a big smile. He really was happy that Miguel had friends, he, just, already missed spending time with Miguel from today at break, laughing together, talking as if they were speaking of serious things when they were really discussing the merits of each Dicney princesses and princes. He somehow already missed when they would look at each other over their food and just burst out laughing for no reason. Why did he feel like this for someone he just met?!