Brooklyn:

Afterward he smiled a little half smile. The kind that cannot be stopped, but that does not want to seem too happy or overjoyed.

The way it got started is that he was in my afternoon Photography class. He always sat way in the back, at the corner desk. He wore a sweatshirt with a hood, the first day I noticed him. 

But it was not difficult to see that he was good looking. He had a suave quality that cannot be carried off by just any guy. He was naturally suave. But I don’t think he knew it.

And his brooding eyes were noticeable even below the hood. They were an indescribable color. And looked to be a greenish blue that I had never seen before. 

When I had looked back, after the class was over, his eyes looked to be a kind of astonishing speckled brown. So they definitely had changed color, maybe with the amount of light. 

But the light had not really changed at all, because there were no windows in this particular classroom. 

So his eyes were a bit of a mystery.

After the class was over I had turned toward the back corner of the room.  

Leo had been looking right at me. 

Well another day, another time, I told myself. 

And I could tell that he did not want to be there. But that he had been pleasantly surprised to, well, see me. 

You know, I could just tell. A girl can tell these things. Especially a girl that might be curious about him too.

He had smiled his half smile. The kind that cannot be stopped, but that does not want to seem a bit too happy or overjoyed.

Who knew which class he had next? Or if he would even be there tomorrow.

But I had my “extreme” Spanish class next, and it was clear across at the other end of the upper hall.

And I was not going to be late again this week, especially this day when the test was beginning right at the start of the class. I would need all the time I could muster, to complete her lengthy exams. 

My Spanish teacher prided herself on making her exams “College quality, so we would be ready,” she had said. And she did not hesitate to cram as much as she could into a test that could take no more than fifty minutes.

* * * 

Leo:

I saw her first as she breezed right into my Photography class, carrying her black heavy backpack with the red water bottle in the side pocket. 

Did she really need all that stuff? 

I had next to nothing with me at my desk. Not even my laptop today.

How I would love to have her want to sit next to me. But she probably would not be coming all the way to the back where I was.

I could sense that she was grounded to this time. And to this room. She wanted to be there. 

Or rather, she was fine with being there. 

It was just matter of fact. And I really did not understand this. How anyone could just be acceptably happy to be here. She was not puppy dog happy, but actually pretty close. 

Me, on the other hand? I did not want to be there. Did I ever really want to be at school? But something about seeing her made me calm, and hopeful.

I was always daydreaming about getting out of here and not having to sit and listen for so long to the dreary lectures, about what did you say? 

Pythagorean theorem?

And just why would I ever need to know this?

I had a feeling that maybe in some previous life I had learned this stuff so extremely well, that it had served me then. 

But not now. 

I just was not meant for it, in this lifetime. And in this place. Of earth? Is that what I meant?

I was not sure. But something pointed to geometry maybe making more sense if you were on a different planet, and maybe that is what it was actually meant for.

Like the pyramids in Egypt. 

Someone had told me once that they had heard the pyramids might be built by those within a society that was not from earth. 

Because of how precisely they were built. With all the exact measurements. 

Maybe they used the Pythagorean theorem.  

Would that even be possible? 

My mind was wandering. It was better than listening to the lecture though.

But I didn’t want to end up like Ryan. And I wouldn’t.

Him leeching off my mother was so absolutely repulsive. 

A grown man. And how could she let him? 

After my father had died, how is it that she had ended up with Ryan?

He was a few spry years younger than her. 

My dad had been about three years older than her, and had been her anchor. He had been much wiser than Ryan, in more ways than he would ever know.

When my mom would fly off the handle about something, he would wrap his strong arms around her and say in his Irish accent, “Jennifer you need not do this.” 

“Breathe, Jennifer,” he would say slowly.

”My sweet Jennifer, you are so loved.”

He would gently move the matted hair that was sticking to her face from the tears, away from her eyes so he could see them better.

“I love you. Your son loves you.”

“Sit yourself down on the couch. I will bring you some tea,” my dad would say to her.

”My dear, what has happened?”

”Why are you crying so? What has happened?”

No, that did not happen now. 

Now when mom was sinking into overreacting about something and pacing down the hall, Ryan was busy ordering something to be shipped to him. 

Or sunning himself on our front lawn. 

Maybe he could just use the backyard next time, where the neighbors wouldn’t have a view of him.

The last time, in his bathing suit, he had dragged the lawn chair clear over to the front yard from the back.

Once he got to the front lawn, he had set the chair down with no apparent difficulty. And he placed the chair right where the sun was, of course. 

In fact, the sun was shining right over my mother’s newly planted marigold flowers next to the lawn. 

And so Ryan had casually placed the chair right there, breaking the fiery orange pom pom tops right off of the marigolds. 

But Ryan did not concern himself with this. 

He was holding some kind of an iced drink that only someone his age would drink. 

And he sipped it as he gazed out, cooly, over the rooftops of the neighbor’s houses. 

I really didn’t need to know what his little icy drink was. 

Alcohol in there, Ry? I would have asked him if I really had felt like really getting on his feeble nerves.

Good god, it was eleven o’clock in the morning. And my mother was at her job.

Ever heard of a job, Ryan?

He was wearing his new Oakley sunglasses.