Arrival (Part 6)

“Kat…hey.” he said, and the things that Kat pictured that were about to happen, the busy hall was just no scenery. He had been actually capable. Of going straight to her and talking. No MSN, no phone. For a moment Kat was worried, about what the other people might say about this, but then again, what could they say? It was a normal conversation. Or was it?

She told her suddenly annoying giggly friends that she would catch up later, which was for her a nice way to say go the hell away. “Hi.” she said simply and tried to sound as nice as possible. It wasn’t hard. She knew the guy. Kind of a no stranger.

She focused on his tone of voice. Much, much more deep, and adult-like. In the 7th grade, he was always sounding so exasperated, and he used to add this little high pitch ending to all his phrases, and so it made everything he said sound like a command, coming from the mouth of a wannabe-colonel or something.

No more high-pitch. It was hard to depict was he was thinking or feeling. Was it really that important to know these?

She though of the things he might want to say. Hey, sorry for being so mean. I hate Veronica. No kidding, Kat would say. I hate her too. Or maybe, hey, I hate you. You’re not the same. You aren’t either, Kat would snap. She was mentally ready.

“How, how have you being doing?” The typical casual question wasn’t casual at all in this case. 3 years of how she had been doing. The typical casual answer might be able to fit into the context too, Kat thought. “Very good. School, vacations, High School, more vacations. It’s been pretty fun.” she said with a touch of humour, and he smile-chuckled. She smiled back awkwardly. What the hell?

“But what about you? Where is it that you went?” She knew. Off course, she wasn’t an ignorant. But she didn’t want to have a silent conversation either. “Russia. It was kind of weird you know, adapting to it. It’s just so different.” he said and she nodded.

Russia. Not only was it so far away. So different too. What had he been doing there? Why did she want to know?

The bell rang, and Kat didn’t know whether to be grateful or not. Not like she was used to talking to him already. Not that she wanted them to remain as total strangers. Reason why she probably decided to ask him out.

“So, hey, we should probably meet someday, to catch up on everything.” she asked gradually. Actually, not gradually at all. It did seemed like she wanted to talk to him. Not good. What if he said no? She’d be so ashamed of herself for being a bigmouth and that would probably lead to suicide. No, it wouldn’t. Self confidence and stableness!

She was blushing, that she knew. But she stayed…firm, and it seemed like a million years for him to say something.

“Yes, we should. We’ll talk later…?” he nodded slowly, as if to enunciate the ‘yes’ part. It was better than ‘no’, anyway. Kat nodded back, but much faster. “Yeah, later on.” She thought ‘bye’ was useless, because technically they were both remaining in the same place. So she simply smiled, and turned back, and tried to back as normally as he could.

It didn’t turn out to be as normally, she noticed, since it was the first time in years she had focused on the normal way in which she should walk.