No one had called her pretty before. Not that she could remember.
She looked away, not sure how to react or what to say. Then, when he didn’t look away but kept staring, taking her in, actually seeing her, she looked down at the floor and kept her eyes there, studying the broken pattern of cracked linoleum next to the restrooms.
“You’re really pretty,” he repeated.
His voice made her feel restless. It was unsettling and thrilling and a little frightening, all at the same time.
She was hoping he’d move on, get his coffee and leave. It felt like this was some perfect moment that had arrived and if he stared long enough, she would have to look up and he would see that she wasn’t pretty at all. Then the spell would be broken.
And Kristin so wanted the spell to hold. Now she’d heard them she wanted to take those words home with her. To maybe believe they were true. That she was pretty. That she was worth a boy looking at.
“Hey,” he said.
His hand reached out, pinching her chin between the soft pads of his thumb and forefinger and gently tilting it up. It was like a move you saw on screen. A leading man move. A heart throb move.
She looked at him. Up close, he was even better looking than she’d thought when he’d first walked in. In fact, if anyone deserved to be called pretty in this place, it was him.
He had curly brown hair and huge brown eyes and delicate features, with a perfect white smile. He was good looking enough to be in a boy band.
If she’d had to pick another word to describe him, it would have been kind.
“Thank you,” she finally managed, taking a single step back, and lowering her chin again to resume staring at the cracked linoleum.
“What’s your name?”
She told him.
“Hey, Kristin, I’m Andre,” he said. “How do I get to see you again?”
This time she looked up. Being called pretty was one thing, but this question was too much. She glanced around to see which of the girls from her school were watching this unfold. They had to have put him up to this. It was the only explanation that made any sense to her. It had to be a joke.
But when she looked around, she didn’t see anyone that she recognized. Not unless you counted the mostly elderly regular customers and the two tired-looking women serving people coffee and donuts from behind the counter.
“I don’t know,” she said, looking at him.
He dug a brand-new iPhone from his pocket, the very latest model, released only a few weeks ago, and handed it to her.
“Here. Add me,” he said.
It came as an instruction and somehow that made it easier for her, although she didn’t know why exactly.
Suddenly conscious of her nails, bare and bitten down, she tugged her sleeve over her hand and tapped quickly at the screen, hoping he wouldn’t notice them.
He took the phone back.
“You maybe want to hang out some time?”
“Sure,” she said, resuming her laser-like study of the linoleum.
“Cool.”
Then he was gone. As fast as he had appeared. A mirage.
Never, expected Kristin, to be heard from again.