On an Edge of Glass

look around and decide that I’ll skip the confrontation and grab a seat one row over.  As I pass, the tall drink of water lifts his head and looks directly at me. 
                  “I’m in your seat,” he says matter-of-factly, folding his arm over the back of the chair. 
                  My forehead crinkles.  I’m not sure whether I should laugh or be annoyed with this guy.  “I can see that,” I say carefully.
                  “You were supposed to ask me to move.”
                  Now I do laugh.  “I was?  I’m sorry.  I wasn’t aware that I was supposed to be following a predetermined script.”
                  He looks a little frustrated.  Deep green eyes move over my face.  “Yes.  You were going to ask me politely for your seat back.  I was going to act confused and apologize profusely and then I was going to introduce myself.  Hopefully by the end of class we’d have plans.”
                  It takes me a few seconds to process the meaning behind the words, but when I do, a slow blush climbs up my neck and over my cheeks.
    “Plans?”
    “Yep.  Plans.”  He smiles and sticks out his hand.  “I’m Evan.”
                  I smile back and shake the offered hand.  He has a firm grip that verges on painful.  “I’m Ellie.  Ellie Glass.”
                  “I know who you are,” he says with a wink as he picks up his notebook and slides from my chair to a neighboring seat.  “Elizabeth Glass, daughter of Brian and Pam Glass.”
                  “How in the world do you know who my parents are?”  Is this guy a stalker or something?
                  He shrugs.  “I’ve heard things.  Your parents are kind of a big deal.”
                  “I guess,” I reply guardedly.  This is such a strange almost-conversation.
                  Evan gestures to the recently vacated chair with his hand.  He smiles.  “Please play along or I’m going to spend the rest of this class feeling like a wanker.”
                  “Who uses the term wanker?”
                  The smile grows wider.  “My mom’s British so I’ve picked up a few things here and there.”  He tilts his head.  “Actually I can do a near perfect accent.”
                  “That must make it easy to charm the ladies.”
                  His eyebrows lift.  “Easy is relative.  I’ll let you know at the end of class.”
    I shake my head and sit down and spend the next hour trying my damndest not to glance over at Evan despite the fact that I can feel his eyes grazing the side of my face and occasionally dropping lower.  He really is cute.  I shift in my seat and clear my throat nervously. 
    By the end of class, we don’t have plans, but after an unrelenting assault, I did agree to exchange numbers.  Evan put himself in my phone contacts as “Evan the Wanker.”  I’ll admit that it made me laugh. 
    Like I do most afternoons when I get home, I drop my bag by the door and hea d to the refrigerator for a drink.  There’s a strange car in the street in front of the house.  It’s covered in band stickers that I’ve never heard of and I wonder if Payton has finally gotten Ben to bring Nick, his drummer friend, over here. 
    The delicate sounds of an acoustic guitar drift to me through the walls and as I pop open a can of soda, I take a tentative step into the hall. 
    The music is coming from Ben’s room.  I walk to the door and close my eyes for a moment, listening intently. 
    After a few minutes, everything goes flat.  It’s not because of the music.  Ben’s playing is beautiful like always.  I’m all flat inside because I know that he’s on the other side of a closed door and that I’m the one who put him there. 
    I can talk about how fine I am all day long and I can flirt with cute, well-dressed guys that say “wanker” and smile at me, but it’s just a substitution for what I really want.  So, why am I so afraid to admit it out loud?
    I place my fingers on the door and think about knocking.  I think about knocking so long and so hard that I almost do.  But this is now .  Knocking on Ben’s door was then .  Before I told him we were all wrong and before he realized what a faithless moron I am.
    This is my train of thought when I hear a series of sounds that are like