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Watch Over Me(10)

By:Tara Sivec


His footsteps falter as our eyes meet, but he quickly recovers and smiles broadly at me as he gets on and stands right next to me.

"Ten, please," he happily tells the woman standing directly in front of the elevator buttons as he shifts his backpack up a little higher on the shoulder he has it slung over. I stare straight ahead at the closing doors, wishing I could make my feet move to run out of there. I refuse to look at "Napkin Guy" even though I can see him staring down at me out of the corner of my eye.

The elevator crawls up to the next floor and dings its arrival before the doors open again. I silently curse the person who gets on and stands right in front of me, blocking my escape.

"Fancy meeting you here, Bakery Girl," he finally whispers to me in the crowded elevator.

Bakery Girl? Did he just call me Bakery Girl?

I grind my teeth and finally turn to face him, my breath catching in my throat when I see how close his face is to mine. He's about a head taller than me, and he bends down so he can speak without being overheard. I've always noticed how cute he was from a few feet away at the bakery, but being this close to him is distracting.

"Are you stalking me?" I whisper angrily, saying the first thing that comes to my jumbled mind.

His smile immediately broadens and he chuckles to himself as he moves in even closer and speaks right next to my ear, his chest brushing up against my arm.

"If I was, this would be the most boring and depressing place for me to show off my mad stalking skills. This place is sick. Literally."

The clean, manly smell of his cologne is disrupting my concentration, and his nearness and joking manner make me feel nervous. Aside from Meg, people don't joke around with me anymore. Lately, I don't really have the type of personality that begs to be played with or teased in any way.

I take a step away from him, forcing me to bump up against the nurse in purple hospital scrubs on the other side of me.

I hear him chuckle under his breath again as I turn my body away from him and pretend like I am completely engrossed in watching the numbers above the door light up for each floor they pass.

"Are you visiting someone?" he whispers, close to me again.

Jesus, he's like a ninja.

I keep my face straight-ahead and don't acknowledge his question.

"You're not sick, are you? Maybe I shouldn't stand so close. You might be contagious."

His jovial demeanor makes me want to look him straight in the eye and tell him that I am indeed sick, but luckily for him, it's nothing he can catch. He's obviously not going to stop until I give him something. Maybe if I'm mean enough, he'll go away.

"The Stalkers Anonymous meeting is on the second floor. I think you made a wrong turn, Napkin Guy," I mutter angrily without looking at him.

"Did you just call me Napkin Guy?" he asks with a laugh. "My name's actually Zander. And Stalkers Anonymous is on the fourth floor, and they only meet on days when the person they're stalking is busy or when Creepers Consortium is cancelled."

As more people get on and off the slowest elevator known to man, I continue to ignore him, even though it's growing increasingly painful to keep biting my lip to stop myself from smiling at his quick comebacks. When the doors take too long to close after the last person exits, he reaches in front of me and hits the "close doors" button, his arm brushing up against me, and I have to force myself not to shiver.

I glance at him out of the corner of my eye while he stares straight-ahead and hums along to the muzak version of Stairway to Heaven that's being piped through the speakers in the elevator. He looks to be in his early twenties. He's got short, black hair that appears to have been freshly cut by how clean the lines are at the edge of his neck and around his sideburns. He wets his lips with his tongue, and when I manage to tear my gaze away from those lips, I realize he's staring at me again and has caught me practically drooling while watching him. I quickly turn my eyes away and feel a blush form on my cheeks.

I don't know what he's doing here, and I wasn't really joking when I called him a stalker. While I should probably be nervous that he seems to be following me around, there's something about him that puts me at ease. I've kept myself closed off from people for so long that the feeling of my heart rate quickening in excitement instead of dread is a strange sensation. It should make me happy that something has the ability to do that to me, but all it does is irritate me. I don't need some weird guy trying to get in my pants, which I'm sure that's what this is about. Or he's just a friendly person who will talk to anyone no matter where he is, just like my mother.





"I've been lucky. I haven't had any nausea at all with the chemo. My sister had breast cancer about ten years ago and it was horrible for her. She would throw up for days afterward. My doctor still gave me a prescription for Zofran just in case."