The Chaos of Stars

“Isadora?”

I jump, knocking over my smoothie. “Floods!” I mutter, flipping it back up and resealing the lid. A lump of the frozen pink drink is slowly spreading out along my table. I look up to see the culprit and am met by a pair of perfectly blue eyes. Ry.

He’s staring at me like he’s seen a ghost. Even his olive skin has paled. After a few seconds he shakes his head, coming back to himself. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.” He grabs his stack of napkins and sops up the mess.

“It’s not a big deal. Don’t worry about it.”

He finishes cleaning anyway, dumping the napkins in the trash right next to me and then grabbing his bag and sitting down at my table.

“Your hair. I didn’t recognize you before.”

I lift a finger self-consciously to my chopped locks. “Oh, yeah. You have a good memory.”

“No, I mean, I didn’t recognize you when we met before. But now I do.”

I frown. “Umm, what?” Why would he have recognized me before? I doubt he’s spent any summers in Abydos.

“Sorry.” He smiles, his teeth big and white and very straight. “I mean, of course I remember you. I remember interesting faces.”

“Interesting? Wow. That’s flattering.”

He laughs. “You have perfect, classic features. I like it. You don’t look like everyone else here.”

“Lucky me?” I take a long draw on my straw, not sure what we’re supposed to talk about now. It’s not like we’re friends. I don’t even know Ry. Why did he sit with me?

He keeps staring, this strange expression on his face. Finally, his beautiful lips once again parting in a smile like he knows a joke I don’t, he pulls his pen from behind his ear and goes back to the tattered black notebook. He starts scribbling away like I’m not even here. Which, yet again, begs the question of why he sat here in the first place.

“Sorry,” he says, not looking up. “Just gotta get this description down before I lose it. Suddenly I have a deadline.”

“Sure.” I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m drinking my smoothie so fast my throat feels like it’s caked in ice. The sooner I finish, the sooner I have two hands to steer my bike. He’s too handsome. That’s what it is. He’s too handsome, and the way he has his shoulders thrown back, the way that grin slowly splits apart his face, the way it tells you that everything is funny to him and always will be because he is so pretty he can laugh at anything and get away with it, yes, all of that, that is what I will not like about him.

I don’t know why I have such an itching need to invent reasons to dislike him. But it’s important. I can feel a strange something budding inside of me. I refuse to let it take root.

And he’s still writing in his stupid notebook. He’s rude and arrogant. And I don’t like the way one of his curls flops down on his forehead. It’s stupid. I want to push it off, back into the rest of his hair.

No I don’t. I don’t want to touch him. I don’t care to find out if his hair is as soft as it looks. Why can’t I drink this smoothie faster?

“Okay.” He sets his pen down emphatically and looks up at me with a smile. “I always have to write these things when I think of them. Even if it turns out to be crap later, you never know, right?”

“Umm, yeah.”

He waits for a few seconds. “You aren’t going to ask me what I’m writing, are you?”

I shrug. “Nope.”

“I like that. I like your hair, too. The green is a nice contrast.”

“Wanted something different.”

“I declare it a success.”

I roll my eyes. “My life is complete.” I take a few last desperate gulps while he sits there, leaning back, completely at ease, watching me with that infuriating secret smile. He’s probably always this secure. Is he trying to flirt with me? I have no idea. When I’d go out on the rare excursion with my mother, it was easy enough to brush off any hopeful flirters by pretending I didn’t speak Arabic. (Though often as not they were trying to flirt with my mother, too. Blech.)

Unfortunately, I can’t pretend like I don’t speak English with Ry.

“Well, nice seeing you again.” I stand and, to my chagrin, he does too.

“What are you doing?”