I snapped my head up and glared at him, this boy next to me who seemed to say whatever he felt like without even knowing who the fuck I was or where I’d come from. He was a thin thing, taller than me by at least a few inches, but then, most people were. His face was angular and slightly feminine, his eyes big and gorgeously brown. I thought maybe he had some makeup on, but I couldn’t be sure. His long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. A lock of it fell down onto his forehead, curving around his eye.
He was pretty, this boy. There seemed to be no other word for it.
“I’m not crazy,” I finally said.
He sighed. “Oh. Well, that’s no fun, then. There is a distinct lack of crazy around here, and I thought maybe you could help change that.” He looked out across the plaza in front of the library as he adjusted the scarf around his neck. “You’re that smart kid everyone talks about, huh? I thought all geniuses were a little bit crazy, at the very least.”
“I never said I was a genius.” I learned rather quickly that most people here didn’t know what to make of me. I was more of an oddity than anything else, at least to the other students. My professors treated me like some kind of wunderkind, which I suppose I was, but it didn’t help my standing with others. I was too young for them, and too smart by a mile. The first year here hadn’t gone like I thought it would.
“That’s what everyone else is saying,” the boy next to me said. “And I saw that interview you did with The Dartmouth. Very… interesting.”
The student newspaper had interviewed me a few weeks ago. I hadn’t wanted to do it, but Bear and Otter said it might look good if I was going to try for an exchange program down the line. “Why ‘interesting’?”
The boy shrugged. “I don’t know. You came across… smug.”
“Smug?” I exclaimed, outraged.
He laughed. “MENSA?
College at sixteen on a full ride? Schools begging for you left and right? I’d be a bit smug too.”
“I’m not smug!”
“Arrogant?”
“No!”
“Condescending?”
“Of course not.”
“Crazy, then,” he said.
“You’re a big, gigantic dickhole,” I said.
He arched an eyebrow at me. “It’s comforting to find out that crazy smart kids can still be reduced to calling someone a ‘big, gigantic dickhole.’ I’m Corey.” He held out his hand and smiled at me. It really was a great smile, and didn’t I feel my heart skip a beat or two?
I think I might have.
It took me a moment to understand what he wanted. I don’t think I could have been more socially awkward had I tried. When it finally hit me that he was waiting to shake my hand, a good thirty seconds had gone by and I was pretty sure that sound I was hearing was any pride I had left dying a slow and painful death.
He started to pull his hand away and a weird look came over his face, so I shot my hand out to shake his. I missed his hand by at least seven inches and ended up accidentally punching him in the stomach instead.
“Oh, Jesus!” I cried in horror. “I’m sorry!”
“Do you often hit people who save your life?” he asked with a grimace as he clutched his stomach.
“I wasn’t dying!”
“This is why most people tend to mind their own business. They’re afraid of getting assaulted.”
I put my face in my hands and groaned. “I was just trying to shake your hand!”
“So is that why you hit me? I didn’t know you had an aversion to hand shaking. You could have just said so. Is it part of your religion? Or maybe you have mysophobia. That’s a fear of germs. Or maybe it’s actually chirophobia. That’s a fear of hands.” He looked down at his hands. “I have very nice hands. Perfectly manicured and everything. Now I feel extraordinarily insulted. You don’t have to be rude, you know. I did save your life, after all.”
I’d never felt more flustered in my life. “I’m not scared of your hands!” To prove my point, I reached out, grabbed his hand, and held it in my own. “See? And I know what mysophobia is. I am smart.”
He grinned. “Ah! There’s the smugness.”