Member-only story
Shadow of a Girl
Who was I — with or without him?
I knew I wasn’t Micah’s type. The first time we met officially, his eyes glanced over me as easily as if I were just a shadow or a fly on the wall. I tried not to let the slight bother me — even as he flirted with my friend Katelyn — but I made sure to beeline away from him and retreat to a corner with my solo cup in hand.
“Sorry Mike’s such an ass,” Tori said when she joined me a few minutes later, clacking our plastic cups together. “He has a one-track mind.”
“Down a girl’s pants?” I asked, raising an eyebrow, and Tori laughed.
“Rowr. Home girl’s got her claws out tonight. Did you really feel that bad, though? There are lots of guys like him out there. Dime a dozen, right?”
“Right,” I said — though no one at the party knew Micah and I were in a freshman writing seminar together. I liked the way he could string a sentence together, it was true, but he liked his female characters a tad too close to the manic pixie dream girl edge for my tastes. But still — there was something about the way he had described first love, like a butterfly trying to struggle out of its cocoon, like a summer wind never to be felt again, that had made me think —
Well, it had made me think he wouldn’t be the kind of guy he turned out to be.
