Say Hello For Me

t h i r t y - n i n e || falling slowly

The sun in the nearly cloudless, blue sky shines brightly over the entire campus as Nessa makes her way down the steps of the stone building, clutching the homework assignment for Art History in the palm of her hand. Even if the instructions on the worksheet are barely legible, she's just glad she doesn't have to lug the enormous textbook from her apartment to class anymore.

When she's halfway across the Engineering Quad, her phone starts to vibrate in the back pocket of her jeans. As she answers the call, she notices students flooding the lawn in front of McGregor Hall. In the distance, she recognizes a familiar head of disheveled blonde curls heading in her direction. Their eyes lock for a split second as Liam picks his eyes up from the pavement, a tug of a grin spreading across his lips.

Unsure of how to handle confrontation, Nessa ducks behind the nearest bush she can find. Unfortunately, the shrub barely covers her head even with its excess layer of foliage. As a result, she crouches down and faces the opposite the direction, certain that it's a thousand times better to run and hide from her emotions than face them. Through the trees surrounding her, the sun's elongated rays find a way to reveal her compromised position.

"Hi," Nessa says into the speaker of her phone, still fighting to catch her breath.

"Hi?" Even though she can't see Liam through the phone she currently holds in her hand, Nessa's almost positive that he's grinning like a little boy on Christmas morning right now.

"Hi."

"Are we going to keep doing this until our phones die? Because if so, we're going to be exchanging hi's for at least another five hours. My phone is fully charged, Nessa."

Nessa pulls the phone away from her ear, checking the battery percentage in the top right hand corner. "My phone is at 13 percent right now, so we'd only be exchanging hi's for another twenty minutes."

"Ouch. That really hurts! Is this your way of telling me that you don't want to talk to me anymore?" Liam teases. "I think I'm almost more wounded than when I realized we weren't destined pizza soulmates."

"Pizza soulmates?" She laughs, unable to picture exactly what he means."Did you just make that up?"

"It's totally a real thing, Nessa. It's all over Buzzfeed."

"I'm sure it is, Liam. I'm not even going to ask you what you were doing on Buzzfeed."

"That's a good idea. So, you're supposed to be the relationship expert, right?"

"Expert? That sounds like a lot of pressure. Let's just say I have a fair share of expertise up my sleeve now from listening to angry old men complain and women cry about their pets."

"I just remembered that I forgot to ask. How is Ferdinand? Did he make it?"

"Ferdinand the cat?"

"No, Ferdinand the Portuguese explorer who explored the East Indies from 1519 to 1522. I heard he's been resurrected from his grave," Liam says sarcastically. "Of course I was talking about the cat, Nessa."

"Well, aren't we quite sarcastic today?"

"As a proud nerd, sarcasm is my only defense in the world. It's not like my brain is going to win fights for me."

"You never know. It could save you, Liam. Did I tell you McDougal finally graded the exams after a whole month?"

"What did you get? You better not have failed me, tadpole. I'll be very disappointed."

"I couldn't have gotten a 94 without you."

"You're cutting yourself short. I'm sure you could've done it all on your own. In fact, I'm positive. We should celebrate, but first, would you be willing to give me relationship advice for free one last time?"

"Am I allowed to say no?"

"No."

"Then what was the point of asking me?"

"I was trying to be nice, God."

"Don't bring God into this. That's disrespectful, Liam. What's your question?"

"How can you tell if someone is ready to start a relationship with you?" Liam asks. "There's this girl I like, and I really want to know. I need to know."

"Is that so? Tell me about this girl. What is she like?"

"She's got this insanely gorgeous smile and these big, beautiful brown eyes. She's even more sarcastic than I am."

"Doesn't really sound familiar to me. Do I know her?"

"I don't think you do."

"Well, darn it. I was really hoping that I already knew her."

"But don't get me wrong, Nessa. She also has her flaws."

"Oh really? And what are those?"

"Well first of all, she prefers Papa John's over Domino's. Can you believe that? She's also a little clumsy, tends to run into things or other people when she's walking. She dropped a textbook on my foot the first time we met. Isn't that just romantic? And lastly, she does this odd thing where she runs and hides behind bushes instead of saying hello. Do you have any idea why she does this?"

"Beats me."

"But the one problem is I'm pretty sure she doesn't like me back."

"A girl would be a fool not to like you back."

"If only she would tell me or send me a signal, anything . . ."

Nessa gets a text message in the middle of their phone call, Vy's name popping up in front of the text on the top of her screen. The notification makes a dinging sound as it comes in. When Nessa goes to open the text, she sees this:

Vy: GUESS WHAT NESSA! Ryan finally asked me out! He's only available tonight out of the week, so I'm afraid we're going to have to reschedule movie night :(

"What was that?" Liam asks.

"It was just a text from Vy. She's going on a date tonight with a guy in her psychology class, so we're going to have to reschedule our movie night. Who's gonna eat all the food I bought?"

"I can eat anything."

"Are you inviting yourself over?"

"Or you could just put us both out of misery and admit that you want me there. Speaking of dates, I have another question?"

"Mmhmm?"

"When are we going to go on a date?"

"When you decide to ask me on a date."