Cross Fade

chapter 4// laurel green

CROSS FADE

chapter 4: laurel green

[laurel green: thecolor of your favorite freckles in the eyes of the person you love]

CELESTE had love-hate relationship with eye-contact.

When she was younger, her mother had told her that eyes were the window to the soul. She ran around at school, making her friends and crush look at her in the eyes for two minutes. This earned her a "crazy eyes" nickname, but she always came back home with the biggest smile on her face. I opened windows today, she'd say. No matter how weird the moment would be for the others, Celeste's newfound connection to them felt eternal. It was as if all of the barriers a child could put up would fall away, as soon as they looked into her eyes.

Hers, a deep brown, were so rich that one who met them felt renewed. She had never loved a particular part of her body as much as her eyes, her childlike wonder for soulful eyes earned many compliments about the shape, the color, the warmth in her own. They were wide, big with a wonder that never died. Even on the darkest nights, when even rain couldn't drown her sadness and her soul felt too cold for her body, her eyes shone. As if they believed in her, more than she did.

The more time passed, the more Celeste shied away from eye contact. She felt exposed, her own windows were opened. Opting for looking at the person's face or at a particular feature instead, Celeste only looked at the eyes if she needed a true connection. Like before a fourteen-year old Eric Green kissed her, he had looked into her eyes for so long, that she felt as if he knew her, better than she knew herself.

"Breathe, Cel," he had said, his words barely coming out. Arms on her waist, hands shaking, he kissed her quickly, but giving enough time for both of them to nervously smile.

Now, as the older version of him sat in front of her, working on Biology, she wondered what it would be like to look into his eyes again. Barely able to focus, Celeste tuned out of her thoughts and tried to avert her gaze to the bio book. She had put in her earphones, but that didn't seem to help either.

Kieran waved a hand over her face. "Celeste? Hello?"

"Yes!" She tore the headphones out, internally cursing herself. Her daydreams and memories got her in more trouble than her real life. "Sorry. Yes? I was just-uh- trying to focus. But, yes?"

"Focusing, huh?" His head was crooked, as if he was sharing a joke with himself. He'd never met someone who was clumsy with words. However, he'd also never met someone and become so accustomed to them in less than twenty-four hours. The fourth grade days, where he and Celeste were partners on a presentation on a country, were far gone.

"Mhm."

"What's the bottleneck effect?"

"A type of genetic drift leading to the reduction of a population, usually by a natural disaster," she answered, somewhat confidently.

Kieran narrowed his eyes at her, catching the hint of uncertainty. "Good. What's the founder effect?"

"When a few individuals become isolated from a larger population and form a new population," Celeste pointed a finger at him, arrogantly, "thought you got me there, didn't you?"

"How many levels of classification are there in Linnaeus's classification system?" A smug look graced his features.

She froze. The classification system seemed familiar, but she hadn't gotten to revising that part just yet. It was somewhere between five and ten, but choosing a particular number seemed like a big risk to take. Instinctively, she stopped looking at Kieran and turned to Eric. The panic in her eyes alerted him too, and the small smile on his lips made her feel safe.