Electric Cherry

The first time I saw Adela, she was face-down on the floor of the Kappa Delta house, doing a keg stand while three frat guys held her legs. Her hair hung down like a curtain of hot pink silk, and I remember thinking that nothing in the world should look that good upside down.

I was standing in the doorway with a red Solo cup I hadn't drunk from, trying to decide if I wanted to be at this party or if I wanted to be anywhere else. My roommate Beth had dragged me here. She was already gone, swallowed by the crowd, and I was doing my usual thing, which was standing near the wall and watching everyone else have a better time than me.

Then Adela flipped off the keg, landed on her feet like a cat, and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. She was wearing a black crop top that showed off her stomach, and her jeans were so tight they looked painted on. Every guy in a ten-foot radius was staring at her. She knew it, too. You could tell by the way she moved, slow and easy, like she had all the time in the world and everyone else was just waiting for her permission to breathe.

She looked right at me.

Not through me. Not past me. At me.

I felt it in my stomach first, a little flip that had nothing to do with the cheap beer I'd been holding for twenty minutes. Then it moved up into my chest, and my face got hot, and I looked away like an idiot.

When I looked back, she was still watching me. She smiled, and it wasn't a friendly smile. It was the kind of smile that says I know something you don't.

I turned around and walked out the front door.

That should have been the end of it.

---

Two weeks later, I was sitting in the back row of my Intro to Psychology lecture, trying to stay awake while Professor Hendricks droned on about classical conditioning. I had my notebook open but I wasn't taking notes. I was drawing spirals in the margin and thinking about whether I should drop the class or just accept the B-minus I was going to get.

The door at the back of the lecture hall opened.

Adela walked in.

Her hair was down today, long and pink and impossible to miss. She was wearing a white tank top and cutoff shorts, and every single person in that room turned to look at her. Professor Hendricks stopped mid-sentence. Adela didn't seem to notice. She scanned the rows like she was looking for someone, and when her eyes landed on me, she smiled that same smile from the party.

She walked up the stairs, past the empty seats, past all the curious faces, and sat down right next to me.

"Hi," she said.

"Hi," I said. My voice came out weird. Too high.

"You're Madeline, right?"

"Yeah."

"I'm Adela."

"I know."

She laughed. "You know?"

"I saw you at the Kappa Delta thing. The keg stand."

"Oh, that." She waved her hand like it was nothing. "That was Tuesday. I don't even remember Tuesday."

"It was two weeks ago."

"Same thing."

Professor Hendricks started talking again, but I couldn't hear him. I was too aware of Adela's leg, which was maybe three inches from mine. I was too aware of her smell, something sweet and warm, like vanilla and something else I couldn't name. I was too aware of the fact that she was still looking at me, even though she was supposed to be facing forward.

"You're staring," she said.

"You're the one who sat next to me."

"True." She pulled a pen out of her bag and started doodling on her own notebook. "I saw you at the party. You looked like you wanted to be anywhere else."

"I did."

"So why'd you come?"

"Roommate."

"Ah." She nodded like that explained everything. "You're not a party person."

"No."

"Me neither."

I looked at her. "You did a keg stand."

"That's different. That's performance." She said the word like it had a capital P. "There's a difference between being the center of attention and wanting to be."

I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing. We sat there for the rest of the lecture, not talking, but I couldn't focus on a single word Hendricks said. All I could think about was the fact that Adela's hand was resting on the desk between us, palm up, fingers relaxed, like an invitation I didn't know how to accept.

When the lecture ended, she stood up and stretched. Her tank top rode up, and I saw the smooth brown skin of her stomach, the curve of her waist. I looked away fast.

"Same time Thursday?" she said.

"Sure."

"Good." She smiled again. "See you, Madeline."

She walked out, and I sat there for a full minute before I realized I was still holding my pen.

---

I didn't tell Beth about Adela. I didn't know how. Beth would have made it into a thing, and it wasn't a thing. It was just a girl who sat next to me in class. That's all.

Except it wasn't all.

Thursday came, and Adela was there again. And the Thursday after that. She started bringing me coffee, always black with one sugar, which was exactly how I liked it, even though I'd never told her that. When I asked how she knew, she just shrugged and said she was observant.

She was. She noticed things. The way I tapped my pen when I was nervous. The way I bit my lip when I was thinking. The way I always sat on the left side of any room, never the right. She noticed all of it, and she noticed me noticing her noticing, and there was a game happening that I didn't know the rules to.

One day, after class, she asked if I wanted to get lunch. I said yes before I could think about it.

We went to a little Thai place off campus, the kind of place with plastic tablecloths and a menu that hadn't changed in twenty years. Adela ordered for both of us without asking what I wanted. She got pad see ew and spring rolls and two Thai iced teas.

"You don't know what I like," I said.

"I know you like sweet things." She stirred her tea with her straw. "You put sugar in your coffee. You always get the dessert first at the dining hall. You're not fooling anyone."

"That's not the same as knowing what I want for lunch."

"Then tell me what you want."

I looked at her. She was leaning forward, elbows on the table, chin in her hands. Her hair fell over her shoulders, and the late afternoon light caught the pink, made it glow. She was so close I could see the little freckles across her nose, the ones that didn't show up unless you were looking.

"I want you to stop doing that," I said.

"Doing what?"

"Acting like you already know everything about me."

She tilted her head. "But I do."

"You don't."

"I know you're scared." She said it without changing her tone, like she was commenting on the weather. "I know you've been watching me since the party. I know you think about me when you're alone in your room. I know you're trying to figure out if this is real or if I'm just playing with you."

My throat felt tight. "And which is it?"

She smiled, and this time it was different. Softer. "Both."

The food came. We ate. We didn't talk about it again, but something had shifted. I could feel it in the air between us, a pressure, a promise. When we left the restaurant, she walked me back to my dorm, and when we got to the door, she didn't say goodbye. She just looked at me for a long moment, then reached out and tucked a strand of hair behind my ear.

"See you Thursday," she said.

I watched her walk away, her pink hair swinging against her back, and I knew, with a certainty that scared me, that Thursday was going to change everything.