Ryan

A week... a full week and four days have passed since I met Julia and we've grown nothing but closer. She's been hanging out with the four of us, and I can't help but notice how fast she makes friends. Only Ian seems to be at guard around her other wise, we all think she's incredible.

I watch her smile, make jokes, and laugh at them. She has a way of placing a hand over her mouth when she hides her smile which does something to my heart. When she wants to challenge someone, she lifts her eyebrow a little and her eyes shine with a mischievous light. Every time I hold her hand, I feel a rush of adrenaline in my veins. I'm totally aware of falling slowly for this girl, but I don't stop my self, because I like the feeling of it.

Today, I don't have any class. Julia has three but still she has promised to show  me her sketchbook. She was very excited, she had made a new sketch in it. I asked her about which room she was in in the girls dormitories, and she said she lived in this separate little 'house'. I asked if it was a shack and she laughed. Since then, 'Julia lives in a private shack.' 

I woke up early today to find every one asleep. Good. I can quietly leave. So I change quickly, grab my camera and leave the dorms to the ground. Cold night breeze hits me when I step out. The sun is right at the horizon so the shot is clear. But when I put the lens to my eye to adjust it, I freeze.

The shack's door opens, and she steps out wearing a black camisole and yoga pants. She stretches, right at her door and I follow her every move with my eyes through the lens. For precaution, I move behind a bush so that she doesn't see me and watch as she stretches her slender arms, legs and back. She rolls her hair into a bun and then rolls her neck from side to side. I feel my neck twitch too.

She then starts running, and I watch her as she runs twice around the whole ground, never once stoping to catch her breath. Her figure doesn't look athletic at all, but this girl does work out. Mid run, her bun opens and her curls start to bounce on her shoulders. She doesn't stop.

She stretches a little more after her run and then goes back into the shack. All this time I watch her every move, thinking to my self that this girl is incredible. She's as perfect as she can be.

When she's gone I come out from behind the bush, and realise that I've lost my shot.

Damn. I hit my own head with a fist. This girl will be the end of mine.

"Here." I put the two breakfast trays on the table. It's just me and Ian today. The others and Julia are in lectures and class, respectively. 

"Thanks." He says and grabs an apple off it.

"So," He says, swallowing after a while. "What's up?"

I, who was  looking around until now, snap my head to him. "What?"

"What's up with you, hunt?" He asks squinting his eyebrows.

"What's up with me?" I ask him back. I dunno what he's talking about...

"Is it that girl?" He asks casually, picking at his food. I tense up.

"Which girl?" I ask, unsure of whom he's asking of.

"The girl you broke up with a week ago." He says, looking up, clearly annoyed.

Phew!... I thought he was talking about Julia...

"It's nothing related to her." I say and dig into my food.

"It's Julia, right?" He asks. My ears warm up. I look up at him. He's all serious, so I don't answer.

"Because if it's her," he continues "your in trouble."

"Why?" I ask him before I even know.

"She's Julia Garfield." He says, pointing every word with his fork. "The only daughter of vice-chancellor Roland Garfield. One: she must be a rich daddy's rich princes. You and she won't last long. And two: you break her heart and her daddy will break your bones."

"How can you say that?" I ask. He's got no right to tell me who I can like or hate.

"It's common sense, Ryan." He says shrugging and chewing. "By all means, do what ever you want and don't mind me warning you. I'm not 'mama-hen' here. But stay alert, and don't come crying when she ditches you for some rich guy's son. You'll think you were in love." He scoffs and rolls his eyes. "Love... There's no such thing as love. It's just a waste of time and energy. What good did all those lovers got from it? Antony and cleopatra, Romeo and Juliet? They all died in the end. It's all just a trap of nature."

His words are the truth, and they almost hit me hard. But I don't believe all that. Julia would never do that, would she? No... she won't.

"Just keep my advice in mind." He says, getting up. He must've noticed the wheels turning in my head.

"Your advice won't work on your self." I tell him.

"Believe me Ryan" he yells over his shoulder, with a quite audible smirk. "I'm better off a lone wolf."

He dumps his try in the bin on his way out and I sit there, watching him go.

No, he's wrong. He's wrong and mercutio was  wrong too. Love is not a waste of time.

I shake my head and soon forget what he said as I eat alone.

Julie

I step out of the last class carrying  an empty canvas, again. It's been a week and I haven't been able to paint a single thing. I'm not talking of the fruit baskets and other still life. Those paintings are waiting to get dried.

My concern is about my own ideas. Usually when I take a brush in my hands, words spread on the canvas in form of colours.  Nowadays I feel mute.

Sighing, I walk towards what Ryan calls my shack. 

...Ryan...

A smile spreads on my lips as I think of him. It's been a week and a few days since I've known him, and he's already got this effect on me. I feel drawn to him. The way he roughens his hair when he's shy, and the way his eyes smile with his cheeks... I feel butterflies in my stomach. I want to touch the dimple on his cheek and see if it's really as deep as I think it is.

"Hey Julia!" Ryan says from behind me just as I reach my shack. I nearly jump out of skin, but recover immediately.

"Hi!" I say, opening the door with my key. "Were you stalking me?"

There is no other explanation to his all of a sudden arrival.

"If you consider seeing you from far away and running here," he says, clearly out of breath. "Then, yes! I was stalking you, Julia"

"Come in." I smile and open the door wider for him. "Welcome to my humble abode."

"Thank you very much." He says, smiling too, as he enters.

Ryan

I enter after her, and she closes the door behind me. I can't help but look around. The place is all well kept and clean, totally opposite to my dorm which is a mess. There's a faint smell of roses in the air and it looks like Mr. Garfield really does love his daughter a lot.

"Would you like some water?" Julia asks making her way to the kitchen Island, and I can't help thinking how good she looks doing that.

"Yeah, sure." I say and follow her, inwardly shaking my head at my thoughts. I pull a stool from the bar and sit across the island from her.

She takes out two water bottles from the refrigerator, and hands one to me.

"Thanks." I really needed the water.

"So, Ryan stalker." She asks putting her half empty bottle on the shelf. I laugh. "How do you do today?"

"Very well." I tell her, mentally arguing with myself about wether I should tell her that I saw her this morning or not. In the end,

"I had Ian to give me company, though." I decide against telling her.

"Ian?" She asks with clearly mock horror. "Didn't he bore you to death?"

I laugh out loud.

"He's not that boring Julia." I tell her. He's more than that, I think to my self. "He just cares too much for those around him."

"By staring murderously?" She asks raising her eyebrows. I laugh again.

"I'll tell him you said that. "

She smiles. "Feel free to do so" she says and makes her way around the island.

"You can wait in the lounge while I bring my sketchbook." She says.

"Yes ma'am" I say, and do as she says.

A minute later, she's seated on the three seater couch. Her sketchbook is on her lap, and I sit by her, making sure that there remains a distance between us.

"Do comment." She says and opens the cover. There on the title page she has written  her name. She writes cursive and writes it very well.

I add her writing to the list of 'things I like about Julia'.

She flips the page over and there is a sketch there. I can't see it properly so I scoot closer to her. Then I realise that it's too much. She's too close to be comfortable. I try to ignore it, and look at the sketch.

It's a little girl holding out a bouquet of roses and it looks so real that it feels as if one can reach in, and take it. The girl is looking a little shy, and she, quite suspiciously, looks like someone.

"Is that you?" I ask and realise that we really are too close. If she turns her head, we'd touch.

"Yes." She nods with a smile. "How do you know?"

"The eyes." I tell her. The girls eyes look exactly like Julia's.

"My mum took the picture." She says. "Almost five months before she died."

I turn to look at her. Her eyes are full of sorrow and I want to reach out and hold her.

"I'm sorry." I tell her. It's the most I can do.

"It's ok." She says, and flips the page over.

The next half hour we sit exactly like this, laughing at a few of her funny works, and admiring her pretty ones. They're all incredible like her self. It's like she writes whole novels with a paint brush or a colour pencil. When we reach the last painting she sighs and says before showing it.

"This one is called 'the stars'."

The page is painted black, a deep dark blue and spread over it, like the Milky Way, is glitter. The back ground  has this  blueish smoke to it giving it the realistic effect. There's a shooting star too.

"It's beautiful." I tell her.

"You think so?" She turns her head to me and...

Julie

Heat rises up my cheeks as the temperature around me goes high by a hundred degrees.

He's sitting very close to me. So close that, now that I'm looking at him, I can see the sapphire blue of his eyes very clearly. His eyes are beautiful. They have this intensity in them which pulls me in, and I want to drown in them.

What is this? I think to my self. Why am I feeling like this? He is just a guy ... like many others. Then how come he has this effect on me?

Before I can ask him that, he clears his throat and pulls away. I let out a breath I've been unconsciously holding. He stands up and I do too.

"Im sorry." He says, moving a hand through his hair. "Oh God, look at the time." He looks at the clock on the wall behind me. "I have to work on...this assignment."

"Okay." I say and follow him to the door.

"I'll see you later, Julia." He says and then the door closes behind him.

When was the door opened in the first place? ...How did I suddenly appear here? ....What is this pounding inside me? ... Why can't I breathe?...

There's a tugging at my chest and I look down to find my own hand pulling at my shirt.  

What? Why? When? Where? How? ... I don't know the answers. All I know is that what ever it is....

I want more of it...