Let me tell you something.

Besides my parents who always got a rush by pointing out my mistakes since birth, I never really found any fucks to give what other people had to say about me, the marvellous gracious human being earth had been blessed with twenty one years ago.

If it weren't for my filthy rich parents, I would have probably gone to some local college and would not come to Yale and meet Derek Callingham, the ideal example of what could be termed as a wallflower. Hell, it was money which got me into this university. I didn't struggle as hard as the other students and I never did either because even at school, I never fell in love with academics like Derek did.

I was blessed with good skin and teeth, but God restricted me in the height section. I was very short, five feet one inch to be exact. So, next to Callingham, who stood at a good height of six feet and almost a foot taller than me, I felt like a midget next to him and that bastard always made it a point to show me that.

Don't even get me started on the number of times he had pulled my leg by calling me shortie. I had retaliated by putting gum on his chair and it wasn't an easy task after that to pull him off it.

But I was smarter and more intelligent than him, so I compensated for that. Derek Callingham was a pansy and a coward who only self moped and whined about how he could never be good enough for anybody or anything.

The first thing that came to my mind when I first saw Derek Callingham was— this boy thought a lot.

And by a lot, I mean a lot. It was not normal for a teenage guy like him to think a lot. At this age, boys were supposed to play games or any sports during the day and masturbate while watching porn during the night time.

Derek Callingham thought and thought so much, it was a miracle his brain didn't blow up because it would probably drive me to insanity if I was in his place.

Before I spoke actually, I had  stared at him for few minutes straight. He had his stupid pencil stuck up his nose and was wondering about something deeply, not even realizing that the way I looked at him was probably creepy.

Quite creepy.

The second opinion I formed about him after we met and exchanged those formal hello's and hi's were, he was incredibly quiet.

He was a closed and guarded person that wouldn't easily open up to anyone. You had to work on him, make him speak and ask him questions and only then he would start speaking.

At first, I thought it was only because I was a girl and he was feeling shy, because I have met guys who were frightfully shy and quiet, but in the case of Derek Callingham, it was not true. He was an introvert, in general.

To be really honest, I didn't like these people very much as I often felt they were too uptight and perfect for their own good who didn't want to "degrade" themselves by speaking to people like me.

Even Kyle, Derek's friend and roommate considered me one and I only tolerated him and considered him a friend because of Derek and I always got an adrenaline rush irritating those people more who got irritated by me easily.

The only people who didn't sigh at the sight of me were Derek Callingham and Alicia Rush, the girl from the library who was in my english class and had a serious problem of scratching her face and getting a rash now and then. I was friendlier with Uncle Harry at the baker down two blocks and our maintenance guy, Mr. Jihn.

I never understood why Derek Callingham never ditched me for others or told me to go away. I would tell myself to go away if I were him because I had been often told I got on people's nerves.

Derek was nice to me and him and Kyle even accompanied me sometimes to places like shops and movies. While Kyle most of the times didn't bother much with me, clearly annoyed with me, Derek spoke to me and listened to what I had to say without judging me.

He used to get shocks and surprises hearing my antics a year ago, but now he was used to it. He didn't get shocked, he simply laughed. I knew even he considered me crazy, I knew he didn't view me as a regular human being who usually did what others did, but I had no qualms as he didn't say it out loud and was quite polite.

He intrigued me. He always let me do all the talking and explaining, giving a word here and there at the right time but shut up most of the time as Kyle chastised me often.

I knew he wrote all his feeling and emotions in a journal, but he didn't know that. I had caught him writing once but didn't prod further. If he had to say, he would say. I sincerely wished he spoke a little more though and reveal what was going on that maze of a head he had, but he never said much.

All I knew about him was that he was from a small town and he had this best friend called Jake who was almost close to being called Derek's lover, had not for Jake's brilliant girlfriend, Olivia who was another friend of his back there in town.

And there was this girl, Jake's sister, Reina who he had a massive crush on. Or better, he loved her, but couldn't do anything because her present boyfriend, Axel came in the picture.

He fervently denied he didn't love Reina in the few times we speak about her, but I doubted that. That boy was still head over heels for her. Whenever we spoke, he went into that all sad and emotional state and then I had to pretend I was snoring to get him to change the topic.

I never saw any of their pictures, because I didn't want to. I wasn't superbly interested in them and specially that Reina chick he adored.

Why?

It was quite simple, you see.

I liked him.

Now, the main question. Why did I like him?

The answer— its because I could and its my feelings. Who are others to say anything? The nerve of them!

I never had the gracious opportunity to like a bookworm guy. It was mostly some swimmer dude or cycling dude, maybe a biker dude too, so Derek Callingham was an exception case.

I was into complete bad boys or emo boys. Derek Callingham was an oxymoron with those terms.

He wasn't hot. He wasn't sexy. He wasn't charming at all. He was cute, like a toddler or a puppy. I didn't find him remotely handsome either. He was too tall and too skinny for me. He didn't have one inch of muscle and if he was any skinnier, it would be just bones and skin. I had always preferred my man a bit buffer. He always had this air of sad poetic ways of life with forlorn thinking and emotional talks.

He always acted like my parent which I hated. Always cool and composed, that was his motto. He observed and watched, but did not speak much when he was with me. He wasn't mute, but he wasn't a talker either. He wasn't loud, rude or short tempered.

He was horribly shy, horribly boring if you asked me, horribly plain with no sense of adventure or a desire for mastermind crime, horribly romantic for a guy (which was again not my type a year back) and horribly lacking a sense of confidence when it came to girls and himself. He was horribly the acute description of an uninteresting person.

Yet, I horribly liked him.

Now, did I like him that much to see him every night in my dreams or think about him 24*7 with a possible romantic future?

Hell no.

I didn't dream much because I slept like a zombie. I didn't think of him 24*7, I was more occupied with certain questions that struck me, like what ants thought or why the universe was the way it was.

Plus, I knew Derek Callingham was still not over that Reina chick and was not ready to be in any relationship. He also considered me as a friend and nothing more.

Did that pain me? Break my heart into pieces and made me wish he would just look at me once in a more than friends way so that 'sparks would fly' and 'two souls would finally become one'?

You guessed it right, its a no again. I always felt like laughing my ass out when I heard those talks.

As if electric sparks would occur if two humans touched. It was complete, utter rubbish if you asked me. I touched Derek sometimes and never had I felt current shoot through me. Load of crap.

You could say that based on these, I didn't like Derek Callingham. He was just a crush that would pass away. He was. He was nothing more than a crush and I had no plans to make it into something more unless he didn't want it.

The problem with me was I considered many guys hot. The list was never ending, but they were all temporary. My crushes didn't last for more than a week or maximum a year. Yes, I would still call my ex-crushes hot and there were celebrities for whom I still nursed a soft corner but thats it.

Derek was in all probability, going to last for another year (that would break a record) and then, I would be off to find my next target.

It wasn't that I would reject him if he came to me. No, I would say yes because I liked him. But I wasn't going to force him.

I barely had many friends, and Derek was one of them. I didn't want to lose my friendship over this thing. It was selfish to keep him to me for my own thirsty needs but I wanted friends like any other.

Nobody liked being alone. Those who said they did, were the biggest liars.

But that didn't mean I didn't try. I flirted with him, always threw him innuendoes. He either laughed heartily at them or grew a deep shade of red, mumbling something incoherent and looking away.

I don't think that boy understood how appealing he was to me despite him not being the true definition of handsome. He thought I always joked, but I didn't.

I swear, he had the most fantastic ass I had ever seen on a guy.

Even though he wasn't exceptionally good looking, those soft, boyish features of his with a stuttering problem with girls was a huge turn on for me. He would laugh shyly or look anywhere but at me when the flirting went too much and I always wanted to show him what actual pleasure could be if he wasn't so darn naivë.

He was the most level headed guy I had ever come across, but he was also the stupidest, meekest boy to be ever born.

It pissed me off sometimes. His extreme closed up behaviour and quiet nature made me want to throttle and slap him tight, knocking some sense into him that flirting was alright and one shouldn't take it too seriously if you consider a person your friend.

But I didn't do any of those.

Why, you ask?

It would be because I liked him and he was one of the most precious persons to me, even if he didn't know it.

************

Author's note:-

And thats a wrap for this chapter. Hope you liked an insight into Nora's mind.

Nora is quite blunt...it might be a little uncomfortable at times. She says things because she wants to and not like she is making a fool out of herself.

Jake is going to come soon!

:-)