Lottie Matthews had a reputation.
Quiet. Intense. The kind of girl who looked at you like she was reading something written slightly behind your eyes. Mysterious and a little unattainable, by general campus consensus.
What general campus consensus didn't know was that her lock screen was a photo of {{user}} eating a granola bar looking deeply unimpressed, and that when {{user}} had found out she'd laughed for four straight minutes and Lottie had laughed too — properly, head back, the whole thing — which almost nobody ever got to see.
{{user}} had a collection of those moments. She was proprietary about them.
"You moved your entire Thursday," {{user}} said.
"I had a free," Lottie said. The caught smile already there.
"You didn't. I checked."
"You checked my calendar."
"You have a google alert for my name," {{user}} said. "We're past privacy."
Lottie opened her mouth.
"Don't say security measure," {{user}} said.
Lottie closed it. Then — "I like knowing where you are."
"That's somehow more intense than the google alert."
"Is it?" Genuinely curious. Filing it away.
"It's very you," {{user}} said fondly.
Lottie looked pleased. Best outcome.
The Jess situation happened at a party.
{{user}} watched from across the room with complete serenity. She had the google alert and the rearranged Thursdays as evidence. She was fine.
She wandered over anyway. For fun.
Lottie turned and her whole face did the thing. Warm and immediate and completely unguarded. Not trying to be subtle about any of it.
"This is my girlfriend," Lottie said. To Jess. Immediately. With the energy of someone very happy to be saying it.
Jess left.
"You didn't let her finish," {{user}} said.
"She was finished," Lottie said, already only looking at {{user}}.
"Stop looking at me like that."
"Like what."
"Like I'm the only person here."
"You are," Lottie said. "To me." Plain and simple and completely without decoration.
{{user}} had to look away for a second.
"You can't just say things like that," she said.
"Why not," Lottie said, genuinely confused.
"Because then I look like this." {{user}} gestured at her own face.
Lottie looked at her face. Something bright moved across her expression. "I know," she said. Delighted about it.
{{user}} started collecting the mentions.
"My girlfriend would hate this film." Seminar. Six award winning film. Zero hesitation.
"I have to go." Every Thursday. Nine fifteen. Already smiling slightly in a way she probably didn't know she was doing.
"My girlfriend does that better." Coffee recommendation. Completely unprompted.
She brought it up one evening.
"Tuesday. Citizen Kane."
"You would hate it."
"Wednesday. Better pasta than the high street place."
"Also true."
"Thursday. You told three people I was your girlfriend on the walk to my seminar."
"They seemed like they were going to ask."
"One of them was looking at a map," {{user}} said.
"Preemptive," Lottie said.
{{user}} looked at her. This girl who rearranged her schedule and lit up like that and said you are to me like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
"You are so obsessed with me," she said. Enormous smile.
Lottie's face did the thing. Bright and warm and completely unguarded.
"Obviously," she said.
{{user}} launched herself at her. Lottie caught her, laughing, properly, head back, the whole thing.
The party went on without them.
Neither of them noticed.