“I could tell.”
Seth tried not to dwell on the fact that her shoulder was bumping his, or that she could see through Jae’s feelings for Anya. He wondered if he was as transparent about his crush on Nina as Jae was.
“How about you, Seth?”
“What about me?”
“Do you have a special someone?”
If Seth was scared about being transparent about his crush before, then right now, he wished he could bury himself in the Earth. He really prayed that the heat of his cheeks wasn’t obvious, or that she couldn’t tell that he was close to choking on his heartbeats right that second.
“I - uh -”
Just lie. Just say no. You don’t have to elaborate.
“Not really. No.”
Nina nodded, a small smile.
“Not even a little crush on anyone? No one is catching your eye?”
Was she suspicious of him? No, she couldn’t be. They’d only reconnected a couple of weeks ago, so she couldn’t possibly suspect anything.
His phone pinged again. Thank goodness. He took this as an escape, but as Seth went to read the text, he suddenly wished he could drown.
Jae: Go enjoy your alone time with Nina tooooooo ~~ she most defs likes you back (again?)
“Oh! What is he saying now?”
Nina glimpsed over her shoulder and Seth whipped around so fast, his heart pounding. Did she see the texts?
“Nothing, nothing. Uh - why don’t we go somewhere? Is there any place you wanna visit?” Seth asked.
Nina smiled, humming in thought.
“Since we were on a little memory lane back there, why don’t we visit the Art Gallery for a bit? Or we could check out some shops if you want?”
“The gallery sounds perfect. Let’s go visit, I don’t remember what it looked like.”
Nina’s expression lit up, her mouth stretching into a wide grin and all Seth could think was he wanted to be the reason she lit up like that for a long, long time.
The art gallery had a scarce crowd for the weekend. There was a small scatter of people, mostly elderly, tourists, and groups of friends around he and Nina’s age. It was quiet as well. There seemed to be a mutual agreement that the space was tobe respected, that it was a sort of personal moment when one looked at art.
Nina approached one of the artworks, and as they sauntered down the corridor, he felt time strip away, until they were both 15 and 16 year olds again, on a field trip.
They stopped before a painting depicting a man and woman locked in an intimate embrace.
Lovers,it was called. He’s seen this before, back when -
“This is my favourite artwork,” Nina said. Seth turned, fixing his gaze on her.
“All the artworks here always inspire me so much, but this one inspires me the most,” she continued, “Something about the way their love is depicted, how intimate their embrace appears. It’s been my favourite since…”
“Since high school,” Seth finished for her.
Her eyes turned, meeting his, her lips parted in quiet surprise. Seth hadn’t even realised that the memory was tucked away for him to recall, but it’d risen to the surface, replaying in his mind as vivid as day.
Of Nina standing before the artwork all those years ago, telling Seth the same thing. It’d been one of the first times Nina had peeled away a layer of herself to him, the first time that she hadn’t hidden behind her blushes.
