The Sorrow King by Andersen Prunty Page B

anyone of her beauty would notice either, even if she was quiet and reserved and of his same temperament. In fact, if she was similar to him in personality, she would never acknowledge his presence.
    He saw her at lunch. He did more than just see her. He thirstily drank her image. She wore a tight black shirt that contrasted starkly with her pale skin. The shirt ended just above her low-cut blue jeans, showing a narrow expanse of pale belly. He wondered what kind of underwear she wore. What color were they? He wondered the same about her bra, feeling guilty for thinking these things. He wouldn’t have felt guilty thinking these things about her friends. They seemed to beg this kind of thought. They seemed less innocent than she did.
    The girl and her friends were at the end of the lunch line. He maneuvered himself behind them, standing unnecessarily close but completely unnoticed.
    He listened intently to the girls’ conversation but the red-haired girl did not speak. Then one of the other girls said, “What do you think, Elise?” and he felt fireworks going off in his head.
    The girl’s name was Elise. His first goal had been met.
    Now he waited for her response, for the sound of her voice.
    “ Oh, I don’t know,” she said distractedly.
    He wanted to shout “Thank you! Thank you!” at her, but knew he couldn’t do it. It amused him to even think about what kind of response him shouting would draw. Steven who, for the most part, did not even speak, most definitely did not shout.
    The girls moved through the line, Steven hovering about them like some kind of giant barnacle. Elise ordered white milk and a salad. Steven had the usual junk, lingering back for just a moment, waiting to see where the girls were going to sit. He chose a table that was at an angle to them. One where he could watch her but not be seen, slightly behind but nearly right beside her.
    Sitting down, he made a pact with himself. Realizing his behavior had taken a turn toward the stalkerish, he vowed to limit it to school. Everything was safe within the confines of the school, wasn’t it? Weren’t most kids so bored out of their skulls they would rather stare at girls or disrupt class or something? Anything but learning.
    Sitting there, dictating that pact to himself, he doubted his capacity to honor it.
    There were just too many instances where he could see himself breaking the pact.
    Would he follow her if he saw her out on the street like he had the other night?
    Well, it would be nice to know where she lived.
    No. He was getting way ahead of himself.
    He sat on the edge of the table. It was populated with freshman girls who would be too intimidated by his upper classman status to openly make fun of him or tell him to get away from their table. Anyway, it was a large table and he wasn’t bothering them. He just wanted to sit there and stare at Elise.
    She sat on the bench, the waist of her pants riding down and her shirt riding up, revealing a larger swath of that flawless pale skin. He wanted to know what that skin felt like. She brushed her long hair over her shoulder before she began desultorily picking at her salad. In very brief, almost unnoticeable glances, he stared at her every detail—her hands sporting rounded fingers that were not incredibly long and delicate-looking but still feminine and somehow erotic, the smooth muscle of her forearm as she held the fork, the almost imperceptible way she chewed her food, the way she feigned interest in eating so she wouldn’t be dragged into her friends’ inane conversation. And yes, he noticed all the other things, the things boys were supposed to notice—the gentle slope of her chest, the faint outline of her bra, the way her ass curved into her legs, the overall softness her small frame contained. “Virginal” was, perhaps, the word he was looking for.
    It wasn’t just her figure that held his attention, it was her entire demeanor. It was the demeanor of someone who was beautiful but