Excerpt: Liaison

He smiled, “You looked so thoughtful and wrapped up in the book, so I wanted to see what you were reading. By the time I got over here I could tell, but being so close and then not doing anything seemed stupid, so I decided to at least attempt a little small talk. I know, you didn’t want to be bothered, and yeah, I can tell that you’re isolating yourself what with your sitting all the way over here away from everyone else. We’re already a month into the year, no one sits alone if they can help it.
“Anyway, you had such an intensely thoughtful look on your face, and I kind of wanted to know what you were thinking. I want to get inside your head, which I know sounds really awkward, but I like learning people’s stories, and I think you must have a whole lot of interesting ones. Obviously, I can’t just go around picking the brains of random strangers I see in the cafeteria, so I introduced myself, and then I recognized you from Intro to Theatre, so I spring boarded from there. I’m sorry if that’s really weird. If you want we can just pretend this never happened and I won’t bother you again. Or we can pretend this never happened and start over… Or we could just keep going because I think that pretending things haven’t happened is silly because we know they did, so why not just move on while still acknowledging what already happened.”
Penny just stared at him for a moment, attempting to take in everything he had just said. “You are very weird, but I can respect that,” she said, “And I agree, pretending that this did not happen would just be stupid. So, now that I’m significantly less creeped out by you and what you’ve done, maybe we should get to know each other a little better since you seem set upon being my friend."