He's sitting in the library, next to an empty seat. I'm across the table, two seats down. He is writing slowly on his notepad; physics , lines of equations and diagrams with lots of arrows. I've been watching him for a while now, he makes an angry face when he is concentrating; he completely controls the little space around him, nothing is unintentional there. Watching him, I'm not being very productive right now.

She walks up all in a hurry, snatching the empty seat before someone else does. She opens her books with a look of determination, she is going to make progress and that's final. Two minutes later she is staring into space, tapping her pen on the page. The only movement she makes is to repeatedly blow the long hairs from her face, they just move back and forth.

He starts to glance at her between lines of writing. She turns and stares at him for a moment, then looks away. They both turn a little, catching each other's eye, and quickly look away, he at his notepad and she out the window. They start to alternate, making surreptitious glances at each other, until they both glance together, and he immediately averts his eyes, but she doesn't. She smiles and giggles a little, with that tiny, hand-over-the-mouth Asian Girl laugh, and then she folds her arms on the table, rests her head on them, and stares at his face until he finally turns to her.

She whispers, "what is your name?"
Smiling a little, he says, "I'm Jeremy."
"I'm Wendy."
He nods, and his face is turning red. "Nice to meet you, Wendy."
Everyone hears them, nobody looks up but me. They both turn back to their work.

I can see that his hands are shaking a little, his face is flushed. He tries to resume his work, but he can't help but look at her from the corner of his eye. She smiles, and looks at me now. She points at him with her eyes, I don't know what she is trying to tell me. Then she takes her books, shoves them into her bag, and stands up. They smile at each other as the turns to leave, him anxiously. He and I both watch as she disappears around the corner.

He'll be thinking about her all day. He'll be calling himself an idiot, thinking that he should have said something more, something that would have caught her.

I was thinking about them all day, wondering what he would have liked to say.