alter (refashion) wrote in beyond_evo, @ 2019-08-08 14:59:00 |
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Entry tags: | alpha, alter |
Talk right, don't let up. Be funny, be cool, keep running, I can't keep up.
Eli was really starting to regret their life choices. What had they been thinking agreeing to hang out with Owen to teach him about digital art?? Sure, it was easy to have a conversation with him on the network (surprisingly easy, actually) but in person they had yet to exchange more than a passing greeting in the hallways and now they were going to meet after lunch and it definitely didn't mean anything but Eli was 100% going to make a complete idiot of themself. And not because they didn’t know anything about digital art.
They’d gotten to the agreed upon meeting spot (the library) early and were already seated with their things unpacked before Owen had arrived. Which was only making them feel even more lame. It was also giving them way too much time to consider bailing. They could always just cancel and go back to their dorm, right? Fake not feeling well or say something about forgetting that they already had plans with Howie or their brother today? But then what if Owen was already on his way here? Plus then he’d probably just want reschedule anyway. Ugh. This was so ridiculously stupid.
It wasn’t that Eli didn’t want to hang out with him, of course. It was actually very much the opposite and for as much dread as they were currently feeling there was an equal amount of bubbling excitement. The fact that Owen had even suggested it at all in the first place had been somewhat mind blowing to Eli. They’d never had much of a social life to speak of but now they were in a place where they had roommates and people who wanted to talk to them and who invited them out. They’d never before been the sort of person that drew attention or concern from people like Owen (or Anna or Indi or Tommy) and it left them surprised and more than a little flustered any time it happened. People who were confident and outgoing and fun. Who were super smart and traveled the world and were really, really, unfairly good looking.
...Okay so maybe Eli had been sneaking glances at Owen since before they’d struck up an online conversation. And maybe that was part of what made making a good impression feel so vital. And what made knowing that they wouldn’t be able to even more devastating. Maybe though it was better to just get it over with now and get it out of the way. Online correspondence didn’t work the same way when it was with someone who lived in the same, relatively small boarding school that you did as opposed to being across the world somewhere. You could only avoid face to face interaction for so long and Eli felt woefully unprepared for this. Behind a screen or from the panels of a comic they could be eloquent or entertaining or likable.
In the real world, as always, it was another story.
They were doodling aimlessly when Owen walked in, having not wanted to be caught sitting there staring at the clock and worrying the stylus between their fingers like the nervous wreck they were inwardly. Except that they’d wound up sort of losing themself in it so that when Owen did show up right on time he was already about to sit down before they glanced up and realized with a start that he was there at all. Eli set the stylus down abruptly, mouth suddenly way too dry. "H-hi.”