Sweet Romance11 min read
Three Years, One Desk, and the Night He Pinned Me to the Door
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I've had a crush on my desk mate for three years.
"I've written books with him as the hero," I say, folding my hands around a warm drink. "Every main character looks exactly like Romeo."
Danna Lopez laughs and nudges me. "Only you would write fan fiction with a classmate as the lead." She never speaks that in public, but tonight she does.
Romeo Evans sits across the table, sleeves rolled, looking clean and calm like always. He is the kind of person whose face makes other faces go home early. He studies like it's a favorite hobby. I study snacks like it's a science. We balance each other, or at least I like to believe that.
"I used to sit next to him on purpose," I tell Danna. "Do you remember when I bribed the whole class with chocolate?"
Danna grins. "You bought everyone Dove and still made enemies. Only you would buy chocolate to conquer geography."
"It worked." I tilt my head. "I swapped seats three times. Fresh start, freshmen, sophomore and again junior year."
"Why?" Gunner Martinez asks from the doorway, peeking in as if he has a map to secrets.
"Because my entire imagination wanted that view," I answer. "Because when I closed my eyes, every boy in romance novels turned into Romeo."
He shrugs. "So you wrote him into novels?"
"Yeah." I look down. "Worse—everything I couldn't do in real life, I did on paper. First steps, first kiss, embarrassing confessions. It became a weird private theater."
"Did it help?" Danna's voice is small.
"No. It made me worse." I laugh and then bite my lip. "Because one day he told someone he had someone he liked. I stopped breathing for a month."
"So you pretended to move on?" she asks.
"Yes." I taste the lie like a lemon—sour but bright. "I told myself it was over."
"Then why is your face not over it?" Danna points at my cheeks.
I stare at Romeo. He is busy opening his textbook like it is a treasure chest. He sometimes drops things on purpose to make people help him; it works. Today he dropped nothing. Today, of all nights, he came to the KTV with us.
"You came?" I say later when we're inside the small neon room. "I thought you hated KTV."
He gives me a single glance. "I was curious."
The bottle spins and stops on him. Danna slaps his arm like she can't believe it.
"Truth or dare?"
"Truth," he says.
"Is there anyone you like?" Danna asks.
He looks at me while saying one word: "Yes."
A tidal wave of noise hits me. "Who?" I ask, unable to help it.
He doesn't answer. Right then Charlotte Carlier—our class flower—walks into the room and sits beside me like the world was built for her to notice every stage light.
He looks at Charlotte for a second, and then he looks at me. I wish my mind had the courage to stop spinning and tell him everything. My chest hurts like a drum.
The bottle lands on me. "Dare," I say before courage leaves me.
"Drink," someone says. The plastic cup feels like ocean water.
By the fourth drink, I stumble. Danna helps me up.
"You're such a mess," she whispers, hauling me toward the door. "You look like you're going to fall over."
"Don't make a scene," I say. "I'm fine."
"Let me carry you," Danna insists. "Come on."
"I can walk," I say, but I don't. Her arms are warm and safe. By the time she sets me down outside, I'm a small, tired animal.
"Do you want me to sleep over?" she offers.
"I think I need to go home," I say.
Then he appears.
"You look like a drowned puppy," Romeo says. He takes my phone from my hand like it's his by right and taps the screen. "You should stop hoarding drafts."
"Give it back," I mutter.
"Not until you stop writing his lashes like miniature ladders," he says.
"Who says I..."
"Okay." He lifts me onto his shoulder. "I'll take you home."
This is not how I expected to be carried. Not by the boy who kept his distance, who was mythic and real at the same time.
"Romeo?" I hum, buried in the fabric of his T-shirt.
"Don't promise anything irresponsible," he mumbles. "I'll get you home."
"You're not my knight." I try to complain.
"Maybe I'm the porter you need tonight," he says, and his voice is like a blanket.
At the door, he sets me down and hands my phone back. He stays until I fumble with the key and then, quietly, he says, "If you ever want me to save your drafts, ask me. It's easier than keeping secrets."
Then he leaves.
The next morning at school, Romeo walks up to my desk and plops a seaweed rice ball in front of me.
"Don't eat the other five," he says.
"Who bought this?" I ask.
"I did." He shrugs. "Eat it."
"I'm not your project," I tell him.
"Are you refusing food from your savior?" he teases.
"Don't call yourself that."
"You're being dramatic." He leans back. "You looked horrible yesterday."
"Because of you," I mutter, and my words tumble out. "Because you had a girl and I—"
He raises an eyebrow. "Who told you I had a girlfriend?"
"Everyone." I said. "You were looking at Charlotte."
He smiles and it is small but honest. "I was looking at you."
My stomach slides down into shoes.
"Stop saying things meant to make me die of embarrassment," I say, but I'm smiling too.
Classes blur into piles of tests. The closer high school gets to the final stop, the more our teacher, Joel Ivanov, fusses. He is a man who thinks order and emergency are nearly the same thing.
One Tuesday, after a mock test goes sideways, I am summoned to his office.
"You've helped Romeo before," he says, tapping a stack of papers. "He needs structure."
"What?" I ask. "Since when am I his tutor?"
"Since he fell off the top of the class," Joel says in his clinical voice. "He's slipping, and you're slipping—backwards into a bad habit of distraction. Help him. Make sure he studies. Do it consistently."
"You're making me his academic babysitter," I protest.
"I'm making you the person who saves his graduation," Joel says flatly. "You won't miss anything. You won't be punished, but you will be practical."
I walk back to class with the weight of responsibility and a secret thrill. He—Romeo—who always had perfect scores, is now letting me steer his grades. The universe is cruel and funny.
"Why are you smiling like that?" Danna asks when she sees me.
"Because the world is ridiculous," I say. "Because I'm supposed to push the boy who has a perfect spine toward better math."
She snorts. "You'll make him hate you."
"Nope," I say. "I'll make him kiss the answer key."
If only kissing the answer key were legal.
The next weeks are a flurry of midnight sessions, scribbled formulas, and ugly fluorescent light. Sometimes Romeo leans over the paper and quietly says, "Explain it to me again." His voice is patient like a person peeling an orange carefully.
"You're not trying to trick me," I tell him once.
"No tricks," he says. "You taught me geometry last week. If it wasn't for you, I would still think 'theorem' was a type of hat."
"That's mean." I poke his ribs.
"You're mean," he counters. "You put pranks in my books."
"I put snacks in your books," I correct. "There is a difference."
"Both effective," he says.
On a hot evening, Joel invites me to dinner at his house to thank me. His wife, Monika Murphy, fusses over me like I'm a niece from a novel.
"You brought a watermelon?" Monika exclaims, her hands smoothing the checkered tablecloth. "You are so sweet."
"I thought a half would be easier," I say, swatting at the flies.
"You're a good girl," Monika tells me, and it's a warm, old-house kind of approval. Inserted in the living room are piles of photo albums, and Romeo's childhood photo shows him with a gap of a missing tooth and a face full of conspiracy.
"Is this your mother?" I whisper as I sit on the couch.
"No, Joel is my father," Romeo says and laughs. "He keeps embarrassing me with photos."
"But why is he calling me 'son'?" I ask.
"Because Joel likes melodrama," Romeo says. "And because he is my teacher as well as my father. Complicated."
The evening sours then sweetens. At the table, Monika turns the talk to futures. She is the woman who fixes small disasters and then moves to the next. She speaks of houses and security and jokes about legal documents.
"If you marry my son, I'll give you half my property," Monika says as if making a grocery list.
I nearly choke on watermelon. "I'm not marrying anyone," I blurt.
"Don't worry," Joel says with a threatening grin. "You'll be informed when the government allows early weddings."
"You're joking," I say, but the thought lands like a soft stone. Romeo takes my hand briefly under the table. "Don't listen to him," he says.
"How about this, Romeo," I tell him later as we walk to the small gate under a sky that smells like rain. "If you keep failing tests, I'm going to charge you interest—emotional interest."
He looks at me as though I've just invented the sun. "Do I get a discount for charm?"
"You're charm-proof," I say. "You can't get anything for free."
We begin rehearsing late at night in classrooms filled with the ghosts of crumpled notes. He looks at me in between questions, and I tell him the definitions like lullabies.
"Why do you work so hard for me?" he once asks quietly.
"Because you saved me from drowning in my dramatics," I answer. "You literally carried me the other night."
He grows calmer, his test scores inching up. Sometimes he deliberately misses a question so I can win, and I catch him and scold him like a general.
"Stop playing with my fate," I say once.
"Stop playing with my life," he replies. "I like it when you make me study. I like it when you bend over a problem. I like the way you solve things."
"You like my problem-solving?" I laugh.
"Yes. And your stubbornness," he says.
The unknown between us becomes less terrifying and more like a small, cozy house. We stop pretending nothing is happening. People notice. Classmates whisper.
"That's them," Charlotte says once, passing by. "The pair."
"Pair of nerds," someone else mutters, and I want to slap their mouths. It is a tiny joy to be seen.
Then, mid-evening, at a near-empty cinema playing a late showing, the world shrinks to the two of us in the dark.
"You're heavy tonight," Romeo murmurs when I curl into his lap, clinging like a child to a pillow.
"You're warm," I say.
"You're soft."
"You're awkward," I reply, holding a thumb in my mouth like a ridiculous toddler.
"Don't say that," he whispers, close enough to feel the warmth of his breath on my ear. "You write my lips wrong."
"What?" I ask, rolling my eyes.
"You write me like it's boring," he says suddenly. "Writing me is boring—court me is interesting."
The words hit me like a bell. My brain rearranges them into this moment: the dark, his arms, the smell of popcorn and someone else's soundtrack trailing like a secret. It is dangerous and tender.
"Write me is boring, court me is interesting," I repeat, testing the syllables.
He smiles, very small. He leans forward and presses a soft, surprising kiss to my ear like punctuation.
"I'll court you then," he says. "If you stop making my life complicated, I will—"
"A deal," I say.
He plants his hand at my waist. "Deal."
By then, the world is not a room of threats but a map of small, livable streets. We study, we laugh, we eat seaweed rice balls. We practice promises without saying promises.
In the last stretch of school, people misread things. Gunnner Martinez, the cheerful boy who once carried my milk tea, holds Charlotte's hand in the hallway.
"Is she your girlfriend?" I ask the boy I had once thought would be a substitute for Romeo.
Gunner blushes. "Yes. Sorry about last time."
"About what?" I say.
"For leaving," he says. "I thought you'd be happy."
"It's fine," I say, and it's true. The little ways people do or don't fit into your life are petty and large at once.
At graduation, Romeo and I take the exam we prepared for. We are absurdly competitive—one wrong move on purpose and the other returns the favor. We plan the plan like thieves. He deliberately misses one question. I do the same.
"Why did you do that?" I ask at the table later as his mother, Monika, fusses.
"I want you to be first," he says. "I don't like having you behind me."
"You would let me be the lead."
"Yes," he says without drama. "Because I want you happy."
He studies, he laughs, he carries me like a rumor. Later, at a family dinner to celebrate results, my mother and his family laugh like two old friends trading stories. My mother, Carolyn Cao—who has a way of deciding fate with a tone—insists on predicting weddings with alarming cheer.
"You're going to be very happy," she tells me. "He's a good man."
"Stop plotting my life," I say, but my cheeks are hot and happy.
When our university letters arrive, they place us near each other again. There is a quiet kind of relief in that, like a wardrobe that fits.
"I'm still keeping your drafts," Romeo says one night, when we share a tiny dorm room and a thrift-store lamp that hums.
"Don't you dare," I warn him.
"I won't delete them," he says earnestly. "Because they are yours."
"Then don't read the ones where—"
He cuts me off with a finger on my lips. "I've read them all," he admits.
I freeze. "You what?"
"I read them," he repeats. "You're a terrible writer when you try to be dramatic. But I like how you make me look like someone worth waiting for."
"You're the one who said writing you is boring," I say.
"I said that because it's not fair that you keep saving your best lines for paper. Use them on me," he says.
"Be more specific," I challenge.
He smiles and, with all the clumsy tenderness of a man who has learned how to be gentle from a thousand quiet mistakes, he murmurs, "Court me."
So I do. I court him with late-night snacks, with corrected equations and with ridiculous love songs I sing off-key. He courts me back by carrying me when I'm drunk, by being jealous in the softest way, by handing me rice balls like treaties of peace.
Years fold, and the little town knows us as a pair who matched each other's oddness. We stop being myth and become a pair of ordinary people who know the other person's coffee order by instinct.
One summer night, under the porch where we first admitted to liking each other, Romeo says, "Do you remember the KTV bottle?"
"I do," I say. "I remember almost drowning."
"You almost drowned," he counters. "And I almost fell in love."
"You already had," I say.
He puts a hand on my hair. "You wrote me into thousands of pages."
"I still do," I confess.
He kisses my forehead. "Then stop. Or at least write the ending: 'She put down the pen and finally kissed him for real.'"
I laugh. "You are such a romantic cliché."
"Better cliché than empty paper," he says.
"Deal?" I repeat.
"Deal." He presses his mouth to mine in a private punctuation.
"Write me is boring, court me is interesting," I whisper back.
He laughs into the dark. "Then court you, I will."
The world has not become less complicated. There are papers and worries and grown-up things. But we have homework, and hand-holding, and nights full of whispered confessions.
"Do you ever regret putting me in books?" he asks on a morning that smells like toast.
"Sometimes," I admit. "But putting you in ink made me brave enough to keep you in my arms."
He closes his eyes. "Good. Because I prefer to be where you can touch me."
"I like you better when you're tangible," I say.
"And I like you better when you stop thinking of tragic endings," he says, tousling my hair like I am a thing to protect.
We plan a future of small ordinary things: waking up to each other's hair in the morning, eating bad coffee, arguing over who left the light on. We practice the quiet parts of love because those are harder than fireworks.
A week before we leave for university, we sit on the same bench where I once hid drafts and daydreams.
"Promise me one thing," Romeo says.
"I don't like promises," I say. "They sound like contracts."
"Then make it an agreement," he replies. "Stay ridiculous with me."
"Only if you stay stubborn too," I bargain.
"Deal," he says, with that single-word solemnity that is the sound of a personal treaty.
We stand and walk back into the town that raised our small story. On the way, a group of kids point and whisper.
"There they go," someone says. "The couple who bribes with chocolate."
I squeeze Romeo's hand a little harder. He squeezes mine back.
"Write me is boring," I remind him.
"But court me is interesting," he says, and then he pulls me into another unexpected kiss in the middle of the street. People laugh; a woman nearby snaps a photo on purpose. The image will ripple through memory like sunlight through glass.
When we break apart, his forehead rests against mine.
"I pumped up your bravery," he says, laughing.
"You carried me home drunk," I remind him.
"Both industry standards for long-term commitment," he says.
"Then get used to it," I answer.
We walk home, our shadows stretching like long promises. In my pocket, there is a phone full of drafts that may never see light. In his pocket, there is a little paper with one line he once wrote: 'Court you forever?'
I reach out and pinch the paper between my fingers like it's an artifact. "Keep it," I tell him.
"We are keeping everything," Romeo says.
"Even the bad lines?" I ask.
"Especially the bad lines," he says. "Because they brought us here."
At the gate, he stops and looks at me.
"One last thing," he says.
"What?"
"Don't ever say you gave up on me."
"I never could," I confess.
"Good." He smiles, and his teeth are bright and steady. "Then don't."
We kiss. It is not a theatrical, record-setting kiss. It is the kind that fits in the middle of a life like a good book fitting on the right shelf.
"Write me is boring," he says one last time, and then he leans his forehead against mine. "Court me is beautiful."
"I will," I promise, and this time I mean it in every dull, honest way.
The End
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