Looking at Emotions: Infatuation

A Story by Chengxi

This short story is about a brief glimpse a pure feeling of emotion. A feeling of infatuation before it becomes wrapped in circumstance and our own misguided reasoning. Innocent and yet powerful.

Jared Francis walked through the door of his childhood home utterly perplexed. His senses were immediately assaulted by the classic Italian cuisine that his mother was known around the block for making to absolute perfection. He was powerless to stop his mouth from watering. This served a dual purpose of both relaxing him considerably and also taking his mind off of the problem he had encountered today at school. He wandered into the kitchen/ dining room that had held some of his favorite memories, still feeling slightly confused. He kissed his mother on the cheek.

“Hey mom.” He greeted. She hugged him back.

“Hey buddy.”

“Mom, I need your help.” His mother raised her eyebrows in surprise. She wasn't one of those parents that went around bragging about her child was the star player of this team, or the most talented player in the school band but she was absolutely sure that if anyone asked she would tell them without a shadow of doubt that her son was a genius. He had skipped several grades and was already a senior in high school at the age of 16. He had always been fiercely independent, which was why she was perplexed by drastic deviation from normal behavior. She decided not to question it too much and go along with it, due to its rarity.

“What’s wrong?” She questioned, turning away from the nearly finished cooking.

“Do you remember lab partner I told you about? He was supposed to help me with the social psychology project, but he suddenly had to move.”

“Sweetie, I had journalism major in college.” She replied confused.

He sighed. “Mom I can do the project in my sleep.” Her son wasn’t really the modest sort, “I have a problem with my new lab partner.” That was odd. ‘Jared isn’t usually the confrontational type.’ She thought.

“Well, what is it?” she asked, truly curious now. At this Jared clammed up.

The problem was that ever since Jared had first seen Carmen Foric, he seeming contracted some sort of airborne disease. He couldn't form coherent sentences. His stomach felt weird and twisted no matter what he ate. But the worst part of it was the staring. Dear god the staring. He could take his off of her silky golden brown hair, or the perfect shape of her lips. However, most of hall he couldn't get over how whenever they had locked eyes, her electric blues seemed to lock his mind and body in place.

“I…… I don’t understand why…” Jared struggled to find the words to fully express what he was feeling. So he settled for the tried and true logical reasoning. It had never failed him before. “Objectively speaking her facial features are aesthetically pleasing to the eye based off of the common response males give her when she interacts with them. She possesses very high athletic ability, which explains her figure, as well as scholastic prowess. She is a very calm person who tends to remain on the quiet side and listening side of a conversation.” And on Jared went, explaining everything he ‘observed’ about his new lab partner. However, his mother completely understood what was going on the second her son mentioned the girl’s ‘aesthetically pleasing facial features. Her little Jerry had a crush. All the signs were there. The twinkle of excitement in his warm brown eyes and excessive rambling were dead giveaways.

“Jared,” His mom interrupted, “ You like her.” Jared’s head tilted slightly to the side. It was and endearing little habit he picked up when he was 3. It was an indication that he didn't understand something, and usually a question followed.

“ What?” he asked.

“ You like her, Jerry.”

“For once, I’m not following what you’re saying Mom.”

“ Sweetie, you care for Carmen in the same way your father cares for me.” His eyes widened comically as comprehension dawned.

“Oh, dear.” He whispered. “That makes sense.”

“What’s wrong?”

“ I invited her over to work on the project.” The doorbell rang as he finished speaking.

“You should probably get that, Jared.” He simply nodded.

The second he opened the door, and locked on to her eyes, He knew his mother was right. His heart flipped and he found himself unable to look away from the delicate smile forming on her lips.

“Hi, Jared.” She said.

“ Hello Carmen.”

The only question on his mind at that moment was what do I do?