The tile floor cools my skin through my shirt but does nothing to distract from the boy that lays next to me. Not beside me next to me, just near me next to me. Close enough that if I had my arms at my sides, we might accidentally touch hands. So I don’t. I rest my hands on my lower ribs, cupping them, feeling them move with my breath. It helps me keep it even and steady.

I keep my eyes directed up because if I tipped my head slightly to the side, I would see him. His nose pointed at the ceiling, his soft mouth. His eyes might be partially closed, or might slide over to look at me, and I don’t know what to do with that.

So I look at the ceiling. I don’t close my eyes because that would make it too intimate. No sight, just the sound of him breathing beside me as the teacher’s gentle voice reads from the book. With closed eyes I can imagine too much. His freckles, his mouth, his eyes, these are all calculations now, factors in my avoidance, but they take on a new life in my mind. The things we might do if we were a bit braver and a bit older, and not here.

And maybe that’s not what keeps my hands measuring each breath, my eyes tracing the ceiling panels. It’s what comes after. After that boundary is crossed, deniability is forsaken, what happens then? When my, until now unasked, question is asked, the maybe becomes a yes or a no.

He chuckles lightly, a breath through his nose, at something from the book. I am unable to resist looking and I turn my head to find him already looking at me. He smiles and I smile back and then we both look back to the ceiling, staying in the safe territory of maybe.

Annelies Mohle is a writer based in Ontario, Canada. She has previously been published in Canadian Stories and in the student-run magazine Kaleidoscope at the University of Guelph.