“Reading the what?”

I raised an eyebrow. “The uh—The Chronicles of Narnia? It’s a book series…”

“Never heard of it.” She leaned back slightly in her chair just as Sister Anna turned back around. I continued watching her a minute longer. Up close I could see that her eyes weren’t brown, as I had originally supposed, but hazel. She wore dusty gold eyeshadow and her lashes were long and dark. Everyone knew Connie was the only girl in the Junior Cycle who got away with wearing makeup every day to school. Others tried and were sent to the toilets almost instantly with a makeup wipe and detention on Friday afternoon. Teachers rarely seemed to give out to Connie for anything she did. Eventually, she turned back to me, her lips twitching upwards into what could almost be considered a smile. “Thanks, Ryan.”

She didn’t speak to me again after that first day. Instead, she simply waited until I fumbled to silently open the wrapper, and then she would reach across the desk with an open palm. I ended up giving her nearly half of my bar every time and rather than audibly thank me she would grace me with a smile. A quick one, just as our eyes would hesitantly meet and I would flick the wrapper away. Those small, silent, inconsequential interactions became the shameful highlight of my day. My heart skipped when I entered the classroom. My fingers trembled when I opened the wrapper. Sometimes when I handed her the chocolate our hands would touch and electricity would shoot through my veins in an instant, and it would take all the self-control I possessed not to audibly gasp. I spent entire afternoons recreating her smile in my head, the way the edges of her eyes would crinkle. I imagined the way our touches lingered and wondered if she felt it too. I wasted hours of my life that year reading so much into something so inconsequential as sharing a piece of chocolate when really, a smarter girl than I might have studied for the impending Junior Cert.

Sister Anna was absent from the last class of the year and our substitute dismissed us with a wave of her hand, telling us to do whatever we wanted so long as we kept the noise level down. I reached into my bag for my Walkman and prepared to doze off for the next hour, but the sound of someone clearing their throat next to me forced me to pause. When I looked up, I found Connie gazing at me curiously, much as she had the first and only time we spoke. I offered her a thin smile and bowed my head before she began to shuffle her chair toward mine.

“So, I read that book you told me about.”

“Huh?”

She raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows. “The one with Turkish Delight. The Narnia one.”

“Oh! Oh. What did you—uh—think of it?”

“Don’t tell anyone this,” she muttered, leaning in slightly. “But I actually liked it.”