Frustration welled in Malia’s gray eyes as she peered over the top of her notebook, her creative daze suddenly broken.  Spoken words, tremulous giggles, and the clatter of cutlery swirled around the cafeteria in a cacophony that mimicked the jumble of words in her mind.  Malia had been writing and rewriting the same sentence since her lunch period had started, but she found herself totally inhibited by the uninterrupted flow of noise that surrounded her, a fullness that contrasted heavily with the vacancy of the table she occupied.  And as if all the noise wasn’t bad enough, Malia had the distinct, phantom feeling that that someone was looking at her, watching her, and this, more so than the noise, was what had so abruptly broken her concentration.
Malia’s eyes quickly darted back down to the page, and the hand that wasn’t occupied with her pencil began to twirl a strand of her inky hair.  She knew she was imagining the feeling- she had to be.  In all her three years of high school, she could count on her fingers the number of times she had attracted more attention than a passing glance, meaningless small talk, or collaboration on an English project required.  But she wasn’t complaining; as much as her natural shyness prompted others to ignore her, she was only too quick to aid them in diverting attention from herself.  She liked to be alone; it helped her to think, which helped her to write, and she wasn’t exactly interested in the everyday plights of her peers.  Her mind and her effort were dedicated to bigger things, more important things.  Instead of focusing on what mattered in the here and now, Malia chose to set her sights on concepts and pursuits that would always matter, though she could hardly expect her classmates to do the same. 
Nevertheless, that newly familiar, prickling sensation began to crawl up the back of Malia’s neck, and this time her head snapped up in a gesture that was equal parts curiosity and irritation.  But this time, she saw a pair of warm, brown eyes fixed on hers.  They belonged to a boy about Malia’s age who, like her, was seated at an empty table.  He smiled when she met his gaze, but it was a smile the likes of which Malia had never seen in the halls of her godforsaken high school.  For one thing, it was clearly genuine, and it seemed to originate in the boy’s lively eyes and radiate out from there, though the set of his lips barely shifted, into what Malia hesitantly identified as a look of contentment. 
The boy rose to his feet, accidentally knocking over his chair as he did so.  Nobody noticed.  With a slight grin, he deftly set it upright and continued on his way with a surprisingly confident gait.  And although Malia had long since returned her gaze to her notebook, she observed out of the corner of her eye and with a rush of color to her cheeks that he was headed straight for her table.
She tried in vain to appear as though she was writing, but her one unwritten sentence still vexed her, and nothing more than hasty, pale scribbles appeared on her page.  She cringed at the sheer, shrill volume of the chair opposite her scraping against the grimy cafeteria floor.  She didn’t dare look up.  Somehow, she found her pencil tangled in her hair and tried half-heartedly to free it, the color and heat in her face spreading to the back of her neck.  It wasn’t until the warmth of his hands guided the pencil out of her curls that she reluctantly glanced up at him through her lashes.  The look on his face was not one of concern and repulsion, as she had expected, but of slightly puzzled amusement.  Malia, more out of involuntary shock than of conscious decision, declined to speak.
“Why were you staring at me?”
Still, Malia didn’t say a word, but a vaguely strangled sound slipped between her lips.  Her eyes bulged from her head, and her body leaned forward slightly across the table.  She, stare at him? Was he crazy?  She wasn’t staring at anything but her notebook, and it was his gaze that had broken her concentration! And yet he asked why she had been staring at him?
She frowned, pale eyes flicking back to her notebook. Making the situation even more bizarre, he started to laugh.  A huge, joyful, booming laugh, filled with pure hilarity.  Malia’s head whipped around, then darted back down to her notebook.  She was sure that by now even the lunch ladies were watching them.  Her wide eyes once again made contact with his fiery ones, her brows knitting together.
“That was perfect!”
She couldn’t resist any longer. 
“What?” She hissed, her voice sharp and full of confused resentment.
“Your face!” He replied boisterously and warmly, and without further explanation procured his own notebook from his backpack.  Only this wasn’t a notebook, Malia realized.  It was a sketchbook.  She watched, stunned, as he pulled his own pencil from its coiled metal binding and began to draw with long, even pencil strokes.  She leaned in quizzically, still hopelessly perplexed, her hair falling over one shoulder and casting a shadow on his page.  It wasn’t until he started to make long, dark, wavy lines, surrounding something that looked suspiciously like a pencil, that she realized he was drawing her.
“I-is that me?” Her voice shook slightly, now devoid of any anger or suspicion.  He nodded, flicking warm brown hair out of his eyes.  He pursed his lips and looked up at her briefly; having finished the outline of her face and hair, he now subtly studied the delicate curve of her neck. 
Malia found that she wasn’t uncomfortable or angry, but flattered, and for that, surprised at herself.  There was another feeling, too, one that eluded her until she put her own pencil back to the unmarked surface of her notebook and found she knew exactly what to write.  Inspiration.  That’s what it was.  Gripped by his spontaneous spirit, she began to write, in darker, more upright letters than before.  Frustration welled in Malia’s grey eyes…
The lunch bell rang, but neither of them moved.