Mirrored Cuts

Chapter 18

Sitting in my statistics class, I felt a streak of cold run through me. The professor had a stack of papers at the front of the room. They were returned quizzes and homework, but the professor was going to wait until the end of the class to return them so we wouldn't be distracted. I wanted to ask her why she didn't think displaying them in plain view would cause a loss of focus. Because I wasn't feeling razor sharp after seeing them.

I stayed at my foldout desk, fighting the urge to leap over the rows in front of me and snatch the papers. I fidgeted with my pen as a way of distracting me from my teacher's distraction, because lecture was difficult to pay attention to on a good day. The seconds ticked and tocked, three fives making fifteen, and two fifteens making thirty and two thirties making a minute and thank god it had been a minute. I had a moment of fear: was I wishing my life away? Shouldn't I be enjoying every moment of it? Did those clichés even apply to classes?

A change in pitch in my professor's voice indicated the end of class. She told us the papers were alphabetical and that we could get our own. The class mobbed the table, jockeying for a space where they could push through to their grades, something they had to know right now. I was in the mob in a second, vying for my place. Someone's elbow was in my face as I tried to move forward. Another person took a step forward, onto my foot. This was every man for himself.

I broke through the vultures in the crowd and reached the stack of papers. My papers were close to the top because they had arranged it by first name. I took them out into the hallway and sat on the bench, breathing deeply and preparing myself for what I was about to see. I flipped it over, hoping that seeing the grade all in one moment would help with the process that came after. My test had received a 65%. My heart started beating. An A minus is not an A...I couldn't even finish the thought.

I tried to calm my breathing down by inhaling, holding it, and letting it out. While my breathing slowed, my mind raced. How would I tell my parents? Would I tell my parents? Why were my grades so terrible? Math had never been difficult for me. Why did it have to start now? I put my test down and placed my head in my hands. I would just have to work harder, spend more time studying, and maybe get a tutor. I'd never seriously considered the last one. It would ruin my pride to ask someone else for help in something I had always been good at.

When I got back to my dorm, I tried to find a place for it. Not where I could hide it...but somewhere I wouldn't have to look at it. I thought the bottom of my drawers would work but I went through them all the time looking for pens and calculators. I didn't want it anywhere near my sleeping area. It might poison the environment. Finally, I just folded it and slid it between two books that were on the bookshelf on my desk. I would tell everyone when I was ready, when I had solved the problem.

Flint walked in, closing the door behind him. I froze. He had my letter in his hand. I guess I was surprised that he had actually received the letter. I thought it would be like in one of those movies, where no one even needs to talk about the note. They all know what it means. But Flint slammed the letter on my desk, where the test had been, moments ago. His forehead was tight and it stretched his eyes to a flat, glossy mirror. Fear began to fill my arms, making them lead, keeping me in place. I tried to force the feeling away.

"I feel like I'm playing second fiddle." I finally got it out of him. "I feel like all you care about is EMS and fitting in with them and going on duty that you ignore me until you're bored or don't have anything else to do. Then, you want to hang out with me. And I enable you. I just keep offering and moving my schedule around so when you feel like hanging out, I'm ready, I'm there. But that's ridiculous and I won't do it anymore." He stopped to breathe.

"But I haven't been ignoring you. I've just been busy!" I said. We could resolve this. It had to just be a misunderstanding.

"Busy with EMS? It's not an excuse. It's not just actual EMS. You spend every second you can in the office hanging out with them or going to parties or going on adventures. We can easily go a week without seeing each other. I just don't think I can handle it. I think this is the way it's going to be for a long time and I don't think I can do it anymore."

"What does that mean?"

"I want to be friends with the Andi I met at the beginning of the year. Not this shadow of Andi, who is too blind to see what's she's doing."

I froze, remembering my frustration at not having anyone to help me when I was sick for three days. "You can't put this all on me. I was basically dying of the flu for the last few days and I needed you and you refused to help me because you were mad."

"I was there," he said. "I visited you. Asked if you were okay. I offered to stay. Your guard dog chased me off."

Tears burned down my face, wetting my neck as they traveled. How had I not realized? Could I do anything to keep Flint as my friend?

"Please," I said. "Please don't. I can get better. I promise."

Flint shook his head. "I loved you, Andi. I have to take care of myself now."

I stared at his receding back as he exited my room. I couldn't fathom the melodramatic play that had just occurred in my eight by eight dorm room. It seemed too small a stage for such a confession. I didn't believe him. How could he truly have loved me and let his pride stop him from helping me when I was sick. John had left everything in his life for two days just to take care of an acquaintance. Love was not something you could turn on and off like an air-conditioning unit, just to make yourself feel better. Love was something you worked on and struggled through and were a martyr for.

Flint had often told me that his parents had never fought when he was growing up. I found that hard to understand, since my parents had fought all the time. Losing a fight was always something to avoid in my house and I tried to avoid them altogether because I realized that I generally lost either way, regardless of who accepted my point.

If he had told me that he cared so much earlier, would things have gone a different way? Perhaps I would have been alternative and hipster and cool in my first year of college. Perhaps Flint and I would have been an item, keeping track of our happiness. I could have spent my free time watching West Wing instead of Emergency! But that didn't happen and I can't regret it. Regret would unravel the tight path that I had woven for myself to follow.