Love After Life

December

December

Let me tell you something, a person can only watch so many seasons on Netflix. I have made it to my seventh hour, and didn't even feel my muscles cramping up until around the fifth. That's what I call a productive day. I also managed to devour two bags of Cool Ranch Doritos (my secret pleasure).

Carter has been absent today, which is highly unusual. Sometimes he is pounding at my door at the crack of dawn, which for me is 9 in the morning. What, I like my sleep! Other times, he comes to take me out to lunch or dinner.

As I log out of Netflix and shut down my laptop, I realize how dull my life is without him. He seems to add excitement and adventure, to my typically low-key life. Being friends with him has allowed me to do more, see more, and live more than the past eighteen years of my life combined. I miss him when he's not around, to say the least.

I would be lying if I said that some part of me doesn't like him as more than a friend. Actually, a gigantic, massive part of me likes him, a lot. It's like a small school girl crush: stolen glances, butterflies in my stomach. He is thought provoking, a distraction, and sometimes I have to snap myself out of the haze that I am put in when he is near, but our relationship can only be strictly platonic. I made myself a promise. I wanted--want--to be able to get through college without a relationship that will lead to heartbreak and distractions. You don't find true love when you're eighteen, it's a solid fact, and even if you do, what are the odds of it lasting?

Eventually, I decide to go to his dorm to see if he wants to grab something for dinner. I walk the ten minutes that it takes to get from my dorm to his. I lift my fist, ready to knock, but then notice that the door is slightly ajar. The room is dark, which is odd because you'd assume that if someone was inside then they would turn on the light, but you never know. I contemplate whether going in or not.

A few minutes later, I push the door open the rest of the way. At first glance, the room is empty, but when I look closer I see two silhouettes wound together. I immediatly reason out the possibility of it being his roommate. Carter's roommate, Sam, is scrawny and short whereas this boy is tall and obviously muscular. If it isn't Sam, then it had got to be...Carter. The same Carter who I have a crush on, the same Carter who hasn't had a girlfriend all year all because of me. An inhuman sound escapes from the back of my throat. I cover my mouth and stumble back. Carter switches on the table lamp to his right. His face morphs from confusion into an unreadable expression.

"Colette?" He asks. The girl who he had his arms wrapped around before, sits up and glares at me. "Who's that?!" She demands, obviously annoyed. She's blond, skinny, and beautiful. Everything that I'm not. Of damn course! I don't recognize her.

"I am sorry. I didn't k-know you had company, I was just coming here to see if you wanted to get something to eat, but I see now that you're busy. Uh, god I should go." I stutter, looking around the room. All of a sudden, Carter's football trophies have become the most interesting thing in the room. I take one last glance at him and then Blondie, before I run out of the room like the uncontrollable mess that I am.

What if he comes after me?
What if he doesn't?,my conscience thinks.
He could.
He won't, it says again.

"Hey wait! Colette, wait up!" I force myself to break into a sprint and don't dare look back. I can feel him on my heels, and I know that he isn't going to leave me alone as soon as he grabs my hand. I ignore the shot of tingles that travel from my hand to my arm and all way through my body, then back up, instead I look down at my floor. I start counting the tiles."That girl. She didn't mean anything, that thing you saw back there didn't mean anything. It was just random and you came in at the wrong time. You weren't supposed to see that."

One blue tile, two red tiles, one green.

"Don't ignore me. Please, just say something." He pleads.

I look up with a forced smile on my quivering lips. "You can kiss whoever you want. My opinion shouldn't matter. I don't matter. Not to my family and especially not to you, so don't apologize. Go be happy with Blondie, and I am going to go eat."

Yep, I'll be the kind of girl who eats away her emotions. Team Food for life!

I go back in the direction I came from. "Your opinion matters, you matter to me. You're the only thing that matters, that has mattered. I don't know what I was doing, but I do know that being with Chelsea or Blondie wasn't nearly half as good as it feels when I am with you." He says, his voice changing. Usually he is cocky or playful, he oozes confidence, but he sounds tortured and sad yet adoring and happy.

So she has a name! How grand!

"You're going to make a mistake if you choose me. Whether it be to harm me or who knows, maybe choosing me may be your mistake."I run down the hall and don't look back, and he doesn't follow me. I may have just walked away from one of the best things in my life right now. No. I just ruined everything with him, and me, everything between him and me.

I spent the next two weeks ignoring Carter Holmes. Everywhere that he was, I made sure that I wasn't. I took the long way to classes we shared and sat as far away from him as I could. That following Monday, he managed to get a seat behind me and he kept whispering to me, trying to catch my attention, but I pretended that I was listening to the professor rant on and on about something.

I didn't know what the professor was talking about. I didn't know what anyone was saying. He consumed my every thought, I could not turn off my mind at night. I dreamed of him, of us, of something that wouldn't of been. He finally stopped. Texting. Talking. Calling. E-mailing. Running. Chasing after me. He finally started realizing who I was and how much that that wasn't.

It didn't matter, I will finish my exams in a week and then I will be back in Browley. I might be able to get my job back, to have something to consume my time. He will forget about me and I him. This break will be good. When I return, I will make an effort to get more friends. I will try partying, and talking to strangers. I won't be that socially impaired, heartbroken freak with only three friends. God, I am such a liar.