Going abroad

Chapter 12

After a long flight and a car ride to the university I arrive at my dormroom. I had a day off before school starts again the day after tomorrow so I can sleep in after the flight and get some rest. I make myself ready for bed and go to sleep.

I wake up the next morning after a good night's sleep. I make myself ready for the day and leave my room to go to the toilet. When I closed my door I hear someone shouting my name from behind me a little further down the hallway. I turn around and see Brooke running towards me and jumping in my arms. "Hey girl! How was your christmas break?" Brooke asks me when she finally let's go of me. "Oh it was great! When I just came home, my mom and dad surprised me with my whole family sitting in the living room. And so we celebrated christmas together. Oeh, and miss Desmet was there too! It was so nice catching up with her! And for the rest done some things with my family and staying in touch with you guys!" I answer her. "Why don't you come, together with the rest of the group, to Belgium in the summer break? I can show you around some places and we can do fun stuff together! I think after all the stories I told to my parents they would like to meet you and the others." I ask her. "Yeah! That will be amazing!"she says. "Ok. I will need to ask my parents if you and the rest can stay at my place!" I say smiling. I am so excited and I hope that my parents agree to this.

We catch up for a little while and do some stuff together and in the evening we get dinner in the dining hall. When we return we sit together in the bigger common room with the whole group, except for Nick and Annie. We catch up and I ask them if they want to come to Belgium in the summer break. They all say yes and talk about the upcoming semester. Suddenly we all see Nick passing in the hallway. We all waved at him and he waved back. He came in the common room and said hi to all of us. "What were you guys talking about?" Nick asks. "We were just catching up with each other. And Emma had asked us to come to Belgium with her in the summer break. Other then that we were talking about the upcoming activities and such in the next semester." Brooke answers. "Would you like to come to?" I ask him. "To Belgium? Yeah sure, thanks! But hey guys, I'm going to sleep cause it's going to be a long day. Bye guys, see ya!" Nick says. Everyone says bye but I could see that there was more going on than just a long day tomorrow. We were talking further when I suddenly got a message. It was from Nick asking me if I could come to his room. I texted back that I could but would wait a few minutes. When a few minutes passed I said I was going to sleep to the rest and walked in the direction of Nick's dorm. I knocked on the door and he said I could come in. I opened the door and turned around to close it. But when I turned back around I was suddenly met with Nick pressing his lips against mine while I was pinned to the door behind me. I pushed him away when I realized what had happened. "What the fuck, Nick!" I whisper screamed and turned around again to leave his dorm. But I felt Nick taking me by the elbow. "Let go of me!" I said looking in his eyes. "Please, I'm sorry! I didn't mean to do that. With everything going on in my life right now, the only thing I didn't screw up is you. There are also things I can't do anything about. It is just tearing me up inside and I don't know if I can handle more things then there already are." he is saying while clearly looking panicked walking up and down his dorm room. I could see he is really stressed and sorry that he kissed me. "Hey hey hey." I say walking up to him and guiding him to sit on his bed to calm down. "Calm down and try to breathe in and out. Follow my rhythm, ok?! In 1, 2, 3, 4. And out 1, 2, 3, 4. And repeat the same thing." I say to him and do the breathing exercise with him to calm him down. After a while he calms down. "Ok. Now slowly tell me what is going on." I say to him and sit down next to him on the bed. "Uhm, Annie and I broke up, my dad has a disease that even the doctors don't know what it is and my eldest brother and I had a fight." he explained to me. "I'm so sorry about your dad and the fight with your brother! And you don't need to tell me but why did you and Annie broke up?" I ask him. He sighs. "Because she didn't like it anymore that we are so close. She didn't like it that we were calling an texting each other during christmas break and that we didn't do that ever when we are or better said were dating. I just don't know if I can take more. With my dad and my brother..." he says and starts to cry. "Oh Nick. It's okay." I say and turn a little so I could hug Nick, laying his head on my chest and wrapping my right arm around his back and my left hand holding his head in the hug. He grabs my left arm as he starts crying a little harder. I am comforting him to the best of my abilities and he calms down a bit. "I'm sorry for kissing you! I don't know why I did that. I guess it is because you are there for me. You've become my best friend in the short amount of time that we've known eacht other and-" he starts to rattle again and I kneel in front of him so that we are facing each other and take his head in between my hands so he looks at me. "It's okay. I forgive you! You don't need to feel bad about that anymore." I say to him and he nods. "Would you please stay? I don't want to be alone right now." he asks me and I move my hands to take his hands in mine. "Yeah sure let me just change in my pajamas and take my pillow and a blanket. Ok? I will be right back." I say and come back when I'm done. "I'll sleep on the floor." I say. "You don't have to. I have a folding matress you can sleep on." he says standing in his pajamas. "Thanks!" I say and we go to bed. "We are still best friends. You know that right? You don't have to feel sorry about what happened between us." I ask him when we are laying in our seperate beds. "Yeah, I know. Thanks again for staying here!" he answers me. "No problem. That's what friends are for." I say and with that we both go to sleep.