pink nights / sally face

finals week

returning to daily life after that weekend was painful. with classes coming to an end, finals were a huge mood killer. every lecture was crucial with note-worthy information starting the first minute down to the last. my days began to bleed into one another as my brain struggled to retain classroom content. even when i was outside the classroom, a looming feeling of guilt followed me.

ash and i no longer light-heartily worked on homework but instead studied intensely for hours on end in dead silence. thankfully, her company made the work hurt less.

"so, how it going for you?" i dropped my pencil and sighed in defeat. 

ash continued to scribble with a blank stare, "uh ... you know, its ... uh, great. i'm totally not zombified at all." her scribbles became slower. "my eye is twitching and i feel like math probably shouldn't cause bodily dysfunction."

i rested my chin in my hand, "no, you're completely right."

"i can't believe college isn't just about having fun with your friends," she fell back onto her bed and whined. "and finals are so close! ugh, that party last week was probably the last one for the semester too. this sucks."

"we can have without parties though," my voice wasn't as hopeful as i meant for it to sound. i guess i couldn't hide my disappointment.

she sighed, still laying on her back and staring at the ceiling. "and we're going home for winter break." she shot up, "wait ... are you leaving? like, the state?"

i felt my heart drop and revive the familiar sickly feeling of anxiety. "well ... i guess i have to."

ash pouted but it wasn't one of her puppy eyed pouts, it was a real pout. seeing the sadness on her face only made the sinking feeling worse. "fuck! we won't see you for a month!"

"a month isn't forever though," i shrugged and tried to offer a smile.

"it could be! who knows!"

"ash! don't put that out into the universe like that! god, so you have a death wish?"

she sighed, "of course not ... i'm just really gonna miss you. feels like we're spending the best part of the year working only to leave each other right after. what about hot chocolate and christmas movies? and presents?!"

i shook my head lazily, "maybe after finals?"

"immediately after finals," she huffed while jumping down from her bed. "i'm gonna go to the bathroom."

i slouched back into my chair and sighed. as nice as christmas with ash sounded, with the holidays coming up my parents were texting more. really they were just bugging me about when i was coming back home. and it was getting to the point where saying, i'm really busy studying, i'll have to figure it out when i'm free, no longer satisfied them—receiving these desperate messages day after day was starting to take a toll on me. between finals and the thought of going back home, all i wanted was to vanish. going back home for a month felt like a death sentence. and i know what people would think if i were to ever say that out loud. you should enjoy the time you have with your parents! they won't be around forever! you don't have to worry about anything when you're taken care of! why don't you appreciate what you have?! and my rebuttal to those statements is too complicated to explain in casual conversation. i wish i could say it with my whole chest but to me, going back home sounds like the worst kind of regression. i mean, imagine if you were peer pressured to get back into a relationship with your jackass ex? when you change the context to something more obvious, it makes much more sense to those more fortunate. of course, if i were to explicitly establish i didn't want to go back to my abusive household, i'm sure that would be obvious enough to make sense. however, i'm not exactly willing to disclose my home troubles so boldly. not to ash or even sal. it sounded much easier to endure the burden of misery on my own than to rehash old trauma, especially now that i finally feel clean from that part of my life. it was refreshing to start over here and make friends who didn't see me as some kind of helpless victim.