Bitter (wlw) (txs)

eleven

A week went by and everything felt as if nothing had even happened in the first place.

College was going well, even if exams were coming up soon.

I went to Mei’s place twice after classes. It was a bit further from campus than my place but the area she was living in seemed less noisy and chaotic than mine.

She had three roommates, all of which I met and were also really nice and cool people. They were all going to be at the Halloween party too.

Something I’d noticed was that all of Mei’s friends, and in general people she hung out with, were queer, which was great. I finally felt like I was in a safe space I could talk about anything in. Hearing some of their life stories and advice helped me to be more self-accepting, confident.

Mei herself told me about her growing up in a really conservative household, more or less like mine. Her family was on the verge of kicking her out when she came out to them, but with lots of time and patience not only they accepted her, but also became really supportive.

That gave me hope that maybe someday my parents would understand too, instead of just ignoring the whole situation.

I was overall having a good time, I felt quite relaxed and started to worry about stuff less and less.

One of the only problems I had was Sam. Well, not really a problem. But still.

I still was completely head over heels for her. At least I was finally able to properly focus during her classes, something I’d struggled with for the first weeks.

She seemed to have way more self control than I did. She just wanted to go back to acting like we did before everything happened, and it appeared to be easy for her.

We’d met out of college like three times, but each time she got remotely too close to me I couldn’t help but remind myself of our kiss and how it felt.

It took all of my strength to distance myself from her when that happened.

I just wanted to be able to kiss her again. Well, not only kiss her. Whatever.

And I know she wanted to too, because I caught her staring at my lips a few times. But she was so confident that she didn’t even appear bothered by the awkwardness of me noticing.

I didn’t understand how she could act so relaxed after we basically admitted we liked each other. Maybe it was better that way.

“What are you doing for Halloween?” I randomly asked her one day, as we were sitting on her couch while eating pizza.

“Probably getting wine drunk alone here. Unless you wanna stop by” she shrugged.

“Oh, uhm, I’ve been invited to a party. Even though the idea of going doesn’t feel really appealing to me” I laughed.

“You should go. Enjoy your youth while you can”

“Oh come on, don’t act like you’re fifty years old” I joked.

“That’s how I sometimes feel like” she said, picking up her glass and sipping the dark liquid inside it.

“Well, you certainly don’t look like it” I shrugged.

“Thanks for the compliment, I guess” she laughed.

I loved hearing her laugh, it somehow made me really happy. Her usual voice was kind of deep sounding, but her laugh made it seem as if it was suddenly higher than it actually was.

As much as I wanted to accept Sam’s invitation I knew it wasn’t a good idea for us to be alone and drunk, seeing how it ended up last time. And she probably wasn’t serious about it anyway.