Love and Food

viii: he stood me up?

The next day, Cecilia came into hospitality technologies and sat next to Chichi.

"Today's the day."

"You ready?"

"No." Cecilia started to panic and bit her one nail.

Joesph enters the room, his gaze fixated on Cecilia for a second.

Chichi gave Cecilia a "that's your man" kind of smirk.

The class passed by quickly with the anticipation of what Cecilia was longing for. She was crazy in her thoughts, and her excitement was almost too much for her to handle.

Finally, the class ended. One class down, one more to go. Cecilia ran to her next class.

The class passed extremely quickly, and her impatience was finally starting to really show. Her legs were shaking, and she was quite chatty.

This was it, the moment that she had always want to do in her life.

She walked to the College Center and sat down at a table on the second floor.

The time was 12:20 pm as she was setting up her materials. From the corner of her eye, she saw Bailey and some of her new college friends laughing at her, a feeling of betrayal, and disgust over her. She tried to not let it bother her though, who knows? They could just be looking in her direction and laughing at something that someone else said.

10 minutes past and still no sign of Joseph. She started to get worried, she texted him that she was at the College Center 10 minutes ago. Maybe, he's probably running late.

Cecilia waited 15 more minutes before she decided that enough was enough. She packed up her stuff and left the building.

On her way out, she saw Elwich and Stella, they could tell something was off.

"Cecilia!" Elwich called her.

She turned around, her face was showing all signs of distress.

"What's wrong?" Stella asked.

"I was supposed to meet up with Joseph to study today." She said. "But, he hasn't shown up and I was wondering if you guys have seen him."

Elwich and Stella shook their heads.

"Sorry, we haven't seen him." Elwich replied. "But, we can help you find him."

"Yes, that would be great!" Cecilia nodded.

"Come on, let's go." Elwich lead the way.

The first place that the three of them looked at was inside the College Center, most of the people have left to go to class now, so it was pretty dead. Elwich, Stella and Cecilia were nearly tearing apart the place looking for him.

No luck on the first floor, so they went downstairs to where the cooking classes are. That area was more dead than the floor above it. Next stop, to the top floor. Elwich signaled an elevator to come down, and the three of them went up.

Neither one of them has been up to the top floor before, but it was full of twist and turns and dead ends almost everywhere you went.

"Joseph? Joseph." Elwich called. "Are you there? Are you OK?"

There was no response.

"Do you know what kind of car he drives?" Elwich turned to Cecilia.

"I'm not sure actually, have you seen him?"

"I may have seen him in a gray Kia or Nissan."

"Really?" Stella turned to him.

"Just a suspicion, I don't go down to the parking lot."

Finally, the three of them found a way out of the multiple dead ends and went back outside.

"I'm so sorry Cecelia that we couldn't find him." Elwich said.

At this rate, Cecilia's eyes are starting to fill with tears, and she was doing everything she could to hold them back.

"No, it's fine. Thank you both though. I know it was ridiculous."

"It's OK!" Stella hugged Cecilia and Elwich joined.

That's when Cecilia started to let out all of her tears.

Elwich patted her tears away.

"I don't really feel too good." She admitted.

"What's up?" Stella started to worry.

"My head, starting to feel light, I don't think I ate anything in a while. but, I don't even have an appetite. I think I just need to go home and just cry."

"I get it." Stella said. "Please, feel better."

"I will, at least I'll try."

She left them in the back to her car. That was when she let out all of her tears and she started her engine. It reminded her of old times, when she felt like such a fool.

Her tears couldn't be contained behind the wheel, she cried all the way from the campus to her house.

By the time she got home, her eyes were bloodshot, and like she had no more tears left to cry.

She opened her door and tried to hide the sadness that she was feeling.

"Cecilia! How was your day?" Her mom was sitting in the living room on the couch.

Cecelia didn't wanna say a word, because she knew that the second she opened her mouth, tears would start falling.

"It was OK, I guess."

Cecilia's older sister came in the room and noticed something was wrong.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

Cecilia then fell apart, she cried in both of their arms, and could barely get the words out.

"I got stood up." She was a mess.

Suddenly, her stomach started to growl. She remembered that she hasn't ate anything a while, so she cooked up a piece of pizza and cried as she ate it. It was hard for her to eat even though she had to.

"I just felt so stupid that it happened to me." She admitted to her sister.

"He maybe had to go somewhere. Don't sweat it too much, it happened before, it has happened to me a lot too."

"I know, it just hurts you know, I finally have the confidence to ask someone that I know to study and the second I get accepted, I just feel like they didn't actually mean it."

Cecilia's sister put her hands on her sisters.

"Let me tell you, boys are one of the most confusing species on the planet. They will say stuff and do stuff, good or bad, sometimes it's hard to tell. Just, think positive. I know it's hard in the situation, but you always tell me to think on the brighter side."