May Kill Me

One

I waited for him to put the phone down after I told him the news, watching the flicker of irritation on his face before he let it fall on the marble countertop. It was a large, heavy phone, the newest model. If he breaks or loses it, he can buy a new one without it making even the tiniest dent in his bank account. 

"What do you mean you didn't get your acceptance letter? Like, you didn't get it yet?" Jonathan uncapped the water bottle he got out of the fridge, holding it a few inches away from his mouth.

His gaze was fixed on me, intense, a predator gaze: the entire world around him was gone.

I hated that gaze: I knew all too well what it initialed.

I shifted my weight from one foot to another where I was standing by the kitchen island and cleared my throat.

I read somewhere that giving someone bad news was to be done in the same manner you'd rip off a bandaid.

But this particular bandaid was extra big and extra sticky.

Jonathan finally took a swig from the bottle, not looking away from me the entire time, waiting for me to elaborate.

I didn't get my acceptance letter because I didn't apply." I swallowed, running my index finger along the smooth marble surface of the island.

Jonathan put the bottle down, and I wished he'd put a shirt on.

It wasn't even that warm inside to warrant walking around shirtless.

The sliding balcony door was open, letting in the crisp early-May air: it smelt of freshly mowed grass and the sweet scent of pollen.

Jonathan's chest was exposed to the elements, with a glistening shine of sweat coating everything. Even though it might have sounded like a sexy scene from a rom-com or a smutty romance, it was everything but.

I couldn't wait to get it over with, while at the same time, I was very close to feeling petrified, afraid of his reaction to the news.

"You mean you missed the deadline?"

I let a few moments pass before speaking again: this was much harder than I expected.

Jonathan had dreamt of attending New York University for as long as I've known him.

Thus, he decided — for the both of us — that we were going to apply to NYU.

The NYU idea never appealed to me.

I didn't like New York, my grades were nowhere good enough to get accepted or apply for tuition aid, and there was absolutely no way my mother could ever afford to pay the tuition fees.

Regardless, even though that was how I felt from the start, I pretended to go along with the idea so as to prevent a full-blown argument.

Now, finally facing Jonathan and the truth, I was starting to realize what a colossal mistake I have made.

"Jonathan, I never seriously considered applying to NYU: my GPA and SAT scores are not nearly enough what they ask for." I began my justification, pleading to his logic.

Truth was, there was another reason why I waited this long to tell him.

I was hoping that Jonathan will apply, and get accepted, and by then it will be too late to change his plans. He got to go into his dream school: there was no way in this world he was going to give that up, regardless of whether I got accepted or not.

Jonathan's face twitched, a nervous tick easy enough to miss if I weren't familiar with it.

"Okay... So why didn't you tell me this sooner?" His fingers tightened around the bottle, making the plastic crick in what almost sounded like a cry for help.