Would You Rather

9 - WYR: receive a breakup email or a breakup essay?

FINLEY

The second I drop my bag in the doorway after my ambulance shift, Nat is snapping her fingers at me, pointing at a mug of tea on the table in front of her.

"Sit."

"Me sit?" I bend over to untie my boots. "I think it should be you sitting. I thought we agreed this was your semester to focus on school and not a fling since last semester and the Longform Lukas incident."

"Hugo doesn't know enough English to friendzone me after three months of dating via MLA format essay."

"With in-text citations and four pages of references."

"I would bet a thousand dollars that Hugo doesn't know what a citation is, let alone in-text." She takes a sip of her tea, watching me sit down.

"That's not the point. The point is that we're supposed to be focused on applying to grad school and med school and you get distracted by boys very quickly and I was supposed to keep you straight-shot this semester."

Nat sets her hands on the table, looking away from me. "Thus, hooking up with him while you were at Casey's."

"Eh," I sigh. "I don't think Hugo is going to be as big of an issue as Longform Luke. Or Email Daniel. As long as you don't get too attached." My meaningful look her way doesn't get acknowledged.

"I'm not worried about it. Hugo and I don't share that many interests so I'm pretty sure this is just sex."

"Yeah, I get that." Her tea is still way too hot to sip so I just stare at it, twirling the spoon around the steaming liquid.

"But you and Fidan? How did you even connect with him last night? I thought you guys didn't have each other's contact info."

"We didn't. We do now, but we didn't. He was at Casey's with some of the guys while I was there with the classmates."

"So... who approached who?"

"He bought me a drink when he first noticed I was there, and then I approached him when it was just Wiley, Mel, and I. Wiley got along great with them and Mel was totally hitting on Langley in that way she does where she explains violent and disgusting medical conditions."

"Right." Nat makes a face. She's been a subject of said flirting and needless to say, did not like it. "And so you hooked up with him?"

"I did," I set my hands on my knees, trying to get the memory out of my head so I can maintain eye contact. "It was good. He's really good in bed."

"But are you into him?"

"No," I answer, plain and easy. "We get along great, but I don't want to go out with him or hold his hand or anything. He's a friend with a good tongue."

"You're so baffling to me," she mumbles. "You have this hot-ass, shredded-like-ten-year-old-tax-information hockey player buying you drinks and hooking up with you and spending two straight hours talking with you playing mini-golf, something I have never seen happen to you and literally anyone, and you..." she waves in my direction. "Don't want more of it?"

"I do!" I try to explain. "I want to hang out with him more but... that doesn't mean I want to date him."

Nat is just staring at me, "girl, I would be so whipped."

"Well, yeah," I look down into my mug. "Longform Luke was literally just some guy and you cried about that essay for, like, six weeks. And I mean, granted, it was a horrible thing to do, but..."

Nat rolls her eyes, "it wasn't my finest moment. We can ignore it."

I sit in silence for just a moment, trying to piece together everything that Fidan has told me about Hugo, trying to pick him apart just enough in my head to find a kink in his personality that might allude to psychotic breakup email writer or serial everything-wrong-with-you essay writer. I still can't quite wrap my head around why he felt the need to cite his nih.gov sources on personality disorders. He was dead wrong, which made it funnier. Nat doesn't have a personality disorder, she has an insanely demanding major which makes 'free time' sort of a philosophical concept instead of something to be experienced.