Crushing College

17

"How could he do this to me?!"

Lisa stormed into our room one day, so mad I could almost see the smoke fuming out of her ears. She threw her backpack on her bed with such force it skidded off and landed on the floor with a soft thud. 

"What's wrong?" I asked from my side of the room.

"JK! I was riding the bus back here and looked out the window and there he was..." Lisa put out a hand, palm up, to emphasize the next part "...walking with another girl, his arm around her shoulder."

I gasped. "Who was it?"

"Who cares?" my roommate exclaimed, shooting a stare at me.

"Right, sorry," I recoiled.

Lisa's eyes went up to the ceiling, a plan forming in her head. "I gotta see who it is." She reached for her backpack and started pulling her purse out. "I know he has classes all day in the D building."

Jumping out of my seat, I sprinted and met her by the door, guarding it. "What are you doing?"

Lisa flung her backpack behind her and almost crashed into me since I was blocking her exit. "I'm going to wait for them outside and follow them."

"You're going on a stake out?" I asked in disbelief, holding her shoulders to steady her. "Doesn't that sound a bit crazy?"

Her face fell, her eyes glossy. "But...it really hurt seeing them together. That should be me."

Pulling her in for a hug, I patted her back and tried to calm her down. "I know it hurts. But you can't let him know this affects you."

The sound of the doorknob jiggling and Lisa pushing me back a bit let me know she was still trying to escape. "Let me go! I just want to talk to her- whoever she is- and warn her-"

With a forceful shove, I doubled my effort to block her and looked her straight in the eyes. "Lisa, you have every right to feel this way. But you have to hide it. For some reason, men find these kinds of actions to be psycho and if you freak out, it's only gonna push JK away further."

I chose my words to show her feelings were validated and she seemed to let my advice sink in. With drooping shoulders, she returned to her desk and busied herself with homework. After putting out that fire, it was kind of nice when she went home later for the weekend and Tae came to visit. As soon as I met him in the lobby, I ran to him for a hug as he grabbed me around the waist and my feet left the floor. He and I spent a quiet couple of days together with no real plans.

It was lovely to be bored with him, not bored of him but, like quietly existing with him. He had a busy week of work and I had mid-terms to study for so we counted the hours together. We didn't have to entertain each other all the time to keep each other company. We could just be comfortably completely ourselves in my room, working on separate things. We could just be.

When I finally finished my short documentary for film class, I shared it with Tae first. I had worked on it since returning from Seoul and was ready to present it in class, all thirty minutes of it. After the sneak preview was over, Tae gave me the biggest hug as we sat next to each other on my bed.

"I knew you would crush this project," he said, with a light kiss to my forehead.

"Hey, you helped. We worked on this together," I beamed at him. The good memories of our trip to South Korea fresh in my mind, I remembered how he was so attentive being my cameraman when I needed him.

Unfortunately, my professor did not share the same excitement. After my presentation, I received positive feedback from my classmates but the head of the class commented that my documentary needed more content. It felt unfulfilled and maybe would benefit from a parallel storyline of another person's adoption story.