Imagining Us

Chapter 29- This feels different

Esi couldn't understand what went wrong, and she continued to wonder if she had done something wrong. She had to constantly stop herself from thinking like that. She had been learning that she shouldn't blame herself first—especially if the other person was not forthcoming with whatever the problem was.
Porte was the one who came to her, spouting about friendship, and something had happened, but she couldn't fix it if she didn't know what it was.
That was another problem.

  Why did she feel like she needed to fix it? Was it because she still subconsciously blamed herself for something she had no proof of doing? Or was it because over the past months, he had somehow become that  important to her?
Esi thought about it, and the truth was that their friendship was refreshing to her. It had pulled her out of a cycle that she didn't know she was living in.

Esi had felt like she was running a marathon—never stopping, never seeing the finish line, never seeing the refreshment stand at the end. She was thirsty for something different, and she hadn't realized that until she met him. It wasn't anything romantic, even though she would not lie to herself about the fact that she found him attractive.

It was something that she couldn't quite explain.

Although, a part of her was relieved because she knew that it wouldn't go beyond friendship. Because as okay as she was with her looks, she had never thought that someone like him would ever go for someone like her—long term. Not that he was better than her, but she knew that her life wasn't a romance novel where things coincidentally came together to work in the benefit of the protagonist. She knew that nothing about her could even be likened to that of a main character.
~~~
"So he hasn't even messaged you..at all?" Alicia asked. Esi was currently walking across campus to her next class. She was in her head and feeling a bit anxious, so she called her friend Alicia for a pep talk. It was not going quite as she had expected. Esi certainly hadn't been expecting to let the detail of Porte's absence  slip. Her intention was to be as vague as possible, but her friend was peppering her with questions, trying to pull excess information from her, and it somewhat worked. Perhaps it was the lawyer in her why she adopted that investigative approach.

"Nope," she popped her lips on the 'p'. "Nothing."

There was a pause on the other end of the line.

"And how exactly do you...feel about that?" Alicia asked cautiously.

Esi knew exactly how she felt, but she stayed true to her character.

"It's not a good feeling," she said cautiously. She was standing outside of her classroom door, ever so often waving to a classmate entering the room.
Alicia sighed. "Esi..." she pleaded. "I know you called me for a reason...give me something, girl."

Esi leaned against the wall outside her class.

"I—I don't know what happened...I don't know where it went wrong," she started. "We were good. Our friendship was going fine. Then he just stopped."

Esi blew out a sigh. "He wanted this...he pursued this. I just—It's confusing."

When she said the word 'this', her mind kept inserting the word 'me'.

"Did something happen the last time you saw him?" Alicia asked.

Esi thought back to last December—to them being in the church lot.

"Last thing I remember was him getting a phone call that he wasn't happy about...it got a little strange" she mused. "But we ended okay."

She ran a hand wearily down her face.