One of a million stories

Flashback 01

19 years

I felt sick. The guilt went through my whole body. My throat as dry as the Sahara when I saw his message on my phone. All it said was 'I'm here'. As I was sitting there on my bed in my dorm room I knew I should go downstairs and open up the door for him. I just had to take a minute to prepare myself. I knew what I had practiced to say, all of a sudden it sounded dumb. Maybe I shouldn't do it tonight, I thought to myself. No, no, I have to do it now, otherwise I would never and that wouldn't end well. So I stood up, put on my flip flops and went downstairs to let him in.

"Hey" he says when I open the door and he's leaning right next to it like a book boyfriend would.

"Hey" I swallowed. My throat got even drier than a minute ago. I couldn't even look him in the eye, knowing he would see the panic. So I just didn't say another word and started to lead the way even though he knew it too. His best friend lived here. That's the reason we met. This was my first year in a dorm and I was part of a friend group that Della, his best friend, was also a part of. One night the residents had organized a party with hotdogs and jenever. That's the night we first saw each other. A few days later he had asked me on a date and now we were standing here.

"It sounded serious. You're okay, right?" I shrink, knowing I would hurt him tonight and now he's asking me, if I'm okay. "I'm fine," I answer quietly. We get inside my room and I don't know whether to go sit down or stay standing up. I decide the latter.

"I'm sorry I asked you to come so late. It's just," the words don't come, my eyes flick to his for a second and then I look away again. He's just standing there, waiting for me to finish my thoughts so I can finish my sentence. "I euhm, I wanted to do this in person. I don't really know how to say this. For starters, my grandma just died. You know I wondered if my grandpa was even going to let me know if that happened. Well, he did even though it's almost a week after the facts. Anyway, doesn't really matter, I just don't know how to feel right now since the last time I called, our relationship basically ended because of the situation with my dad." Tears start welling up in my eyes from only thinking about that whole shit situation.

"Furthermore the groupwork is getting harder. Mathilda is just acting up again and all the stuff she wrote I have to rewrite. Also, my mom is not doing so great and I just feel really overwhelmed. I euhm, I just don't think I can handle anything more on top of this all." Understanding creeps into his eyes. I guess he knows what's coming. I don't want to hurt him. I really don't. The excuses I'm making up right now are not the complete full reason of why I'm doing this.

"I can't take us on top of all this; I like you and I really like our time together. I just ... can't." I look up again, trying not to play with my hands because of the nerves. "I understand" is all he says. "I'm really sorry. I didn't want to do this." He keeps looking me in my eyes and I hope he can see the truth of those words in there. I really didn't want to do this. I just couldn't let him get closer, so I had to break it off.

I hope you liked this flashback. 

PS: I added a picture of Lila's dorm room