Senior Stories: Gillian Lombart

5. That Was Quick

The phone message beeped. Gillian didn’t have time to hang up with out worrying her mom.

 “Hey mom, ah, its me. I have some time in between classes and I thought you might want to know Munchkin has discovered the joy of coffee. It was just a sip but he loved it. Okay, hope work is going good, and I will talk to you soon….. I love you…. Ah, and Dad sends his love too.”

It had been two weeks since their breakup and neither Gillian nor Matthew had talked to each other. Whenever Matthew would see Gillian coming around the corner he would look down and turn the other way. It was like looking at her made his skin crawl. Gillian on the other hand couldn’t stop crying at night, and had resorted to leaving rambling messages on her mom’s cell phone. Her mother never called back. She did over hear her father telling her mom one night over the phone that he thought that Gillian and Matthew had broken up, but he didn’t know what to say to his daughter or even ask her about it.

 “Gills get out of the stall,” Jorge pleaded.

“No, I can’t do this. Maybe I should just drop out and get a job at Starbucks.”

“One you have to have a college degree these days to work at the Bucks, and two you have only a month to go HOOKER! So drag your ass out of the stall and get moving. You are going to make me late, and you know that will make me miss my opportunity to see Ben’s fine ass saunter to the back of the class.”

“Ugh! Who would have thought he would get over me so fucking quickly! We barely even broke up, and he is leaving so what is he doing with her prefect little Banana Republic ass??”

“Girl you broke his heart and she swooped in and picked up the pieces. Don’t make me start singing Taylor Swift?”

Gillian unlocked the door and slowly came out, taking her backpack off the floor and swinging it over her shoulder. Jorge wrapped his arms around her and patting Gillian’s back with his perfectly manicured nails.

“There, there now Gilly. You will get over it, we all thought you were over the break up. Just move on. Do you need me to hook you up with a booty call?”

Gillian slapped Jorge on his chest pushing him away. “First I don’t have time for a booty call. And second there was only Matthew.” Her voice drew down to a whisper as she looked down at her shoes.

Jorge grabbed Gillian’s face with his hand and pulled it up to look at his. He had beautiful almond eyes and perfect eyebrows that were balanced out with high cheekbones – the look of one of those gender-bending high fashion models. “Some times if you love something strong enough you have to let it go and move on so that the other person can thrive. We don’t need to drag down the people with dreams into our harsh realities.”

“I know. You are right. I would just slow him down.” Gillian sighed. “But I have dreams too… and responsabilities.”

Jorge grabbed Gillian’s hand dragging her out of the girl’s bathroom. “Lets focus on those dreams while we watch Ben’s tight body drift to the back of cal.”

Rolling her eyes and trying to laugh it off, Gillian shoved down the scream that was building in the back of her throat. “This is what you wanted,” Gillian reminds herself. “You wanted him to be happy and grow, this is how it is done. “

Later at lunch Mattie announces she was accepted to NYU and to Seattle University, bursting with excitement over the choice the afternoon turns into nonstop talk about college and the future. Once again lost in her lack of words, Gillian sinks quietly into the backgound not wanting to rain on Matties parade. She envisions herself at graduation holding a glass of wine toasting herself for the lack of ability to speak up and tell my family about her dreams of college, toasting Matthew and Little Miss Perfect, toasting her future being stuck in a suburb, toasting my losses, toasting the bitterness that is seeping into her thoughts and heart.