Love Lessons

C H A P T E R N I N E || J E S S

|➳| S O M E N I G H T S |➳|

At one point in my life, I had hope. I strongly believed that everything happens for a reason, and that reason would bring a positive outcome. I held on to that belief for a while, until my mother died. After her death, I realized the false perception I had on life. People are not always good and life is unbelievably cruel. There's not a reason for every event and sometimes, life just bites you in the ass. With my new realizations, I stopped looking at life positively and sometimes wondered if it ever got better.

It was blatantly obvious I was avoiding Cole like the plague, and frankly, he seemed to be avoiding me just as well. Our first date had gone down the shitter and despite the night, we still haven't found the balls to talk to each other, so we ended up ignoring each other.

Not that I needed to talk to him anyway; he was in the wrong.

In all honesty, I wasn't ready to face Cole; in fact, I would rather crawl under a rock and hide there forever than see him. I couldn't believe my own stupidity when I thought he actually cared about me. Why on earth would Cole Jefferson care about me? Cole doesn't care about anyone. I hoped after the time he helped me in math or even talked me through my panic attack we would be on good terms. Instead, I realized the true Cole and that burned more than his actions.

It was such a horrible feeling, to be disappointed in someone and disgusted with yourself at the same time. I've never gotten close to anyone since my mother and I made myself vulnerable.

That was my first mistake.

After our date I planned to stay away from him and anyone else, it's the only way to protect myself from getting hurt once again. My emotions were skyrocketing, making Riley notice. She pointed it out one day as we relaxed in our dorm room. Sprawled out on her bed and in her scraggiest clothes, she still looked pretty. I sat on the futon flipping through channels on the television, wondering when the university would ever fix the cable.

"Is there anything you would like to talk about?" She asked randomly, flipping through her magazines. Her English paper sat right next to her magazines, but that didn't seem to be her priority. Groaning, I leaned up on the arm of the futon and narrowed my eyes at her.

"What are you talking about?" Sighing, she pouted her lips as if I asked her to solve a complicated math question and tossed her magazine to the side. Flattening her hair, she struggled with formulating her sentence.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about, Jess. I know you're not comfortable talking about your past, but you should talk to me if you're feeling down. I can see you're upset and I know it's more than Cole." She spoke gently.

"I'm sorry?"

"Jess! What the fuck is wrong?" Grimacing, I looked back at the TV and shrugged.

"It's just one of those days." I answered as best as I could. Honestly, I had a lot going through my mind. Cole, my father, my birthday, the holidays. Would my father be home? Would I be better? Is Cole going to leave me alone? There were so many questions, and yet I couldn't even begin to think about answer for any of them.

"I worry about you," She admitted. "I know you're taking your medication...but if you're not talking to me are you talking to anyone?"