She's Kind of a Disaster

4- Do You Love Him?

"You and Clayton broke up?" Bella asks, eyes wide as she processes the news. "What the hell happened?"

"I really don't want to talk about it right now. I'll tell you everything that happened but I just need some time."

"Okay," She agrees with me and then like the amazing best friend that she is, she changes the subject. "How many classes do you have today?"

"Three but I already went to my political science class so I have two more," I say as we're eating lunch in the cafeteria of our school on the first day of classes. I spent yesterday just lying in bed. I did some grocery shopping to fill the kitchen with food, but other than that, I never left my room. It would have been a relaxing day if I wasn't dying inside the entire time.

"I have four," She groans. "Who doesn't love 20 credit hours, am I right?"

"Why so many?" I ask her.

"I'm hoping that if I work my ass off this year, next year will be a breeze. Other than the impending doom of adulthood, of course," She explains after she takes a bite of her salad and then begins twisting her dark hair into a bun on top of her head. "I'll keep my course load light and I'll just put all of my energy into looking for a job."

"Twenty hours though, that's a lot."

"I know," She agrees. "But I'll get it done so it's whatever. Are you sure that we can't talk about Clayton?"

"I'm sure. I'm barely holding it together right now and if we're talking about it, I'm just going to start crying into my lunch," I warn her. "Let's talk about your boy situation, anything there?"

She gives me a confused look that kind of says 'are you joking?' because she hasn't had a serious boyfriend since sophomore year of high school. She's more of a one night and done kind of girl. She'll go to parties and flirt like crazy and get one night in bed with a guy and that's enough for her. I admittedly envy her just for the fact that so many guys want her.

"You know that Rodney's fraternity is going to have a party this weekend though," She says to me. "So I'll let you know how that goes. Are you going to come with me?"

"I might," I decide. I've never been as into the party scene around campus as Bella has but that's mostly because I spent my weekends with Clayton. I've been with him for so long, I don't even know how to be single anymore.

"It'll be so fun," She promises me. "You can get a rebound, totally make Clay jealous. You should bring Jesse."

"Why?"

"Because one of theses days, he's going to break up with Kelsey and I'll be there," She says with a giggle and when I give her a 'you've got to be kidding' look and she rolls her eyes at me. "I know that it sounds bad but I just want to do it one time. It is my lifelong goal to hook up with your brother and I'm sorry if that's weird for you but he's so hot."

"It's not going to happen," I tell her, biting my tongue to stop myself from telling her exactly why her weird fantasy with my brother would never come to fruition.

"A girl can try," She says stubbornly. "We can go shopping on Saturday, get you a nice little rebound outfit."

"I'll think about it," I say to her because I'm not sure if I even want to go to the party so I don't want to make any promises right now. She can tell that I'm just not in the right mood for conversation so she leaves it alone. The cafeteria is bustling with the nervous energy of the first day of the semester, but Bella sits with me in our quiet corner and doesn't pester me about the breakup, even though I know it's killing her not to know what happened.