Reputations

Chapter 31

Niall

It had been a few weeks since Sam broke up with me, and I still felt awful. After class, I was only in the dorm for a few minutes before Timothy came in, "Hey Niall."

"Hey." He set his stuff down and looked at me. I got into my bed getting ready to take a nap. I knew by his pause he was about to say something I didn't want to hear. I knew he didn't really want to say it either. The topic had to be involving Sam.

"So, uhm, Rachel and I are about to leave to go visit Lisa, Ben, ...and Sam. Are you sure you don't want to come with us? It's not too late to say yes." I turned my head away from the ceiling and rolled it to look at him. I looked at him with an obvious no on my face. Just to be extra sure he got the message I shook my head. He nodded his head in response, "Just double checking. I know they all really want to see you. Even Sam. Especially Sam. She has asked several times if you're coming, but I completely understand not going. I'd probably be the same way. None of us blame you." He grabbed the bag he had previously packed. "Alright, do you have any messages you want me to pass along?"

"You can tell Lisa and Ben and I said I miss them. I'll try and come visit them another time or see them when they visit here."

"You don't have anything to say to Sam? It's a little weird if I just say it to Lisa and Ben." I shook my head and nervously looked at my phone and pretended to be doing something. I shrugged my shoulders.

"You can make it a general hello. I don't really know that there is much I can say to Sam. I think I've said everything she's willing to hear. What would you say?"

"I guess I agree with you. There isn't much to say. I was just checking. It just bums me out that you are two are like this now." I laughed a little even though I found very little humor in his statement.

"Yeah, me too."

"Right. Sorry. I'm sure you're more bummed out about it than I am." I shrugged my shoulders and didn't have much else to say about the situation. He left the room leaving me alone for the rest of the weekend. I hadn't left the dorm for anything but food all weekend and didn't even realize it until Timothy came back.

"Hey Niall! Did you do anything fun this weekend?" I hadn't done a single thing other than think about what Sam and all my friends had been doing without me. I wanted to be there with all of them as if our friend group was still normal.

"Not really. I just worked on a paper. How was your weekend?"

"It was good. I didn't realize how much I missed everyone until we were all together." He sat his bag down and started unpacking from the weekend. "Sam asked about you. She wanted to know how you were. She asked why you didn't come." I rolled my eyes.

"I don't understand how it isn't obvious to her. People don't usually spend a whole lot of time with people who don't want them around. She's the one that ended things."

"I agree with you about Sam. I don't think she understands neutral breakups. The first one she had ended very badly and then she stayed friends with Patrick. She doesn't understand being in the middle. The rest of us still love having you around as well. Ben and Lisa wanted to see you too. You can't stop being friends with them just because of Sam. We aren't going to stop being friends with either of you. I don't think Lisa would even allow you to close yourself off from her and Ben if you tried. She understands that you don't want to be around Sam right now though."

"I wanted to see them too. I also want to be around Sam, but I know that's a bad idea. If she really wanted me around then she shouldn't have broken up with me. She can't expect me to still come around when she claims the reason she broke up with me is because it was hard for us to come around. That doesn't make any sense." He sat down on his bed and looked in my direction.