What I Should Have Done ✓

Chapter 12

John: Were you out on a date with Liam last night?

After yet another rough night, I had woken up at 6:47 am the following morning. Too early for my well-being, but in time to catch up on homework and midterm prep. My agenda was fuller than Grampa's plate at the annual community potluck buffet.

The bed was made and I was sitting at my desk in my plaid red and blue pajama pants and a white strappy tank top. Getting half dressed in the morning was the best. You still had some of the comfort of your bed while being almost ready to leave the house in case of an unforeseen hurry.

The Two Faces of American Freedom was blurring before my eyes, so I took the interruption by John's text as a sign to go have breakfast before whipping my brain through this. Exhaling loudly, I stuck a bookmark to the current page and went to change into jeans.

How did he know, anyway? My best guess was Aidan, but why it would seem significant enough for him to let John know remained a mystery.

Me: I was.

John: Why didn't u tell me? How was it??

An uneasy feeling settled in my stomach. Why would I have told him? Was he jealous or was this normal conversation between friends? Were we this close of friends? Or were we maybe even too close to discuss this?

I didn't know how to answer, so I didn't. Instead, I spent all of Sunday morning after a quick breakfast in my room to catch up on my readings and study guides as I should have been doing for days. I only interrupted my work for a quick call to Jessica once she texted me she was awake and wanted all the details. She was not happy when I palmed her off with the short version ("It was great and he kissed me at the end of the night!") but I promised more details over dinner.

First, however, I would watch my first college soccer game.

***

It had gotten chilly quickly this October, and Linh and I were glad we were wearing our winter coats when we found our usual seats on the bleachers at the soccer field. With the first day of the month, the leaves had begun to change their color from green to every imaginable shade of red, yellow, and orange. Now, two weeks later, all of campus shone in fiery colors. New England fall was my favorite season. The way that some of the trees would be green one day and then amber the next, or the way that one branch would transform its leaves while retaining the chlorophyll in the others was a unique spectacle I tried not to take for granted no matter how long I had lived here.

John's girlfriend sat in the second row with a friend I'd seen at the games a bunch of times. She looked cute in her gray faux-fur-hooded parka and black suede ankle boots, but she usually did. Her chestnut-brown hair was in a half-updo, but the wind picked at it relentlessly so she eventually loosened it to pull her hair into a messy bun.

"Who are we playing again today?" I was sure it had been mentioned, but between all that had been going on the past couple of days, I couldn't recall.

I felt a little better after having placed checkmarks behind several items on my to-do list this morning and rewarding myself with lunch with Linh. As an added plus, it had been a welcome distraction from turning the situation with Liam over in my mind again and again. Attending the game would help, too, because it was the one place on campus I knew was a Liam-free zone. He would rather redo an already finished econometrics problem set than set foot anywhere near the soccer field and John, which suited me fine that day. I did want to see him again, but I had to figure out my feelings first.

"Wesleyan," Linh replied. "I don't want to jinx it, but it should be an easy game."

"Is the team in good shape?"