BETWEEN REVENGE AND LOVE

45

Monday 07/10/1995

Corridor by corridor, step by step, I trudge along strengthless. My eyes are glued to my surroundings, keenly pretending interest in old stone-paved floors and paintings. Anything to escape the thoughts of what's about to come.

I should better hurry. He's most probably sitting there by now. Alone. Whilst I am late, again, yet walking so slowly in spite of it. The more my thoughts are racing, the slower my body becomes. 

I can't be late. My ambition is to make it clear to him that all this is important to me, that he is. Being late and obviously excruciatingly confused won't help with that. 

I don't know what he wants to hear from me, what he expects me to say. I'm going to apologize, for whatever offended him. He can't be all that mad of me running off yesterday night. There is more to it. After everything that's happened, he has enough reason to be mad at me. 

Uselessly angry with myself, I force my legs to speed up their pace. I'm going to fix this. No matter what it takes. I need him, I do.

Floor and paintings now rush past me faster where I have finally managed to somewhat pull myself together and hurry. The library entrance soon appears at the end of the corridor. While my feet are still busy walking me towards it, I rack my brain for the clearest way to phrase an apology I'm not even sure what it's for. But there's nothing in my head than just a simple sorry. 

And there I am, inside. That's it. I. Can. Do. This. 

Many students chose to spend their free period studying here in the library. I should have foreseen it, the weather outside screams autumn. With one rainy windstorm after the other and sleet whenever gloomy grey clouds fade into lighter ones. Who wouldn't be preferring the coziness and warmth of the library, the sheltering indoors, over the merciless moody nature of October? 

Before I can even begin to search around the rows of shelves, I hear my name from behind me. Spinning around, I stretch a smile across my lips. 

"Hey," Theo greets me. I'm almost expecting him to stay silent before he speaks again, "let's find somewhere to hide from all these people. I can't think of doing any schoolwork anymore today. Seeing everyone work on Potions, it's making me feel bad."

Nodding my head, lips pressed into a line I tear my eyes off his face. Don't sigh, I beseech myself. If he knew how relieved I am right now. He wasn't being rude, not a single bit. Of course not, what did I expect from Theo? 

We roam the aisles, looking for a quiet spot everywhere. He grabs my hand, and I hold onto his. He makes a joke and laughs harder at it than I do. It leaves me chuckling. He's busy pulling me along behind him as I grow tired of searching. I'm busy loving him. 

I start to grumble a little, in jest, tell him we'll never ever find a quiet spot. He agrees: we won't find anything, it's too crowded here. 

"Let's leave," he infers in the end. 

"Where to?" Pondering I smooth out my blouse's rolled-up sleeves. 

"What about my dorm?" he thinks aloud, "forget it, bad idea."

"Yes, probably." 

It is going south. 

His forehead wrinkles in a thoughtful crease; monitoring it, I wait for it to flatten out again. Just like with the sleeves of my blouse, I feel the need to brush over it to let it smooth away. 

We can't go to his dorm because, theoretically, we're more or less fighting. Maybe not fighting, but still, there is something in the way that needs to be worked out before we go back to how things were before. Hundreds of things are unresolved. Truly oppressive.