Abhorrence

23

"Are you just going to lock yourself in your bedroom all the time?"

I looked up at Jan as she walked in with two bowls of noodles and I smiled taking it from her. "I'm not locking myself in it, I'm correcting papers." There was a difference.

I looked at the stack of papers I had finished, and the stack that I still had to get to. And it was stressing me out that I had to finish these by tomorrow which was only hours away now. God can I just be Santa and freeze time?

"Charlotte."

"Don't." I said dropping my red pen and rubbing my temples, "Don't Charlotte me, it's exam time, I have things to prioritise than hang out with you and Chris, you know this time is always busy and stressful for me," it felt like I was the one taking the exams and not the kids. 

"You know that's not what I was talking about."

"Then what are you on about," I played with the noodles moving them around with my fork not hungry enough to eat it. 

"What happened."

"With what?" Placing my bowl to the side I grabbed the papers ready to mark another one.

"That night you came home, said it was a great night and you liked it and I haven't seen Nik since. Why isn't he here again if he was great."

"It was great. I had a good time. He had a good time," Well it was great till the last half hour, "And that's it. What else is there meant to be."

Jan scoffed stabbing a carrot and chomping on it irritated, "Well sorry, but if I had a great date I would definitely be dating that person again, especially if it was Nik. The man is crazy about you."

"Do you know why men leave their wives and start dating other women?"

Jan gave me a confused look and I placed the lid back on my red pen, it was too expensive to let the ink dry up, why were pens so expensive?

"They lost that 'crazy' feeling, it goes from like to lust to love to hatred. What you want when you're twenty, isn't what you want when you're thirty and god damn it what you want before you're married with kids isn't the same when you have kids and they're grown up Jan. What I want at thirty and what he wants at thirty is too different."

"Honey, you're thinking about the future, it might not even get that far."

"Then why the hell do I need to date him!" I snapped, "If I don't intend to marry him why the hell am I doing to date him and make him my boyfriend, if I wanted a one night stand I'll go get a one night stand. You should date and have a boyfriend with someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, or else you're leading both of yourself on!"

"So you want to be single the rest of your life?"

I shrugged letting the silence build up, "I don't know. But right now I have more important things to worry about."

Jan sat in silence eating her noodles before I sighed flicking the page over, "You know one day someone will wake up and say 'I need to move on,'. People change their likes and dislikes everyday, one day you like chocolate cake and you eat too much of it making you throw up and then you hate it. Things change. And people change Jan. I don't want to be stuck with a man when things change, either he changes, or I change and we don't fit like a jigsaw puzzle anymore."

I crossed my legs, "And sure if you're married you can take a divorce, but if you have kids, why would you put them through it, I don't want to marry someone and then get a divorce. Okay you say I'm thinking too far, let's just stick to a relationship, you go from being with someone everyday getting used to their habits. What you find endearing once just isn't anymore. And when they leave it leaves you in a mess."