The Double-Tap Accident

Chapter Thirty-Four: Again.

Chapter Thirty-Four: "Again."

I SHOULD BE heartbroken every exam period.

It's amazing what the human mind will do to distract itself. In high school, I might have bothered my sister or my friends at the time to find out anything they were doing and avoid my issues in any way that I could.

Here, I studied.

Exams breezed by and my room became the one setting I spent most of my time in. Paper plates were piled into the garbage can under my desk. Iced coffees accompanied it. There was a half-empty cup currently sitting on my desk at 7 PM on a Wednesday night. Every time I left my home to do an exam I felt confident, the only thing in my head was information I needed and anything that didn't connect to him.

But he called. And he texted.

I hadn't read a thing since that night. Every morning, I handed my phone to Yasmeen, not wanting to look at another reminder. She did me the favour of deleting the messages herself as each way came before resorting to blocking his number.

But this time, as I was laying down in my bed, taking a much-needed break and staring at my screen watching random Youtube videos, I also scrolled through Instagram on my phone. I heard the doorbell ring just as I swiped through a story.

Laurence had posted a story.

The story had him in it.

I shut off my phone, staring at the screen as another person spoke in the video on my laptop. Then my eyes flickered over to one of the sticky notes hung on the side of my bed. I read the equation over and over again. It was already engraved in my head, analyzed dissected a hundred times in order for me to apply on my exam in two days.

A knock came on my door. I sat up, looking at Yasmeen who opened it.

Although Mariam had been the one to see it all, all of my roommates gave me the space I needed. This had to have been the first time since that night Yasmeen had gotten the chance to speak to me. Her blanket was wrapped around her head, covering her hair. She usually answered the door in that attire. But there was no one with her.

"He was at the door." She said.

I licked my bottom lip, shutting off my laptop as Yasmeen came over and hopped on my bed. She sat down, her eyes widening at the equations and definitions I had posted on the wall and forced myself to memorize, the little notes I wrote down over and over thoroughly explaining them to myself filled with physics, organic chemistry and more.

She turned to look back at me sitting cross-legged, observing me carefully. "I didn't let him in."

"Thank you." I mumbled.

"He was here yesterday too," She said, not trying to hurt me. She spoke to me slowly but not cautiously as if I was about to break. "I told him you were at work. He looked desperate enough to go all the way over there."

"He wouldn't do that," I mumbled because I knew him. Or at least I thought I knew him.

"He said he wouldn't do that to you," Yasmeen said.

I blinked once. Twice. No, I couldn't cry again. I can't.

I kept blinking and blinking, Yasmeen watching me when I let out a horrible sound of frustration and tears spilled over. I sniffed, wiping them away as I looked around my room, catching my eyes on another equation.

"You've been working hard." She suddenly said while reaching forward to take my hand.

"Yeah," I let out a small laugh, knowing I had two more exams to go. A part of me didn't want to take off the sticky notes of said hard work from the ones I had completed. "Studying helps to keep my mind off of things."