Post Office ✓

01 | mailbox

I looked at her with wide eyes as she took a bite of her croissant. We were at the campus's west-end cafe, Delish, where I had spilled to them the news of Blaise's inappropriate arrival. Of course, they were there before I was because Rachel needed a study buddy, something I had refused to help her with. Now, Hayley was surely trying to punish me because she had come here on my behalf.

But she did have a point about the mail. I wasn't going to jail because of Blaise Cohen, the thought of it halting me from doing despicable things to him after the breakup. Not only would it ruin my pride but everything else in my life and I wasn't ready for that to happen.

"I'll kick his ass," Rachel offered. At Hayley's look of shock, she added, "if you want me to."

In this moment, they were like my angel and demon on my shoulders and I was met with an insurmountable conflict, the prospects of letting Blaise back in my life gently or by kicking him around teasing and taunting me, begging for one to be chosen. It wasn't until a flash of menace and realization that I figured out how I could expertly do both.

♕ ♕ ♕

I wouldn't say I fully took responsibility of my feelings, but I had maintained some level of maturity by slipping a note for Blaise under the door of Room 2156. Doing so made not only a world of difference than running away from my problems, but it made sense of why I had never seen him. The complex we lived in was split up into the fifties and the sixties, with each side having a long hallway between them and their own staircase, vending machine and other amenities. We possibly could've avoided each other forever, but the mail distributor must've not had their head screwed on all the way tight.

He must've been out of the house, because it took him an hour to finally knock on the door, an hour spent reading bad magazines and hoping that it was the wrong Blaise Cohen after all - which in his case would be the right one. When that hour ran up and the glass was turned over so time could start again, I was raised by a hard and strong knock on the door.

When I opened it up, my eyes landed upon curly hair and brown eyes. An angular face that I was familiar with, and seeing it brought back knowledge of all the ways I would cup it as I brought it towards mine.

But looking him in the eye, I heard myself instead, a whisper of a voice that I thought I had put behind me.

I could hardly speak, all of my confidence ebbing out of me as if I were a punctured balloon. If one of my friends saw me like this, they would hardly recognize this insecure pushover of a girl, but she did in fact, exist under the name Lottie Atwell.

I often found myself embarrassed by her existence, but that wasn't enough to make her disappear forever. We all have flipsides. I couldn't do anything to rid myself of my insecurities and past hurt since they were just on the other side. And Blaise Cohen - as much as he and his name were a pain in the ass - had a way of flipping me over completely.

He could do it with a kiss or with a touch. Or even, as I found out in this moment, by standing in my doorway with a box of cupcakes in his arms.

"Well," he gulped, looking at the floor in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, I should've asked for a name before coming at your request and I..."

"Save it," I said, effectively cutting him off. I didn't need to hear him go on about something that could be said in a few simple sentences. If I let him continue, he would probably question what I was going about with this madcap boldness of mine, and that was a question I didn't want to bother with answering.