The Dilemma

chapter 1

 I brushed the hair away from my eyes as I made my way towards the doors that lead inside the building. Another day at work, another day of not loving my life. As Paul would say, I was in a funk. Bless his heart, he had tried to set me up with guy after guy to get over Axel.

In retrospect, Axel was (still is) a piece of shit. We dated for about 9 months and things were going super well. Or so I thought, anyways. We met during the summer after my freshman year of college. I was 19, and easily impressed by the bare minimum from men. A guy who didn't just want me for sex? I was sold. I was appreciative that he had a bit of a dirty mind, but wasn't pushy when it came to sex. I'm not exactly comfortable in my body.

We spent the entire summer together, hanging out after work and his summer school classes for 8 weeks straight, spending every minute we possibly could together. We took a lot of late night walks around town, and spent hours watching movies together. We talked about our dreams, our plans for the future, and everything in between. He wanted to get into teaching, and I wanted to be a pediatrician, but the pipe dream was to work in illustration and graphic design. I had a passion for photography and the creative arts. I loved immersing myself in books, art, and music. We had that in common. We read books together (him homework or literature based, while I was deep into fanfics and dark romance books rife with smut), went to concerts together, and he would do his homework while I worked on design prompts for anything I could think of, or was inspired by.

That fall, he got a call from his mother saying that his grandma was sick, and did he think he could come back home to help out the family? He moved to his grandma's house, a few states away. We were sad, but we were certain that we would be fine. It was silly for me to think that it would end up well. I struggled to find my new normal once school started. I was struggling to understand pre-calc, yet again this semester, and also trying to take on more hours at work so I could save up to move to Nicholas's town. Our plan was to get an apartment together and both of us work full time, or as close to it as possible. I would transfer to the community college in his town, and he would take care of his siblings, so his parents could take care of his grandma, while I attended classes.

The following spring, things started improving with his grandma, so he agreed that it was finally time we see each other and spend time together. He was supposed to fly out the week after his birthday to spend the week with me, and visit with his friends he had missed since moving. We were going to go see a concert together, do silly tourist things in Seattle, and finally get to soak in each other's presence. Then, 3 weeks before the show, he broke up with me. Over text. After not talking to me for 3 days and only saying something because my best friend reached out to him to make sure he was still alive.

I had paid for the hotel and the train ride for the show, while he had gotten the tickets for the show, plus his flight out here. After we broke up, he refused to respond to me. He wouldn't even give me one of the tickets, despite me paying for the hotel and travel to the show. It wasn't until about a week after the show that I found out why he refused to give me one of the tickets. He never canceled his flight out here but instead took another girl, who I had thought was my friend, and was there for me post breakup, to the concert. Suffice it to say, I am no longer her friend. I also could not get back the money for that trip, and as a broke college student, I was pissed.

I actually learned about this happening 4 weeks ago, through a mutual friend at a party my roommates and I went to. I think this was the final straw for me. It may be dramatic, but I decided I did not want to stay in town anymore. I am probably going to fail out of school this semester anyways, so what's the point in staying? Between picking up every shift I could, and trying to forget my troubles, school has taken the back burner for me.

This week marks the last week of the semester. I have my last final tomorrow at 10 am, and after that, I am done with this school. Saturday morning my dad will arrive in front of the house with a trailer in tow, to take me home. I plan on enrolling at the local community college there, and instead of doing more pre-med courses, I planned on pursuing my dream of creating art.