Where I Learn From My Mistakes

6: Bad Choices

For the first time since it had become our 'thing', I skipped our Saturday girls' night out, too. It was unlikely that Lilly would be there – she had gone AWOL on us for too long for that – but I hadn't felt like hanging out with people who would inevitably ask me about Lilly, or start talking about her.

And that was how I found myself hovering outside Alex's office door once again. I hadn't come back in two days – not since I'd kissed him in front of Lilly, and then cried my eyes out in his arms.

Thinking back, it was a little embarrassing, to say the least. And I knew he had been angry about the kiss – he had only swallowed his anger with me because I clearly hadn't been in the right frame of mind to endure a lecture from him at that point in time. But what about now? If I walked in now, would he blow up at me?

Well – I wasn't going to find out if I kept standing out here like this, was I?

I pushed into the room, hesitating when I saw that he was standing at his desk, bag in hand. He looked ready to leave.

"Hi," I squeaked out, when he did nothing to acknowledge my arrival, even though he must've heard the door open.

He turned around to look at me. "Hi."

Uncomfortable under his scrutiny, I let out a choked laugh. "You really are here every day."

"I'm leaving," he said, reaching over to turn off the monitor. "I don't stay that long on Saturdays."

"Oh." I moved out of the room when he did, but hesitated behind him, knowing I should be leaving, but not exactly wanting to. I didn't want to be alone tonight.

He locked up in silence, taking his time with it. I listened to the clack of the locks turning and ran my fingers along the window panes fixed into the wall next to his door, wondering why the words that had always flowed so easily out of me when I was around him were now gone.

Finally done with locking up, Alex turned to me. "Why are you here?"

"I..." Biting my lip, I shrugged. "I guess... I didn't want to be alone tonight."

"What about your friends?"

I looked down at the floor. "You are my friend," I said.

He went quiet. I peered up at him through my eyelashes. He looked to be thinking about something.

"I'm sorry I kissed you," I blurted out, then cringed at the way it had come out. "I mean... Not that it was bad, or something – I just... I shouldn't have done it..." The more I'd gone on, the softer my voice had gotten, until the last few words had been almost inaudible.

Alex's gaze moved over my face, searching my expression for something. "Forget it," he said, looking away briefly, then back at me again, as if he couldn't quite make up his mind regarding the next course of action.

"Are we... are we still friends?" I asked in a small voice.

I heard Alex inhale deeply, before he said, "Yeah. Of course."

"Okay." I looked back down at the floor.

He stood there, not offering a new line of conversation, but not exactly leaving either.

"Are you going home now?" I asked, with a quick peek at him.

"Back to my room, yeah."

"Can I... come with?"

He hesitated for so long that I rushed to dismiss my own request, "Never mind, I just..."

"Yeah," he said abruptly, cutting over my excuses. "Why not?"