“Do you think that he’s mad?” Drew wonders from across the booth as we both watch Andrew storm out of the ice cream shop.
“I… I don’t know,” I mumble in confusion. He looked angry but I’m not so sure why he would be. I’m putting my money on the fact that I’m sitting with Drew right now and he knows about my promiscuous past with the guy. We messed around a lot during the summer, just before I got together with Andrew. If he just stopped and let me explain, I would have told him that I’m only sitting with Drew right now because he walked into the ice cream place as I was eating and decided to sit with me to catch up since we haven’t spoken in months. His new girlfriend goes to Vaughn, so he was hanging out with her but on his way back to his house, he decided to stop for ice cream and that’s the only reason I’m sitting with him. I wish I could explain that to Andrew.
“If you guys broke up, why would he care though?” He asks as I continue to watch out the window where Andrew is walking back towards campus with his back towards me. I wish that if I just stared at him long enough, I would be able to figure him out, but that’s not possible, unfortunately.
“It’s complicated,” I mumble, standing up from the booth. “Anyway, I should get back to campus and take a nap. I’m finally feeling all of the jet lag from this morning. It was nice catching up, Drew.”
“Yeah, you too,” He says as I start to leave. We part ways without exchanging phone numbers or planning to meet again because we aren’t friends or anything, we just had a thing for a little while about forever ago so it was just a polite little conversation but now, all I can think about is Andrew.
When I get back to campus, I just go up to my room and lay down, really pretty tired from the flight I had this morning. I don’t want to think about the extremely long Thanksgiving break I had and I certainly don’t want to think about Andrew, so I just lay down on my bed and go to sleep.
I wake up again just after lunch time, which means that I’m very hungry, so I text Sienna and Mason that I’m back and that I’m going to the food court if they want to meet up there for food. They both text me back saying that they already ate but when I’m done, they’re all in the game room so I should meet them there.
I agree that I’ll be there in half an hour and then slip on some shoes and go to the food court. Because it’s not during lunch, the area is pretty empty which means that the lines are pretty short and that’s amazing because I hate how terrible the lines get during school.
I breeze through the large salad bar and then sit down at one of the many small two people tables and eat my salad. As I’m walking towards the trash can to throw away my trash, I pass a group of four girls eating tacos and I’m not eavesdropping but it’s not like I can just not hear them as I pass.
“You know Andrew Haggerty?” I hear one of them wonder curiously towards another one of them, causing me to inconspicuously start moving slower towards the trash can. There aren’t many people in the cafeteria still, so it’s easy to hear them even though I’m not incredibly close and it’s not like they’re trying to talk quietly.
“Yeah, he and Stella just broke up,” Another one says. “Why?”
“He’s outside with that new chick right now,” The first girl says. “The British one with the twin.”
“Nel, you’re just looking for trouble,” One of the other girls says. “It’s probably nothing.”
I speed up now, walking past the table to throw away my trash. They all look over at me, finally realizing that I’m in hearing range and all four of them pale a little bit, looking petrified that their conversation wasn’t as private as they thought it was. Ignoring their mumbles and gasps, I hurry towards the exit of the food court to look for Mason.
If he is talking to Charlotte then I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to believe that Charlotte won whatever twisted game she’s been playing. I just want to hide out in the dorm with Mason and Sienna and watch movies and stuff. I don’t want to think about Andrew or Charlotte or how I’d be able to stand it if they got together.
However, I’m forced to think about it when, as I’m passing the center fountain in the middle of the school, I see them. That gossiping girl was right- Andrew and Charlotte are sitting on one of the benches near a large tree. They’re sitting very close together too, and she’s laughing at something he just said with her hand resting lazily on his forearm.
I don’t even realize it until I feel the pinch of my nails digging into my palms, but my hands are clenched into fists by my sides and I’ve stopped walking. They’re pretty far away, so they don’t notice me standing there at first, which is good, because I need some time to just stare.
I’m not really mad that he’s talking to Charlotte- I realize that I don’t have any right to be mad about who he talks to anymore. The issue isn’t really Charlotte at all, actually. It just hurts- it really fucking hurts- that he’s sitting there, letting her flirt with him, as if we didn’t break up just a week ago. As if we meant nothing.
They probably aren’t actually dating (I don’t know if I’d ever be able to deal with that) but he sure doesn’t seem completely against that idea by the way that they’re sitting- the way that she’s leaning into him like putty on his shoulder. It’s disgusting.
I want to move, to leave the large center yard of campus and go to Mason and Sienna and rant to them about how much I hate Charlotte, but I can’t. I feel paralyzed as my lungs deflate and then refuse to inflate again. They become numb just like the rest of me but I can feel my throat constricting and then I’m having trouble breathing.
In and then out, breathe in and then out.
I don’t know how long that I’m standing there until Andrew notices me. He looks up from laughing at something that Charlotte had said, and then when he sees me standing there, Charlotte notices him staring so then she looks up too. Andrew and I maintain eye contact for a long time and it makes my belly do a little flip. She says something to him but he still doesn’t take his eyes off of me, and then he shrugs. Keeping his eyes on mine, he slides his hand up so that instead of holding onto his forearm, Charlotte is holding his hand. Interlocking their fingers together, he begins to glare at me.
A glare that shatters me again. The bits of me have been shattered again and now, I’m even smaller. It’s like I’m a mirror that had fallen over and broke into a few hundred pieces but now, a giant has come along and stomped all over me, breaking even the broken parts into even littler, even more broken parts. I have no idea why he’s glaring at me like that, why he’s suddenly angry at me for something. I have no idea why he would want to hurt me like that.
I’m sure that the amount of pain that I’m suddenly feeling shows on my face because a second after the glare, his face softens into a sympathetic frown and then, before I can see anything else, I turn and walk towards the dorms. There’s nothing I want more right now than to be able to get out of there as fast as I can, to just sprint to the dorms, but I will not let them know how much they got to me. I walk, counting my steps at a deliberate pace so that I know that I’m not walking to quickly to qualify as normal. Because I am normal.
At least, that’s what I tell myself until I’m in the safety of the dorm and then I hurry into the game room. Mason and Sienna are both in there so I lock the door behind me and then sit down on the couch between both of them.
“Stell…” Mason says slowly, obviously noticing that something is wrong by the way that I entered the room. “What happened?”
I open my mouth to tell her something ‘he’s over me’ or ‘he’s with Charlotte’ or something along those lines but when I open my mouth to speak, the only thing that comes out is an unexpected sob. How could he do that? How could he just act like we meant nothing? Like everything that we’d been through in these past months has all been a complete lie? How can he want to hurt me like that? I just don’t understand what’s happening right now.
Sienna puts her hand on my shoulder, preparing to ease me out of a very long, very painful session of sobs and crocodile tears, but they never come. There’s just one dry sob and then I’m done. I’m not going to cry over him like a pathetic little love sick puppy. That’s what I want to do, but I won’t let myself stoop that low right now. I’m going to convert all of the sadness and pain I feel right now into anger.
“I’m going to go,” I mutter shakily, standing up from the couch without even explaining anything.
“What? Stella, what’s going on?” Sienna wonders curiously in a concerned voice.
“Just Andrew,” I sigh, offering them a small wave before leaving the game room.
“Stella, wait, talk to us,” Mason calls as they both follow me out of the room and towards the bank of elevators.
“He’s just flirting with Charlotte,” I say with a forced shrug. “No big deal, since we’re not dating anymore and everything.”
“He’s what?” Sienna wonders incredulously.
We all walk into the elevator as it opens and then I turn to face them. “They’re outside. And the way he looked at me… I don’t know what I ever did to make him so mad. He has to be flirting with her just to piss me off, right? That has to be why.”
I don’t know what they say after that, my ears begin to ring with the rage that’s pent up inside of me as I replay the scene from outside in my head again and again and again until I feel like my forehead is going to cave in due to the pressure inside of my head.
When I leave Sienna and Mason concerned in the dorms, I head to my car. There’s a gym on campus but it’s very neglected considering we spend most of our time working out here so it doesn’t really make sense for us to want to spend our free time working out as well. The gym in downtown Oxnard is really nice though, so I go there and purchase a day pass because I barely ever go here and I’m not going to buy an actual membership for something that I rarely ever do.
So I go inside and find the boxing stuff. There’s those little bags that look like tonsils, those cylinders that stand on a sand bag or something and then when you punch it, they spring back into your face, and then there are the super heavy punching bags, which are what I’m looking for.
I don’t know much about boxing, but it’s something that helps me vent some of my unwanted emotions sometimes. I’d rather be punching Charlotte or, at the moment, Andrew, but this is a better way of doing that, and it also prevents me from getting suspended or something, which could possibly put my Julliard scholarship in jeopardy or something.
There are instructor people walking around the wide open space, so I ask one of them to help me wrap my hands in the white gauze tape or whatever it’s called, and then I go over to one of the softer punching bags and start going at it.
The only thing that I can think of as I’m throwing punch after punch after punch is that look that Andrew gave me as he pulled Charlotte’s hand into his own. Daring me to show any type of emotion. The way he looked at me- that ruthless glare, I just don’t get it. I know that he was doing it to hurt me- or to piss me off- but he was trying to start something. I don’t know why, or why he was even talking to Charlotte or why any of that just happened. Even if he was only sitting with her to piss me off, it still makes my stomach churn.
I punch the bag in front of me with thud after thud and as I continue, I feel my rage begin to build up instead of calming down like it usually does. I keep seeing Andrew’s face, glaring at me, as he’s holding Charlotte’s hand and letting her mindlessly flirt with him. I keep feeling that fire continue to burn in the bottom of my belly and it keeps growing until there’s a wildfire burning on my skin, searing me as if my sweat is gasoline.
Maybe it was just a ploy to piss me off, but it still hurts like hell to see him with her. I don’t want to see him with somebody else like that, like we didn’t even matter at all. I don’t want to even believe that there is a possibility that he’s already moving on from us. I want him to hurt and I know that it seems terrible but I do. I want him to hurt, to show me that we actually meant as much to him as we did to me.
I keep punching the bag, feeling the burn on my skin fuel the rage I feel towards Andrew and Charlotte and that stupid glare and all of this stupid crap.
“Hey, stop,” I hear one of the instructor’s say, approaching my side, but I ignore him, deafened by the now consuming rage I feel towards everything- including myself. “Ma’am, no. Stop.”
When I don’t stop punching the bag on my own, he reaches over and grabs one of my wrists in his big muscly hands, which is when I finally stop throwing punches at the bag.
“You need to take a break. Okay?” He says, holding my hand up so that I can see the blood seeping through the tape on my knuckles. “Do you want some ice?”
“No,” I breathe, panting from all of the physical exertion I just put on myself. “Sorry. I’m, uh, I’m fine. Thanks.”
The man gives me a strange look but I just turn, grab my bag, and hurry out of the gym again. Once I get to my car again, I regret not taking the ice that was offered to me because I can feel the burn on my knuckles now. I unwrap my hands and cringe at how bloody both of my hands are from how hard I was punching the bag. This is going to be a long drive back to campus.
And it is. After I get back to campus, I go to the nurse’s office to get my hands iced and then wrapped. Apparently, I almost sprained my left wrist, so the nurse put an actual wrap on my wrist and then sanitized and wrapped my bloody knuckles in bandages before she gave me the ‘okay’ to go leave the nurse’s office.
It’s about dinner time now, but I’m really not hungry, I’m just exhausted and grumpy and I want to go back to my dorm and maybe cry a little bit and try to figure out my life and what the heck I’m going to do next.
I numbly walk towards my room, fighting to take each step with just how tired of this I am. I’m tired of feeling tired and drained and angry and sad and empty. I’m tired of it all. Up the elevator and then down the hallway, I’m almost to my room when I stop dead in my tracks. Andrew is sitting there, right beside my door with his back leaning against the wall and his head resting in his palm with his elbow resting on one of his bent knees.
My keys jingle in my hand as I stop, which he hears, and then he looks up at me. We make eye contact again and I flinch, recalling that the last time we made eye contact, he was glaring at me with a look that I could only recognize as hatred.
I don’t care anymore though- at least, I really try not to- and I ignore him as I start to go for my door again, scrambling with my shaking hand to get my room key in my fingers. Andrew scrambles up to his feet and intercepts my straight path to my door, but he doesn’t say anything. He’s probably looking at me, I can basically feel his eyes drilling holes into the top of my head, but I don’t look up at him. I just look at his broad shoulder, forcing myself not to look up at his face because I don’t want to see him. I don’t want him here right now. I don’t want to talk to him, I just want to pretend that he doesn’t even exist. That he never existed. I don’t even move or try to push past him. I will not give into his attempt to make me recognize that he’s here, I just stand there, calmly waiting for him to move or say something or just do something.
“I’m so glad that you’re okay,” He finally breaks the silence with a voice that’s just a little over a whisper. “I looked for you all over campus. I was so worried, Stell.”
I don’t move at all until he says my name and it still sounds like an angel coming down from heaven, just to say my name. It’s magical, and the nostalgic feeling that smacks me in the face makes me cringe. I still don’t speak, I just remind myself to keep looking at his shoulder and just stay calm. He’ll move eventually and I don’t want to talk to him.
“I know that I took things too far. I’m sorry, okay?”
I still remain silent and I mentally applaud my solid resolve.
“Stella, please just say something. Talk to me. Please,” He begins to plead in a soft voice and then he puts his hand on my shoulder and I take a step back, not wanting him to touch me at all. I miss his touch like crazy and it makes me so mad. It makes me so mad that I’m not completely disgusted by him. It makes me so mad.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I finally mumble in a shaky breath, finally unable to stand his scrutinizing gaze.
“I know that you do,” He counters and I can hear the relief in his voice that I just spoke, which makes me regret ever talking at all. Not just right then, but forever ago, when I was just meeting him, I regret that I ever said ‘hello’ to him at all. My life would be so much easier right now if Andrew Haggerty was not a part of it.
“I hate you,” I whisper with my eyes closed because I know that if they were open, Andrew would realize how untrue that is. He’ll never know how true that I want it to be though, or how badly I want to hate him.
“No you don’t,” He argues, already able to catch my lie, which is completely unfair. I hate that he can read me like that. I hate that he thinks that saying sorry will fix everything. I hate everything about him, actually, but I just can’t find it in myself to actually hate him.
“But I want to,” I say, still whispering with a quiver because I know that if I try to talk right now, I’ll just lose it. All of my composure will just be gone. “So much. And it’s really unfair.”
“But you don’t,” He repeats.
“Shut up,” I say, really not wanting to hear his stupid voice anymore.
“Stella, please,-“
“It was Drew, wasn’t it?” I wonder curiously, keeping my eyes stuck on his shoulder as I ask the question when I remember that he saw me sitting with Drew at the ice cream shop earlier. That’s probably what this is all about. He thought that I was moving on or something so he wanted to show me that he was also moving on. With Charlotte, just to make it sting that much more.
“Stella,-“
“I hate you,” I say again. “And I don’t want you to talk to me again, okay? Ever. Just stop. Seriously. None of it even matters anymore,” I mutter as I push him violently away from the door and then I stab my key into the door and then unlock it, turning quickly into the room before Andrew can say anything else.
“Stella, I’m sorry!” He calls through the door, knocking three times before realizing that I’m not going to answer him.
I’m too busy stuffing my face into a pillow and crying my stupid little eyes out.