I wanna know which way to go. I can't love alone. - Katelyn Tarver
"The day I met you...my entire life changed. For the better, of course. Just your smile alleviated all my stress, and made me feel special. You would constantly try to make me feel better, with your jokes, but with words too. He always knew the right things to say. You were my best friend."
"This is our story."
Freshman year. College. The halls didn't smell of old textbook paper, but it was refreshed with new hope. The dorms smelt of new furniture, mothballs, and there was a hint of marijuana in the air. After a tearful goodbye to your mother and an awkward hug with your father (he never expressed any type of emotion, the only time you saw it come out of him was when his voice cracked when the Giants lost unexpectedly), you trudged the heavy boxes full of cabinets that you would probably never use, shirts you would rarely wash, and a new sense of independence that would quickly turn into dismay when you would realize how alone you really were.
That night your roommate, annoyingly perky and was probably the head cheerleader back in her high school, skipped out of the room, seemingly going to a party that you weren't invited to. As she quickly said, "Ta-ta!", you wrinkle your nose at her pitched voice, and went back to eating your Ramen noodles.
You didn't really mind that you were alone. You didn't mind being left alone with your thoughts, you preferred it. Being alone cleared your mind and let you take a rest from the hectic world outside. You'd rather stay in then go out to be groped by some stranger, or listen to your friend talk about her boyfriend for the millionth time saying "I mean I like him, but like, I hate fighting, but, like, he's so freaking annoying, but, like, I don't want to be alone, like you, you know?" You didn't know. When you were alone you got the be the creative, outgoing fool you were too embarrassed to be in public.
The thing was, you didn't mind being alone. But you hated feeling lonely.
Suddenly it was Thanksgiving break. Filled with the prospect of going home to not parents but food, the energy around camp was more energetic than usual. Before, people stared at the ground, careful not to make eye contact, as if the mere contact with people would cause them to become a social embarrassment. But now, if you accidentally bump into a person, they wouldn't just say sorry, but try to make small talk with you.
It was nauseating.
Especially since one week ago your father had called and in his stern, low and gruff voice told you, "Your mother and I are going to Hawaii. Can you stay at school?"
You felt the anger burning up inside of you, but you didn't dare yell at your father. "Why didn't you buy one for me?" You were careful not to whine. The punishment you would get from that would be even worse.
"You should catch up on your studies," your father proclaimed, and his tone ended the conversation. With a quick, hesitated 'bye' he hung up the phone, and you closed your eyes with deep frustration. Angry tears burned at your eyes, but you didn't dare let them fall, because Betsy was across the room, painting her nails the most horrid pink color and talking on the phone about some hookup she had.
"Oh god, I know he was, like, the worst. I mean his mouth was literally spouting saliva at my face." Pause. "Ew! Shut up!"
You sighed in annoyance, and Betsy glared with her piercing green eyes at you. She spoke in a whisper, but it was still audible to you. "Sorry Claudia, I have to whisper. My roommate is giving me the look." Another pause. She giggled, and immediately covered her hand with her mouth, as if she wasn't supposed to laugh. Even though your eyes were lazily staring at the blank paper on your computer screen ("What do you feel are the most important laws from the Bill of Rights? Discuss how they correlate with one another. 10 page minimum), you could feel her glance at you and heard her crack up all over again.
Soon, you watched all the students pack up some clothes in a duffel bag, with a last minute souvenir from the college gift shop (thank God it was open 24/7), and climb into the cars blaring the latest Kanye West song. Betsy awkwardly waved her hand, as she said, "Happy Thanksgiving!" But you saw her roll her eyes as she climbed into her best friend's car as she said, "I hope we get to pick our roommates next year".
Suddenly, you were all alone.
It was different being here on campus without anybody. Everything was in a more skewed perspective. The leaves suddenly didn't look unique and special because they were orange and yellow, but unnatural and weird. Hot chocolate wasn't warm and soothing to your headaches, but it burned your tongue and left your stomach empty. And the breeze outside didn't feel delightfully chill on your cheeks, but now it made you waste more time to put on a coat.
Thanksgiving morning you woke up, contemplated calling your parents, but instead decided to check the hundreds of tweets about, "Happy Thanksgiving! Gobble gobble!"
You warmed up a microwaveable turkey that you bought when you went to the supermarket yesterday. An impatient clerk had rung you up, tapping his foot in the most obnoxious way. He told you that he had to go back to his family and help his wife prepare the turkey. Suddenly, his face lost the exasperated look and his eyes sparkled a little as he talked about his family. You couldn't help but angrily swipe at your eyes as you realized you were alone.
Happy freaking Thanksgiving.
As you were waiting for your fabulous frosted turkey to heat up, music suddenly filled your room. The angry screech of the guitar made you cover your ears, but you could still hear the screaming voices. A rap soon came on, and the beat shook your floor. You could feel yourself building up with frustration, a result of being exhausted and unwanted. Now this. If you were going to enjoy your warmed up Lean Cuisine thanksgiving dinner, you were going to enjoy it in the peace and quiet of your favorite book. Not while listening to some punk rock wannabe blast his radio to some Led Zeppelin/Eminem knockoff.
Before you knew it, your feet and racing mind had led you to the source. You knocked the door, hands crossed, feet planted, and a mouth full of daggers you were about to throw at him.
The door opened.
Brown. That's all you saw: brown. A hint of green played with the color, but the chocolate color was stunningly beautiful and beautifully stunning and overtook you with a force that you forgot why you were there, what you were going to say, or why you were angry. Or were you angry? His eyes appeased you: made you forget of your abandonment, of your loss of friendships, and all the things that annoyed you.
"Hey."
And suddenly you didn't feel lonely anymore.
November 29th, 2012.
That's the day you fell for Logan Phillip Henderson.
You had Thanksgiving together, bonding over how you were the only two people left on campus. He was hilarious, and even if you tried to be cute, his jokes made you laugh until your stomach hurt. Even a quick nudge, or a face could leave you in hysterics. You were constantly out of breath when you were with him, hating how you face had turned red, but as you tried to stop and look semi-decent the jerk would just send you off into your red-faced, bent over chortling self.
He enjoyed your company, and you enjoyed his. In the beginning, it started out with quick walks around campus, but then you met up for coffee, and then he started to meet you outside your classes. You both devised the perfect plan to see each other as often as possible. You felt happy in his company, not just because his personality was amazing, and his face wasn't that bad to look at, but because he decided to spend his free time with you. It made you feel something you hadn't felt in years: wanted.
You always loved getting into heated arguments with him: it was almost always about music. You trashed the rap-rock genre he listened to, saying that it wasn't even a type of music. You tried to get him into bands like Incubus, Neon Trees and Of Mice and Men, but he never listened. Sometimes, when he was irritated by you, he would blast the music when you were studying together. Even though you constantly rebuked him for it, saying that the listening to the music "literally is like scraping broken glass against my ear drum", you secretly loved the teasing and even stole one of his CD's to listen to the music just so you could be reminded of him.
When you were with him, you forgot about Betsy, and the multitude of friends and guys she brought over. You forgot about how much stress was on you to get good grades, in a last ditch attempt to impress your father. You forgot about how alone you actually were in the world, how, compared to so many other people, you had no one that cared for you.
But the one person who did made it all worth it.
"Truth or Dare?"
You were in his room, as his roommate pretty much lived at the fraternity he was pledging, and he (thankfully) hated Betsy as much as you did. In addition, he had a microwave and a griller, so instead of eating the Cup of Noodles, which soup-like taste you outgrew, you instead were living large with Mac&Cheese with cut up pieces of grilled chicken. You originally came over to study Organic Chemistry, but the forgotten notes lay on the floor as you settled into an 80's sleepover stereotypical game.
"Uh...Dare," you stammer out. Logan somehow knew when you were lying, and there were just some questions you couldn't answer. As in, who do you like?
"Dare...dare...my girl you made the daring choice," he said with a wicked grin, but on his handsome face it looked out of place and sarcastically sassy. You laughed at his face, threw some liquid cheese at it, and punched him in the leg.
"Ow! What was that for?"
"What was that for? Did you hear what you just said?" You squint your eyes and speak in a derogatory attempt at his voice, "Your dare is very daring!" You throw in some old man chuckles in there, just because you can.
He, in response, pushes you, and you almost land on his floor, but balance yourself quickly on his bed and settle comfortably in the pillows.
"So Henderson."
"Yes?"
"My dare please, good sir," you say as you do a half-bow, as you are sitting and eating your wonderful dinner. He laughs and bows back, before a sly grin appears on his face. Your grin suddenly drops from your face as your mind races through all the things that could cause that look; the look that said, "Oh, this is gonna be good."
"TP the girl's dorm," he spits out, taking a breath at the end, then raising his eyebrows in anticipation from what you would do in response. You suddenly take a huge gulp of water from your glass, not from the stupidness of the dare and how idiotic Logan was for suggesting it, but for that hesitating moment in which you asked yourself, "Should I do it?"
"Not in a million years," you retort back to him, and in the process steal a piece of chicken. He pouts like a little boy, and you aren't sure if it's from your thievery or from the fact that you won't do it.
"What if I do it with you?" he asks, then cocks up his eyebrows again in the most arrogant way, as if he knows your response, and he likes it. You open your mouth, but close it, not sure of what you would say. You would be doing something fun, the potential making of an inside joke, with someone. You guys would do it together, as one. And not just with anyone, but with Logan Henderson.
Logan sees the uncertainty in your eyes and he knows that he won.
"Yes!" He jumps around in his room, like a little kid, while you roll your eyes. "We're going to TP!" He does the disco in the middle of his floor, and you can't help but chuckle at his stupidity and his childlike behavior. You raise your eyebrows as if to say, "Really?" He shakes his butt at you and takes a flying jump into the bed.
"You have to answer a truth though," Logan was infamous in your book for only doing dares, so asking him a truth would be a momentous moment: almost as momentous as you guys streaking. Your head was full of disbelief as it told you that it was a wrong idea, but as you looked at Logan and saw how much he wanted to do it, with you, you banished all the thoughts.
"Fine," Logan sighed grudgingly, but his eyes were dancing around in happiness as he knew what you guys were doing.
Suddenly the night was dark, and the room was claustrophobic and suffocating. You had revised this question in your head, and practiced this question in front of the mirror, but it felt so surreal in this moment. You felt as if you were going on a roller coaster ride. You anticipated this moment waiting in the line, but the drop still made your stomach fall and made you scream.
"Why are you friends with me?" you blurt out, feeling your cheeks redden with embarrassment. His eyes knit in confusion, so you continue. "I mean, why me? Out of everyone else?"
Your eyes suddenly fill with tears, and you angrily shut your eyes and look down. You didn't want to cry, and you wish you could take the question back. But you knew that the curiosity would have killed you. You never knew why you were never good enough for anyone, and now that you were for him, you wanted to know what changed.
"I always felt alone," he finally said in a low voice, barely higher than a whisper, as if he was unsure what to say. "I hated not feeling close to anyone though. But when I tried, I felt even more lonely as I was pushed out of inside jokes, as I looked at people whisper in front of me, and as I still wasn't invited to parties to talk about things I hated with people I disliked. But when you found me...well, you were funny. You made me laugh all the time. You aren't afraid to tease me, like other people are, afraid that I'm too fragile to take a joke. You bash me and I somehow love it: because your criticism means that you want to see me grow. I can talk to you about anything, knowing that I won't be judged, and knowing that with a joke that will always me smile, you will give me advice, because you don't want to see me fall. And your face, your smile, just lights up my day. It's nice to know that someone you care about so dearly, cares about you. It's nice to know that someone you love wants you to succeed and will be there to pick you up when you fail. It's nice to know that I'm someone's first priority." I feel a soft finger under my chin, and he lifts my head up slowly so that my red eyes are making eye contact with his brown ones: the ones that I fell in love with.
"I love feeling wanted."
He smiles and squeezes your shoulders, but you have the sudden urge to take his head in your hands and kiss him, hard. He takes your hand and helps you off the bed.
"Start collecting TP."
As he leans back, showing his slight stomach, and as his arm muscles bulge, you swallow a quick intake of air.
Crap, you were in love.
"If I took a step back, I would have noticed the way you were staring at me. I would have seen how grateful you were to have someone like me in their life. Isn't that funny: I felt the same way about you. Isn't it beautiful and magical and just hilarious that two people can find that kind of happiness? That two people can feel the same way about one another without the other person knowing? It's kind of silly I guess. But to have it happen to you, to find that person who you want more than anyone in the world, say their feelings to you, and it matches yours almost exactly. To have that dream come true, but the sensation you get is even better, because it's happening to you! It wasn't a dream anymore: it was real."
"It was sensational."
February 14th. You hated this holiday, especially after you turned 15 and her friend suddenly lost all those pounds and her braces, and you were suddenly alone in the midst of couples. You blamed your lack of spirit on the "holiday" (quotations were necessary: it did not deserve to have the prestige of holidays like Christmas or Thanksgiving) on the fact that the it was just manipulated by Hallmark to get rid of their leftover candy from Christmas by putting it in cute little heart containers. You also said that boys needed to be chivalrous all the time, not just on that one day. But the truth was, you hated watching romantic movies alone in your room, mouthing to every word Meg Ryan said in Sleepless in Seattle, while you occasionally looked out the window to see some girl be dropped off by her boyfriend with tons of presents, and a kiss.
However, this year, your outlook was different. Maybe it was the fact that you were in college now. The fact that you have matured overall as a person, and began to realize that you didn't need a man to make you happy. The fact that you disregarded these silly movies as a waste of your time and the setter of high expectations, as you threw another classic movie in the trash.
Or maybe it was the fact that Logan was spending Valentine's Day alone also.
You didn't know if he knew what the day meant, but he had invited you for coffee. He had been acting strange lately: blowing you off on study dates, not coming every day at 2 AM to watch Friends, and not answering your texts almost immediately. You worried about it, but just the prospect of meeting him today, of all days, made you disregard it.
You never imagined yourself as one of these girls. The one who called Valentine's Day, "like, my favorite holiday". You never imagined yourself not sitting at home, putting the popcorn in the microwave, and looking through your collection of moves deciding between John Travolta or Hugh Grant. And you never imagined yourself dressed up in a cute sundress, with the tiniest bit of mascara and blush on your face, just for a guy. And you never imagined all your nerves disappearing, yet at the same time doubling, just because, as soon as the door chimed, a guy looked at you and smiled.
"Hey," Logan smiles and hugs you. You held him close, never wanting to let go, and suddenly realizing in that hug how far apart both of you have been recently. He somehow detangles himself from your tight grip.
"I got you your favorite: Vanilla Bean Frap," Logan says, as he hands you the sugary, white delightness. You could feel yourself shiver in chilly anticipation, but your heart warms up as you take your drink in one hand, and rub Logan's hand with the other.
"Thanks," you say, as you quickly swallow a sip. You take your hand off Logan's, and your eyes shyly meet his in what you hope is a subtle, but effective, signal of what you are feeling.
"So tell me, my good man, what are we doing here?"
"My lady,whatever do you mean?"
"It's Valentine's Day," you say, and you twiddle the straw between my fingers, suddenly fascinated of the bold green shade and the tube-like shape of it. You suddenly feel a warm, muscular hand on your back, and you take a quick intake of breath, suddenly afraid of the future, even though you are so curious to know what's going to happen. You raise your eyes to meet his again, as hard as it is, because they suddenly seem like they are overwhelmed by a weight.
"You know I really like you," Logan starts, then pauses, as if he is trying to find the right words. "And all I really want is for you to be happy."
Before you can kiss him, a voice suddenly says, "Hey."
Logan stands up from his seat, smiling, and pats the owner of the voice on his back. You stare at this affair confused, as if it was your favorite TV show that you rewatched several times, but you couldn't remember the episode you were watching. Words are being exchanged, but the noise doesn't fill your ears. You're still in shock of what didn't happen.
Then you put two and two together. Oh.
"So I'll leave you two lovebirds alone now," Logan winks, and grabs his jacket. He whispers a quick 'call me later' to you, as you sadly smile in his retreating direction.
Of course. The hopes that Logan was finally going to declare his love to you are gone. What were you thinking, that Logan would profess how much he really cared about you, and you would kiss in the coffee shop? That everyone would clap that their favorite couple got together? But you wouldn't hear it, because in that moment, you were the only two people in the world?
Oh please. That was full of crap, made up to feed to desperate and single girls who were full of hope that this year would be the year. You put your hand on your head, mentally smacking yourself as you realize Logan had turned you into one of those girls: the ones who envisioned a dozen red roses sent from their crush as they serenaded them to their favorite slow dance song. You shook my head in disgust with yourself.
"So..you were expecting Logan, weren't you?"
Your head, which you didn't realize was sinking deep into your hands, suddenly rose and
looked at green eyes. "What?"
He chuckles, then leans forward into you, as if to tell you a big secret. "I'm majoring in Psychology. I can read people easily."
Your mind is suddenly frozen, as the you can practically feel the atmosphere of embarrassment cloud around you. Instead, you try to change the subject by using the only the only superpower you had: sarcasm (well, it wasn't considered a superpower, but when it was used by you, it was). "Psychology, huh? I can see you in the future: 'How would you feel about getting fries with that?'"
He laughs, and your mind clears up a bit, realizing how he had a sense of humor, but how you also managed to successfully change the subject. But he shot down that theory as soon as he spoke, "You know, since I'm a major in Psychology, I could get Logan to fall in love with you".
Your eyes go wide, and your heart beats faster, and it suddenly feels like everything's in slow motion. Just the prospect of Logan falling in love with you was...amazing, for lack of a better word. "Could you really? I mean, I guess it wouldn't be that hard for you, but I would really appreciate it and-".
He laughed. You wrinkle your eyebrows in confusion, but as soon as you saw that cocky half-grin indicating that he knew that he was right, you suddenly realized.
Dammit.
"God, I'm so sorry, I had to do that," his half grin, became a genuine sorry one, and you found yourself smiling as well.
"No, that was a good one," you say, as you wipe some of the splattered Vanilla Bean Frappuccino off of you: the result of being too hectic about the insane idea of you and Logan. "Let's just start over."
You hold out your hand with a smile, and then suddenly realize how good he looked. His eyes looked like newly found emeralds, sparkling under the teeniest cover of dirt. As he extended a hand toward you, his muscles were bulging, and his smile was showing all of his pearly white teeth. You tried to squeeze the teenager inside of you who was squealing about finally finding her dream boy, who "must have a six pack, like, if he doesn't, we can't get married."
"Hi," he says, as he takes your hand and wraps his warm one around his, fingers wrapped comfortably around each other. "I'm James."
It only took you three weeks. Three weeks to forget about Logan, to fall in love with a new person. He didn't have the absolute charm that Logan did, but his corny jokes and his genuine smile distracted you from that fact. He distracted you from Logan, and suddenly it was you who was calling off study dates, not coming every day at 2 AM to watch Friends, and not answering his texts almost immediately. You found another person to share the world with, another person who made you feel wanted, and another person to rely on. He never made you feel lonely, and he was your new best friend, with his overdramatic sassiness and his hilarious personality. His passion for cars, his soothing singing voice, and his obsession with his dog, Fox, made him more exciting for you, because everyday you found a new quirk to explore.
It only took the day for him to ask you out, proposing the ideas with flowers, a card, and a sweet smile.
And it only took one second for you to give your answer: "Yes".
"So, what do you want to do tonight?" Logan asks you, as you both sat in his room. You had a huge life sciences test that you both had barely studied for, so you were going to spend this entire week just studying for this test. Or, at least, that's what you told yourself before you entered his room and found him holding a controller and having the best puppy dog eyes you had ever seen. Now, the only thing you were telling yourself was, "Just after this one game."
"I don't know about you, but James and I are going to watch a movie," you say, as you smile automatically. Whenever you said James voice, or talked about you and James hanging out, your mind immediately became at ease and all you wanted to do was call him just to hear his voice. You couldn't believe that you had him as your boyfriend. You were the type of girl to end up alone with cats, Jell-o, and subscriptions to tons of magazines that would take up the ridiculous amount of free time you had. Not the kind of girl who finally said, "I'm taken."
You felt Logan shift in his seat, and paused the game, knowing that he was upset. "What's wrong?"
Logan bit his lip, and you felt the familiar rush of butterflies in your stomach. "I mean, you are always hanging out with James. We never get to spend time together anymore." His brown eyes, once soft, were now dark with anger as he glares right at you.
You laugh. "We're hanging out right now! And besides," you say, as you shut off the TV, "you were the one who brought us together."
Logan looks down at his thumbs. "Yeah, but I didn't think you would be one of those girls."
You immediately stop cleaning up the dirty dishes on the floor. "What?"
"You seem so attached to him, you just melted into his personality. You are defined by him. I'm so bored without you and you never hang out with me anymore. And whenever we do hang it, you only talk about James."
You look at him, not angrily, but confused on why he would say that. He knew how much you hated to completely rely on someone else, and how you liked to be independent. He wasn't sarcastically making a comment: he was serious in what he was saying. You wondered what could push him to pick on a flaw that you were sensitive about.
Then you suddenly realize it. Oh my god.
"Are you jealous?" you laugh, because you couldn't imagine Logan jealous of anyone, especially you.
Logan's cheeks redden. "No!" His tongue pokes out of his cheek. "I just don't understand why you and James need to be attached at the hip. I mean, I got no one to hang out with now."
You can't stop laughing at him, even though you will yourself to stop. He looks so angry, so upset, but the fact that he's jealous of you and James makes you delirious. "Well, maybe you wouldn't be so jealous if you got a girl. Which, with your anger problems, might be hard to do."
Logan's face reddens even more, and his brown eyes seem more black. "I can get a girl, I just don't want one."
"Then why are you jealous of me hanging out with James?"
Logan looks down at the ground, trying not to make eye contact with you. You sigh, pick up your bag off the floor, and head towards the door. The atmosphere had turned from hilarious to awkward, and it was your cue to leave. "Call me when you make sense."
But as you close the door, you can't help but wonder why he's jealous.
"If I stayed around a bit longer, I would have heard you punching your pillow, throwing stuff around, and taking deep breaths to not cry. If I had heard that, I would have figured out that you weren't jealous of our relationship. You weren't even jealous of me."
"You were jealous of James: because he had everything you wanted. And your everything was me."
You couldn't sleep. This may have seemed really normal for some people, but the moment your head hit the pillow with dreams about that really hot guy from Canada (what's his name...you kept on forgetting) you fell into a deep slumber. But not tonight.
It wasn't because of the fight you had with Logan. You had fights with Logan all the time, about the stupidest things. One moment you were fighting about who won in Call of Duty, the next you were arguing about whether Keeping Up with the Kardashians was a good show or not (surprisingly, it was his favorite show). This fight was different, you knew it. For one thing, it wasn't about something meaningless and insignificant. It was about your relationship with James, something that was arguably a huge part of your life now. You and James could possibly get married. You shivered in your bed and frowned. It wasn't because you didn't like the idea of James and you staying together forever, you frowned because...
Okay, maybe you didn't like the idea of you guys together forever.
But it wasn't your fault: who though of this shit for relationships anyway? It was either never or forever. Either we end it right now, or we get married. Where's the middle part? You didn't know what it was, but you sure as hell didn't want to be tied down to James forever.
You pulled the pillow over your head, angry at your thoughts. You didn't mean to sound like a bitch. It wasn't like you were a slut and didn't want to be tied down to James because he was one guy and you wanted multitudes of them. It was just that, could you really be with James for forever? You loved him, you really did, but there was just a nagging part in your brain, a little part that whispered all the things that annoyed you about him. The nagging part that told you about how you weren't satisfied with the decision of just him and you, how you wanted more.
And the part that said, "I know who could give you everything you want."
Stop it, you told yourself. You're being ridiculous. You didn't understand why you were thinking about this. Maybe it was your fight with Logan that really made you wonder why he was jealous. Maybe it was the fact that you couldn't stop thinking about the tears that brimmed Logan's eyes and the disappointed face he had when you left his room. Maybe it was the fact that exactly one hour, twenty seven minutes, and thirty seconds after you left his room (not that anyone was counting) you got a text that said, "sorry, i'm an idiot...lunch tomorrow? got a killer cd you need to listen to" and you memorized it on the spot.
And also, maybe it was the fact that you realized how messy James room was, with his stacked bowls of eaten food, with the crinkled papers of homework on the floor, and with the CDs (not in their cases) strewn all over the place. Maybe it was the fact that James made you cereal for dinner, and that he wasn't even considerate to give you milk. And maybe it was the fact that he picked the scariest movie to watch that evening, even though he knew that you couldn't handle scary movies (you've been blaming your non-drowsiness on this fact, but there was no point in lying to yourself).
Stop. Seriously. You love James not Logan.
But if you really loved James, wouldn't you just have said his name? Why did Logan's even had to appear in that sentence? To convince yourself that you really weren't the worst girlfriend in the world? You prop yourself up in your bed, sitting and just thinking. Where did Logan even fit in all of this? You thought you had it all figured out: your life with Logan and your life with James was all separate. But after the fight, it was all jumbled. Your feelings with Logan that you thought you hid became stronger, and they fought with the feelings you had with James. You were conflicted: you didn't know who to turn to, because the only people you trusted on campus were the people who you were so confused about.
You reached for your phone, went outside (no way in hell was Betsy going to eavesdrop on this) and called James, because you loved him. You've loved him ever since he sat down with coffee with you on that Valentine's Day, took you on a walk afterwards and gave you a flower plucked from a street vendor's cart, and gave you a kiss when he dropped you off at your dorm.
But then why couldn't you forget the way that Logan's red sweater looked on him on Valentine's Day, the way his smile brightened up when he saw you, and and the way you looked back at him the exact same time he looked back at you and gave a half-smile before the ching of the door indicated his departure?
"Hello?" you suddenly heard a groggy voice on the phone, and you were awaken from your thoughts as you realized you were talking to James.
Why did an overwhelming guilty feeling just come over you right now?
"Hey sweetie," you said, rubbing your arms as you looked down the hallway for your supervisor: a party-hard girl that hung out with Betsy and her friends, but who was surprisingly strict about the rules of campus. "I can't sleep, can I sleep with you tonight?"
Where the hell did that come from? Since that came subconsciously, that means that you were still in love with him, right?
God, you were a mess.
"What did you say?" James replied, with the same groggy voice, like he didn't hear what you just said. Or worse, he didn't care.
"Sweetie, I can't talk that loudly," you respond, trying so hard not to slam your fist into the wall. "My supervisor is really strict on the rules, remember?"
"Oh, the really hot one with the blonde hair?" James said, suddenly sounding more awake. "What's her name...Halston?"
You suddenly wanted to put down the phone and throw it at the ground. "Oh, thanks for waking up when I mention her."
James chuckled, and you knew he was thinking it was just all a cute game. "Sweetie, you're even hotter than Halston."
Somehow, you didn't feel that much better.
"Plus, I'm way too tired for you to come over. You should try counting sheep or something. Goodnight!"
He hung up the phone, and you stared with it with disbelief. Suddenly, rage came over you, and you were done with trying to be the perfect girlfriend to James. You hit the green button to call another person.
He picked up.
Cough. "Hello?"
Your rage suddenly turn to insecurities as you heard his voice, his soft, sweet voice that alone could put you to sleep tonight. "Hey, Logan, can I come over?"
You spent the night together. Not in a sexual way. Not in a 'I'll- show- James- what- a- bastard- he- is- for- not- treating- me- right- way". You spent it together like friends, with his hand enclosed around your hand and your face dangerously close to your neck. There was a moment when your feet touched, but none of you moved away your feet for approximately twenty three minutes until you moved it away because your foot was burning for some reason.
The thing was, you should have felt guilty. You were sleeping with another guy, for crying out loud, when you had a boyfriend. But you didn't feel guilty. You instead felt calm. Even though you had a better mattress than he did (he kept the school one, was he stupid?) and you could feel some chip crumbs on his mattress, you slept better that night in his mattress than you did in yours.
When you were with Logan, you didn't care about what laid in the outside world outside his room. When you opened the door, you knew you were going to deal with a hell: filed with angry boyfriends and no girlfriends and tons of homework that you procrastinated. Logan alleviated you of all your stress. And when you were with him tonight you realized something: when you were with Logan, you didn't care about making anyone happy except for him, because making him happy was making yourself happy.
When you were around Logan, you didn't care about anyone except for him. Including James.
Waking up next to him was one of the best feelings: you watched your entire world wake up in the most beautiful way, and grin at you with that damn smile. You felt just waking up next to him, you did more in your day than you could have done waking up without him and living a full day. All you wanted to do was go back to sleep just so you could wake up next to him again. You watched him get up out of bed, and had the craziest urge just to pull him back and kiss him and just do that the entire day.
As you left his room, you realized that you were going to feel guilty now that he wasn't there to help you feel at peace. The whole time you spent with him, those blissful moments, were going to turn into one huge discussion of what an awful person you were.
But you wanted to cherish these moments, not run away from them and hide them away from James. You hid Logan and ran away from him for James, and you realized now that was a mechanism to run away from the love that you knew wasn't mutual. You wanted to feel something after so many days of being unloved by Logan. And that was it.
But that wasn't fair. You had more respect for James, and more respect for yourself in these moments.
All it took was one argument, one sleepless and cheating night to realize what you had to do.
"I think we should break up."
James' face suddenly fell, and it looked like the toothbrush in his mouth was suddenly about to fall as he stood in the middle of the hallway. He looked at you in disbelief, probably wondering how you dumped him and it wasn't the other way around.
"Why?" he asked softly, and a tear rolled down your face unexpectedly, and you didn't know why.
"I think I'm in love with someone else," you say quietly, as you brushed the tears away from you face. God, what the hell was going on? Why were you crying when you were breaking up with him? Were you going to be one of those girls you hated who complained about their ex-boyfriends who they broke up with and how "I thought we were going to be together forever, you know?"
"Logan?" he asks, and he starts to raise his hand to wipe a tear from your face and he puts it down. You choke on your tears even more, knowing that you'll see someone that you once made out with, once had dinner with, and not know what you could do to acknowledge their presence.
"Yeah," you weren't really surprised about how he guessed it. Not just because Logan was the only other guy you talked to but because you two were on a level that even you knew meant something more than just friends. You slept with him last night for God's sake, but you weren't going to bring that up now.
"Oh," James said, and you wanted to suddenly hug him. It was the "oh" your father gave you when you got a low 'A' on your test. It was the "oh" you said when you looked up the hot guy on Facebook that everyone was raving about and realizing he wasn't that hot. It was the "oh" that signalled that you weren't good enough.
"I really, truly did love you for a while," and when you said it you realize it's true, and that's why you were crying. You didn't feel anything emotionally attracted to him anymore, but knowing that you could fall out of love with someone as easily as you could fall in love with them was scary. You were going to pass James on the street and not be able to instinctively kiss him. You might even see him with another girl. All those feelings that you had for him, from those initial burst of butterflies to now, from all those things that were spoken, the way that he was obsessed with red velvet cupcakes, bad jokes, and his dog Fox- they were all going to be memories, even the bad memories that you didn't want to remember.
You lean up and kiss him on the cheek and walk away quickly because you can't stand to look at James' disappointed face. The face that screams, "We could have been something more."
Your feet just walk, and you don't look up to see where you are going, but you know where your feet are taking you.
You end up where everything started. You look at the "Nice underwear!" mat, at the chipped off door handle, and and at the brown wood. You knock on the door, and he opens it.
"Hey."
He sees your red eyes, your chapped lips, and your wringing hands, but before he can ask you what's wrong, you have to say something.
"Promise me that you'll always be my friend, no matter what happens."
He doesn't know what you've just been through, the realizations you just had, and the heartbreak that you just made for James and yourself, realizing that things do fall apart. You didn't care what happened with Logan- if you two got together or remained friends, as long as you never, ever broke up.
He just stared at you, but he opened the door all the way, enough so you could see the familiar TV blasting an old episode of Friends (it was definitely from season 1 or 2, as Jennifer still had that atrocious hair style), and the microwave make it's annoying 'bing' as the mac and cheese finished heating up. He put his hand on your shoulder, pulled you in close, and gave you a kiss on the forehead. You start crying into his shirt again, but this feeling of friendship made you feel so happy you couldn't help it.
"I promise."