Okay, so this chapter is short and kind of lame! But I didn't want to go into the next part of the story within this same chapter, so that will be in the lovely chapter three! You guys are awesome for the attention and reviews and favs and likes and shtuuuuff! Thank you~ 3
This is not what you intended. At all. You had expected to sulk over your coffee and watch the dark surface ripple as the warm night breeze passed over you without relent. But no, you find yourself in a totally different situation; that being that you're sitting outside with Rose on one of the many campus benches and both of you are holding cups of steaming coffee and you just got done spilling everything to her. And by 'everything' you mean from the very start of the three years in which you silently loved John to that night, when he passed off your confession as something as pathetic as a shitty prank. Rose was sitting, perched rather, on the bench's arm, coffee cup settled between her delicate palms and balanced on her knees. She's staring at nothing in particular, obviously deep in thought, and it makes you nervous. You continue to fidget, turning the coffee around and around in your hands. The backs of your ears ache from the glasses that you constantly wear and you want to take them off for both that reason and the other reason that these are the very pair John had gifted you with. You feel like wearing anything remotely reminiscent of John would jinx you, make you despair even further and you'd never move on.
But part of you doesn't want to move on.
"You know how John is," Rose spoke so suddenly it made you jolt a little. "He tends to be oblivious to some of the more important things. But you know it's a harmless flaw of his."
"Harmless?" That word doesn't settle with you at all. You can't hide the acidic tone in your voice. "Lalonde, John's obliviousness to this shit is anything but harmless. It's turned me into this unironic, pathetic pile of shit."
"I'll ignore the imagery that comes with your statement and move on to say that he does not realize that it is harming you as strongly as it is. He means well, even if it doesn't always work out in the favor of others. Perhaps he is simply trying to cope with your confession and, with his prankster gambit, he is turning to that as a means of a safety mechanism. He is only being John."
"Being John is the best fucking thing in the whole world, Rose," You say into your coffee cup. "And I hate it."
"I know," She whispered. "I hate seeing you this way. Perhaps you should talk to him. Open his eyes, so to speak, and tell him you were serious."
"That's not possible," You hate to shoot her down so quickly, not wanting to make her feel like her ideas are useless. But you'd rather be honest than be considerate. "It's taken me three years to admit my feelings to Egbert and the whole conversation beforehand was all his fault; he started talking about love and couples and—" You cut off and can't stand to say anymore, having heard the slight tremor in your voice. Rose apparently heard it too and had slid from her perch to your side, draping a slim arm around your shoulders and squeezing your arm gently and affectionately.
"I understand. You cannot simply repeat something like that under casual circumstances. But you'll have other chances if you so wish to utilize them."
"With my luck, that was my one and only chance." You murmur, feeling the beginnings of hot tears run down your face and drip into your coffee.
"Where the fuck were you at?" Was the greeting you received upon stepping into your apartment, coffee cup in hand and still full but its been tainted with your stupid tears and now you don't want the damn thing. What a waste of $3.97.
Shutting the door after you, you look up to see Karkat Vantas, your ever-crabby roommate, pulling out a microwave pizza from the microwave and setting it on the counter. Coils of frothy steam swirl in the air above the pizza and Karkat is taking out a knife and violently cutting at it. You remain silent as you walk to the sink nearby and pour out the coffee, watching it wash down the drain. Your silence triggers his frustration and he lets out an over-exaggerated sigh.
"Okay, fine, don't fucking tell me what you were doing. Not like I cared anyway." He starts to take the butchered pizza with him to his room before you speak.
"I was out getting coffee," You say, no energy to try to provoke him with some snide remark. He gives a shrug and continues to move towards his room, slamming the door and leaving you to your thoughts. God that was a dangerous thing.
You stand over the sink, staring into it as though it might give you an answer, might tell you something that would somehow relieve the tension and the heartache you are currently undergoing. But the edges of your vision is starting to blur and you realize that nothing is going to happen to help your situation. You feel helpless, even if Rose did bring out some good points. It didn't matter. What mattered was John was stupid, hopelessly adorably ignorant, and there was nothing you could do about it.
