"Who came up with that stupid 48-hour figure anyway?!" Kay yelled,
exhausted from the double all-nighter they were pulling to complete their
midterm papers.
"Kay, keep it down," Miguel told her, equally tired himself. "Even if we're on the party floor, this is still the library. And I believe that we both derived that particular number."
"Oh yeah," Kay remembered. "Well, we were stupid. This is stupid. Our Prof's are stupid. This book is stupid. My paper topic is stupid."
"Kay, the stupid rant was cute the first time. The second time, when you exchanged 'stupid' for 'retarded,' it was equally amusing. I wasn't a fan of the 'obnoxious' substitution, but you rebounded well with 'ridiculously irrelevant'. But now, with this stupid rant, take two, you're just being repetitive."
Kay could see Miguel's patience with the all-nighters was wearing as thin as her own. Her sympathy kicked in; he was ever so adorable when tired. "You know what?" She began.
"Oh no, no no no no no. Kay, we CANNOT practice baseball!"
"Ummm. didn't you just remind me that we were in the library?" Kay tried to contain her snort at Miguel's behavior. He resembled a petulant little boy when he was frustrated. She continued, "If you're done spazzing out, I was going to suggest that we take a coffee break from each other and these books." she waved vaguely to the stacks and stacks of books they had amassed, "And meet back here in an hour or so, hopefully in better spirits."
Miguel grinned, "Sounds perfect. Back here in an hour."
"Yup," Kay agreed. That'll give me time to take a quick shower and freshen up so we can get comfortably closer when we reconvene.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
[A little less than an hour later.]
Kay was feeling particularly rejuvenated after the shower and change. She even decided to walk up the stairs as opposed to taking the elevator, as was hers and Miguel's bad habit. As she opened the door to the back stairs, she immediately recognized Miguel's voice in the stairwell above her and began to rush up to see what he was up to. She stopped in her tracks as she listened more closely to what he was saying. ". don't think so. You've got Kay all wrong," he was saying in an amused voice. Kay froze as she heard a voice she recognized respond.
"Whatever man, de-Nile is not just a river in Egypt as far as you are concerned about your 'buddy,'" Reese said, as if "buddy" were a term only Miguel would apply to the relationship.
"Oh come on, Kay does not think we're going out. That'd be ridiculous, we're really good friends, and that's all." Kay silently cheered on her best friend for defending the nature of their relationship.
"Yo," Reese apparently realized the public space they were occupying, "We can talk about this later at the apartment."
Miguel laughed. "No, there's no danger of Kay walking in on this conversation; she never takes the stairs." Kay immediately retracted her previous cheers for Miguel, the bum. She began to storm up the stairs to give the lie to his declaration, and was stopped once again by Miguel's next words. "At any rate, the bottom line is that it's ridiculous, not just because we're good friends, but could you really see Kay and I together? What kind of a couple would that be?" Had she not already been leaning against the rail, Kay would have fallen back into it. She had a flashback of their conversation on the street a few weeks ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ "I was talking about how ridiculous they looked together." Miguel said. " She was a good three inches taller than him and twice his size. You can't tell me you don't think that looked a little strange, that they just don't fit together as a couple." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------
Floored not only by Miguel's carelessness, but also by the magnitude of her own hurt, Kay began to rush up the stairs to confront the scene head on. As she made her way up, Reese continued.
"Hey now, Miguel, Kay's a looker in her own right, don't get too up yourself with this goofy 'have to look right together' thing." Kay's opinion of Reese shot up. "I'm not saying that it would be a bad thing if you two were together, I'm just saying you shouldn't be in denial about the way Kay feels." And her opinion fell right back down. How dare he tell Miguel how she was feeling? She continued to rush up stairs even as she heard the two men exit the stairwell. She was going to put a stop to this now.
But, for the third time that evening, she was stopped by something she heard.
". Reese is so right about Kay, I mean, everyone knows she's in love with him, and look at the sad way she follows him around all the time." Kay tried desperately to place the voice, but couldn't. She only knew that it was female and extremely catty, in her opinion at any rate. The voice continued. "I mean, did you see the two of them at the cook out at the beginning of the semester? Just pathetic really." And with that, Kay experiences her second flashback of the night, this one even more painful than the first.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- Kay could barely maintain her composure when she caught sight of Miguel, HER Miguel, with one of their classmates sitting on his lap, slowly rubbing his back. She couldn't help herself, and, acting on instinct, she said, "Miguel, put her down and come play." To her utter embarrassment, he didn't hear her over whatever the woman was busy whispering in his ear. From the corners of her eyes, she took in more smirks from her baseball companions, who obviously had heard her demand. She raised her voice a notch and said, "Miguel, come here for a sec." Still no result, unless even more people turning around to witness her making a spectacle of herself counted. Realizing that she had to get Miguel's attention or look like an even bigger loser-jerk, she yelled, "Miguel! Would you listen to me for a sec?!" Most of the room fell silent as Miguel finally looked in her general direction, and his devotees snickered behind their hands at her.
"Was that you hollering, Kay? What is it, I'm busy" he responded.
Mortified beyond belief, Kay realized what an idiot she was making of herself and weakly replied, "N-n-no- nothing, nothing, umm. never mind." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------
As Kay snapped back to the present, she heard the woman's companion continue. This voice she could definitely place.
". tried to snap her to reality, the poor thing, with a nasty comment about how she can't keep his attention, but she just went over and tried to prove me wrong. Seriously, doesn't she have any other friends? Can't they tell her how pathetic she looks trailing after him like that?"
Kay couldn't take anymore of this stairwell chatter about her. She marched loudly up to where the women were speaking. She looked the woman from the party in the eye and stated, "With enemies like you talking about me behind my back, who needs friends to disillusion them?" Kay then went directly to the restroom to recover. Kay, you knew it was like this, she told herself. You knew it from the beginning. You knew he didn't return your feelings because of that stupid idea of his about couples "fitting" and you knew that once you decided to settle for being his friend, people were going to talk. Kay reminded herself that her homely looks had shaped her personality. Being taller than most women and men, and being less attractive than most women had helped her form a strong personality that was not dependent on the opinions of others. Which is why your current state of distress is ridiculous. It's based entirely on what people think you feel and how people think you act instead of your own reality. Furthermore, Kay reasoned with herself, if Miguel's romantic affection is so based upon physicality, then he doesn't accept you for you and you don't need that anyway. Besides, Kay threw in as an afterthought, the twit shouldn't be talking about you in stairwells anyway. Feeling better after her self-pep talk, Kay walked confidently out of the restroom in search of an unsuspecting Miguel. She found him quickly, still conversing with Reese.
"Hi Reese. Hi Miguel," she said abruptly.
"Uhh, hey Kay, what's goin' on?" replied Reese.
Miguel grinned and said, "I see the coffee has got you perked up and ready to work."
"Actually, it was an illuminating walk in the stairwell that woke me right on up," she interrupted.
Miguel choked on the rest of his sentence as Reese shifted his feet.
"Yes, very eye-opening walk that was," Kay continued.
Miguel recovered first. "So, uh. you must have just come from this walk, then," he asked, quickly calculating that, if that were the case, she would have missed their conversation. He blustered along, "Yup, a quick trot up the stairs will get the circulation going."
Kay wasn't going to make this easy, and she also wasn't one for dragging things out. "Actually, it wasn't the act itself, it was more the interesting conversation I picked up on during the walk up the back stairs. And no, I didn't just finish coming up, I needed a little while to get my bearings after those stairs." Kay looked pointedly at Reese, who had the decency to blush, although Miguel appeared determined to carry on the charade.
"Yeah, three flights would wind anyone, I had to take a break too. Imagine that, we, both being elevator folks, took the stairs tonight."
"Yeah, and who would have imagined that I'd overhear my best friend and his apartment-mate discussing my intentions on said best-friend." Kay, raising her voice, continued on, "And who would have thought that I would have then had the chance to hear two ninnies gossip about how pathetic I am in response to your conversation?! Who would have thought that, Miguel dear?"
"Umm... uhhh, see, Kay, if you heard the whole conversation."
"Oh, I heard plenty." The embarrassment of the night's events came flooding back in on her so that she could barely stand to look at him. "I think it would be best if I continued my work at home. I'll see you around, Miguel." Kay turned to leave.
Miguel called after her, "Wait! Don't you mean, 'see you tomorrow'?"
Kay turned back around to look at him. "No," she shook her head, "I mean see you around."
As she walks away, Kay realizes the depth of her dilemma. She would normally turn to her best friend in situations like this, but her best friend was now the problem. But she felt the need to rant at a substitute male figure. On an impulse, remembering how much she enjoyed their first at the meeting, Kay punches in Nicholas the TA's number.
"Kay, keep it down," Miguel told her, equally tired himself. "Even if we're on the party floor, this is still the library. And I believe that we both derived that particular number."
"Oh yeah," Kay remembered. "Well, we were stupid. This is stupid. Our Prof's are stupid. This book is stupid. My paper topic is stupid."
"Kay, the stupid rant was cute the first time. The second time, when you exchanged 'stupid' for 'retarded,' it was equally amusing. I wasn't a fan of the 'obnoxious' substitution, but you rebounded well with 'ridiculously irrelevant'. But now, with this stupid rant, take two, you're just being repetitive."
Kay could see Miguel's patience with the all-nighters was wearing as thin as her own. Her sympathy kicked in; he was ever so adorable when tired. "You know what?" She began.
"Oh no, no no no no no. Kay, we CANNOT practice baseball!"
"Ummm. didn't you just remind me that we were in the library?" Kay tried to contain her snort at Miguel's behavior. He resembled a petulant little boy when he was frustrated. She continued, "If you're done spazzing out, I was going to suggest that we take a coffee break from each other and these books." she waved vaguely to the stacks and stacks of books they had amassed, "And meet back here in an hour or so, hopefully in better spirits."
Miguel grinned, "Sounds perfect. Back here in an hour."
"Yup," Kay agreed. That'll give me time to take a quick shower and freshen up so we can get comfortably closer when we reconvene.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------
[A little less than an hour later.]
Kay was feeling particularly rejuvenated after the shower and change. She even decided to walk up the stairs as opposed to taking the elevator, as was hers and Miguel's bad habit. As she opened the door to the back stairs, she immediately recognized Miguel's voice in the stairwell above her and began to rush up to see what he was up to. She stopped in her tracks as she listened more closely to what he was saying. ". don't think so. You've got Kay all wrong," he was saying in an amused voice. Kay froze as she heard a voice she recognized respond.
"Whatever man, de-Nile is not just a river in Egypt as far as you are concerned about your 'buddy,'" Reese said, as if "buddy" were a term only Miguel would apply to the relationship.
"Oh come on, Kay does not think we're going out. That'd be ridiculous, we're really good friends, and that's all." Kay silently cheered on her best friend for defending the nature of their relationship.
"Yo," Reese apparently realized the public space they were occupying, "We can talk about this later at the apartment."
Miguel laughed. "No, there's no danger of Kay walking in on this conversation; she never takes the stairs." Kay immediately retracted her previous cheers for Miguel, the bum. She began to storm up the stairs to give the lie to his declaration, and was stopped once again by Miguel's next words. "At any rate, the bottom line is that it's ridiculous, not just because we're good friends, but could you really see Kay and I together? What kind of a couple would that be?" Had she not already been leaning against the rail, Kay would have fallen back into it. She had a flashback of their conversation on the street a few weeks ago.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ "I was talking about how ridiculous they looked together." Miguel said. " She was a good three inches taller than him and twice his size. You can't tell me you don't think that looked a little strange, that they just don't fit together as a couple." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------
Floored not only by Miguel's carelessness, but also by the magnitude of her own hurt, Kay began to rush up the stairs to confront the scene head on. As she made her way up, Reese continued.
"Hey now, Miguel, Kay's a looker in her own right, don't get too up yourself with this goofy 'have to look right together' thing." Kay's opinion of Reese shot up. "I'm not saying that it would be a bad thing if you two were together, I'm just saying you shouldn't be in denial about the way Kay feels." And her opinion fell right back down. How dare he tell Miguel how she was feeling? She continued to rush up stairs even as she heard the two men exit the stairwell. She was going to put a stop to this now.
But, for the third time that evening, she was stopped by something she heard.
". Reese is so right about Kay, I mean, everyone knows she's in love with him, and look at the sad way she follows him around all the time." Kay tried desperately to place the voice, but couldn't. She only knew that it was female and extremely catty, in her opinion at any rate. The voice continued. "I mean, did you see the two of them at the cook out at the beginning of the semester? Just pathetic really." And with that, Kay experiences her second flashback of the night, this one even more painful than the first.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------- Kay could barely maintain her composure when she caught sight of Miguel, HER Miguel, with one of their classmates sitting on his lap, slowly rubbing his back. She couldn't help herself, and, acting on instinct, she said, "Miguel, put her down and come play." To her utter embarrassment, he didn't hear her over whatever the woman was busy whispering in his ear. From the corners of her eyes, she took in more smirks from her baseball companions, who obviously had heard her demand. She raised her voice a notch and said, "Miguel, come here for a sec." Still no result, unless even more people turning around to witness her making a spectacle of herself counted. Realizing that she had to get Miguel's attention or look like an even bigger loser-jerk, she yelled, "Miguel! Would you listen to me for a sec?!" Most of the room fell silent as Miguel finally looked in her general direction, and his devotees snickered behind their hands at her.
"Was that you hollering, Kay? What is it, I'm busy" he responded.
Mortified beyond belief, Kay realized what an idiot she was making of herself and weakly replied, "N-n-no- nothing, nothing, umm. never mind." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- -------------------------------
As Kay snapped back to the present, she heard the woman's companion continue. This voice she could definitely place.
". tried to snap her to reality, the poor thing, with a nasty comment about how she can't keep his attention, but she just went over and tried to prove me wrong. Seriously, doesn't she have any other friends? Can't they tell her how pathetic she looks trailing after him like that?"
Kay couldn't take anymore of this stairwell chatter about her. She marched loudly up to where the women were speaking. She looked the woman from the party in the eye and stated, "With enemies like you talking about me behind my back, who needs friends to disillusion them?" Kay then went directly to the restroom to recover. Kay, you knew it was like this, she told herself. You knew it from the beginning. You knew he didn't return your feelings because of that stupid idea of his about couples "fitting" and you knew that once you decided to settle for being his friend, people were going to talk. Kay reminded herself that her homely looks had shaped her personality. Being taller than most women and men, and being less attractive than most women had helped her form a strong personality that was not dependent on the opinions of others. Which is why your current state of distress is ridiculous. It's based entirely on what people think you feel and how people think you act instead of your own reality. Furthermore, Kay reasoned with herself, if Miguel's romantic affection is so based upon physicality, then he doesn't accept you for you and you don't need that anyway. Besides, Kay threw in as an afterthought, the twit shouldn't be talking about you in stairwells anyway. Feeling better after her self-pep talk, Kay walked confidently out of the restroom in search of an unsuspecting Miguel. She found him quickly, still conversing with Reese.
"Hi Reese. Hi Miguel," she said abruptly.
"Uhh, hey Kay, what's goin' on?" replied Reese.
Miguel grinned and said, "I see the coffee has got you perked up and ready to work."
"Actually, it was an illuminating walk in the stairwell that woke me right on up," she interrupted.
Miguel choked on the rest of his sentence as Reese shifted his feet.
"Yes, very eye-opening walk that was," Kay continued.
Miguel recovered first. "So, uh. you must have just come from this walk, then," he asked, quickly calculating that, if that were the case, she would have missed their conversation. He blustered along, "Yup, a quick trot up the stairs will get the circulation going."
Kay wasn't going to make this easy, and she also wasn't one for dragging things out. "Actually, it wasn't the act itself, it was more the interesting conversation I picked up on during the walk up the back stairs. And no, I didn't just finish coming up, I needed a little while to get my bearings after those stairs." Kay looked pointedly at Reese, who had the decency to blush, although Miguel appeared determined to carry on the charade.
"Yeah, three flights would wind anyone, I had to take a break too. Imagine that, we, both being elevator folks, took the stairs tonight."
"Yeah, and who would have imagined that I'd overhear my best friend and his apartment-mate discussing my intentions on said best-friend." Kay, raising her voice, continued on, "And who would have thought that I would have then had the chance to hear two ninnies gossip about how pathetic I am in response to your conversation?! Who would have thought that, Miguel dear?"
"Umm... uhhh, see, Kay, if you heard the whole conversation."
"Oh, I heard plenty." The embarrassment of the night's events came flooding back in on her so that she could barely stand to look at him. "I think it would be best if I continued my work at home. I'll see you around, Miguel." Kay turned to leave.
Miguel called after her, "Wait! Don't you mean, 'see you tomorrow'?"
Kay turned back around to look at him. "No," she shook her head, "I mean see you around."
As she walks away, Kay realizes the depth of her dilemma. She would normally turn to her best friend in situations like this, but her best friend was now the problem. But she felt the need to rant at a substitute male figure. On an impulse, remembering how much she enjoyed their first at the meeting, Kay punches in Nicholas the TA's number.
