Chapter 4
First semester went by well. I went home just about every other weekend to visit with my family and with Neal, and because I was super homesick still. Regina, Mary Margaret, and I got lunch together every day, and I always went to dinner with Regina. Mary Margaret had made friends with two guys, David and Graham, during orientation week, so she ate dinner with them.
A few weeks into school Mary Margaret came to me panicking and told me that David had kissed her the night before. She liked him but didn't know if she could handle a relationship, since she was so busy with schoolwork and classes. Since I had a boyfriend, she asked how I handled it with school. I told her it was easier since I was away at school but that it had never been too difficult in the first place. It's almost like having another friend. I thought she should go for it with David.
Things were rough between them to begin with. Mary Margaret was nervous about being in a relationship, so she broke up with David one or twice in September or October. Eventually, she got more comfortable with the idea and they got more comfortable with each other. After that they were practically inseparable.
Finally, it was time to go home for winter break. I was so glad to go back to my own bedroom and my own house, but it was weird moving all my stuff back home and leaving my friends. On our last night together, we all hung out in my room and played M.A.S.H. and made fortune tellers. We promised we would see each other over break, and planned a sleepover at my house.
Neal and I celebrated our two-and-a-half-year anniversary that Christmas Eve, and he took me out to dinner a few weeks later. It finally felt like things were going right for us again. Tamara had found a boyfriend and was no longer interested in Neal (he tried to get her back a few months prior, but she turned him down because he had waited too long and lost his chance). Anyway, he no longer seemed to be interested in her, and was focused on school and making me happy. That fact alone made me happy, though I still did not trust him. I didn't know what went on at school, or who he talked to on social media. He was still very protective of his phone for some reason. At that point, I tried not to care, and kept trying to fix our relationship.