Thursday, November 6, 2008

Chapter Four

9-12-08

I think I might have met someone. There's a guy that sits next to me sometimes in graphics and he's also in my lab section. Most of the time in lecture he sits with his friends, but in lab he talks with me sometimes. I don't know if it will go anywhere, but I guess we'll see. His name is Nick. He's got light brown hair and a few freckles. He's not Mr. Universe, but he's not bad looking. He seems pretty nice.

Maybe I'm imagining it all though. I don't want to assume that he likes me. It's not like I have any proof or anything. I'm just sort of getting a vibe. Of course if he were really into me then he would probably talk to me more or sit by me. But then, he does get to lecture before me sometimes. That might explain it.


Oh, I don't know! I probably am making way too much of this. I shouldn't be getting my hopes all up. If it turns out he doesn't like me then I'll be disappointed. That would just be stupid.

I joined the Anime Club, but I think I might have to drop out of it again. This calculus class is a lot harder than I really ever expected. I mean, I was always good at math, but this is a bit of a step up and it's pretty time consuming.

Speaking of time consuming, Laura goes out
a lot. Sometimes she skips her morning classes so she can sleep it off. She's not even 21 yet, so I don't know where she's going to get so drunk, but she's finding it somewhere. The other day she brought some guy back to our room with her. I thought they were going to have sex with me sitting right there, but then they both passed out after kissing for a while. Thank goodness. I didn't know what to do!

I don't really understand why she wants to go out so much. I mean sure, it would be nice to be invited to a few parties, but hell, she's out three or four nights a week. I don't know how she gets anything done. I'm not saying that it isn't nice to have a little time alone, but I never know when she'll get back, and like as not it's in the middle of the night and she wakes me up. It's pretty irritating.

*****

"Look," said Laura. "I wonder if you might be able to turn your alarm down. It wakes me up really early on Monday mornings, and I don't have to get up til a lot later, so it really bothers me." Abby stared at her roommate. Finally she blinked and stammered a reply.

"Well I'm sorry that it bothers you but... I do have to get up early. I've pretty much got it as low as I can with it still being loud enough to wake me up..."

"I'm not saying that you can't set your alarm, I'm just letting you know that it's waking me up too," said Laura, her voice irritated.

"I'm sorry, I don't know what else to do. It has to be loud enough to wake me up. It's that loud now. I try to turn it off quickly and I try to be quiet and not turn on all the lights."

"Well once it wakes me up you being quiet really isn't making a difference now is it?" Laura demanded.

"Well if we're talking about waking people up then why don't we talk about you waltzing in in the middle of the night, sometimes even with other people! You think that doesn't wake me up?" Abby felt angry but also inexplicably close to tears.

"Maybe I wouldn't do that if you didn't wake me up in the mornings!"

"That's what you're doing? Getting revenge on me when you come back drunk?"

"Of course not, don't be an idiot!"

*****

9-13-08

Last night me and Laura had a big fight. It was horrible. It started because she's mad about my alarm going off in the morning. What the hell does she expect me to do? She may be able to get away with not going to any of her classes, but I can't! I'm not willing to do that; I'm here for an education not to go out and get myself slobbering drunk every single night! It's not my fault that she thinks that all college is about is being so smashed every weekend that you can't remember it when Monday comes!

*****

"But why should I have to apologize mom? I didn't really do anything." Abby sat down heavily on her bed and leaned back against the wall, pinning the phone to her ear with her shoulder.

"Well sweetie, you asked me how I thought that you could resolve this. An apology tends to go a very long way, even if you weren't the only one at fault."

"Mom, I'm not at fault at all! It's my alarm going off. And it's not like I blare it or anything, it's already set pretty low. I don't let it go off for a long time or hit the snooze button a bunch, I just let it wake me up. What did she expect? That her roommate would just spontaneously wake up at the proper time every day?"

"Baby, I realize that you don't see this as the usual argument, but again, the question is not whether you're at fault here, the question is what you can do to smooth things over now. I suggest you talk to Laura and find out exactly what she would like you to do. And if she's receptive and you have a reasonable conversation, perhaps you can ask her to do some things differently when she comes in at night."

"Yeah, maybe," muttered Abby bleakly.

*****

Abby sat in her speech class, waiting for the first bout of presentations to begin, drawing aimlessly in her notebook. When she remembered that next week she would be the one up in front of the class giving a presentation, a sick feeling rushed through her stomach. The girl that was sitting next to her glanced over.

"Are you ready for this?" she asked.

"Oh totally," lied Abby. She didn't want the entire class to know that she was dreading the idea of getting up in front of everybody to speak. But that was kind of the point of the class.

"I'm nervous about it," the girl admitted. Abby immediately felt an affinity for her, and also slightly embarrassed about not just being honest. For some reason she had assumed that she was the only one in the class who could possibly not gain the greatest enjoyment from public speaking.

"That was stupid of you," she told herself.

"Last night I practiced a bunch while my roommate was out," she told the girl. The girl smiled.

"I always feel kind of stupid doing that."

"Yeah, me too, but I think it helps some."

"Well maybe I'll try to do that some more then," the girl said.

*****

9-15-08

Met Cathy for lunch again today. She said that Ashley had called her. I thought that I was ok with all that stuff. I thought that I had gotten over it. I guess I was wrong. I don't know what the deal is; why can't I just let it go? It still hurts so much. We were friends were so long, we did the stupid BFFs thing, and stupid me, I thought she actually meant forever when she said forever. Why did she just dump me all of a sudden? I guess she doesn't need me anymore. She's got Dave, and I'm sure she's got new, better friends now.

Cathy said that Ash had just called to say hi. Why would she do that? She never even talked to Cathy that much. I wish I could just put all of this out of my mind, but I can't. Every time I do manage to push it to the back, something like this comes up and there it is, the hurt just as fresh and new as ever!

I tried calling her twice and smoothing things over, but she won't have any of it. She acts all defensive and mad and she just bites my head off. Why should I keep trying to call her and make up if she's just going to do that every time? Mom would say that I should just let her miss me, but to be perfectly honest, I don't think she would anymore. I miss her, but I don't think that she needs me. She's got other friends, she doesn't need me. Nobody needs me.

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Word count: 1,461
Total Word count: 6,619

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