She Said

She snapped at me to shut the door because she had something to tell me. She appeared agitated, and nervous, and repeated that she wanted to tell me something. I did as she asked, and let out a nervous chuckle, "Is everything all right?" I always get nervous when people announce to me that they want to say to me something in private before actually doing so.

"I've been very distracted this semester," she began. I could feel a lump starting to form in my throat. She stared at her knees the rest of the time and could barely bring herself to look at me. "I've been very distracted this semester, and it's because of you--because you live right down the hall."

I gulped, not knowing what to say, but she didn't wait for any response.

"We spend so much time together, and I just don't get any work done," she pouted. "And you're leaving in a few weeks!" She tore her bangs out of her ponytail and began to look like a nervous wreck.

"I completely understand," I really did, though I hesitated on what the me-leaving bit had to do with her not getting work done. "Do you want to try to spend less time together? I mean it's fine, if you have to get some work done, I completely understand. I don't want to get in your way and stuff."

"NO!" she almost screeched. I almost jumped back, but I realized my back was already almost against the wall, my hand on the door handle, ready to leave.

"It's just that I have so much work this semester, and I never feel like doing it. This hall is so social and I spend so much time with you." There was that emphasis on me again. "It's just that every time I sit down to do work I want to walk over to your room and say 'hello' to you." My heart sunk a bit in my chest.

I wasn't sure if she was about to confess that she's madly infatuated with me or if she was madly upset about all the time we've been "wasting" together--I dreaded both. What we had now was the most comfortable medium, friendship, I could ask for. I told her that I have no motivation for school and am always up to chat instead of doing work; she wasn't the only person who has trouble bringing herself to focus on her studies--that could have described most college students I know.

"No," she insisted. I was missing something that she wasn't able to tell me. Instead, or perhaps in an attempt to explain she began a tangential rant. "I've come across so many people who've been great friends for a while and then they just suddenly disappear, or I get too busy for them--but either way it's like a waste of time, all that time we had spent, and it's so disappointing."

Every single pout seemed like a line out of my book. I picked up on a touch of loneliness, a healthy dose of being sick of school, and well I'm not sure what else--but I can't figure out myself most times either.

"I'll be so mad about all this time we wasted now if you go off and leave and we never keep in touch!" She almost screamed at me. I felt an intensely odd deja je me suis senti feeling. It was role reversal; all these years I had always been the one pouting and depressing myself to no end over people who talked to me one day never to give a damn about me again.

Back against the wall, hand turning the doorknob, "OK, OK! Yeah we'll definitely keep in touch! I'm not just going to go and drop the ball on you." Didn't she kind of know by now that I don't have the luxury of just ignoring people? If only she knew how much I knew better than to simply forget about people.

She seemed reassured, but stuck in a trance. "BYE!" I exclaimed loud and goofy. She had said "BYE!" to me earlier that night as she walked by my room, and I told her that she had to say "HI!" before she belted "BYE!"

She did not respond.

"BYYYYYYEEEE!" I joked with her. "Now that we've talked you've earned your goodbye."

"Bye," she ejected quickly, the same disinterested way she said earlier today when her friend announced she had to go do school work.

"Have a good night."