The saddest part was that I still cared.
I wanted to warm his bones, tell him that I was sorry, that I didn’t mean it—even though I did sleep with someone else—and promise him that I’d never do it again.
That…that would require me to be a better person than I was. I wasn’t a good person; I thought we all knew that by now. The only thing I was good at was pushing people away and pretending my problems didn’t exist. Not skills that would take me far in life, but whatever.
My feet were sluggish as they drew me to the elevators, and I got on whichever one opened first. I hit the button near the number three, and I leaned my side on the railing as the doors slid closed. I had some papers to work on and do research for; this weekend I’d probably spend in the library.
Was it sad that I was already planning out my weekend? Probably not as sad as it was that I was planning for it to be slow and miserable and full of work. Not a Kelsey weekend at all.
I needed to step away from those Kelsey weekends. No more losing myself in the arms of someone else. That was self-destructive behavior I needed to stop. It wouldn’t help me go far in life, and if there was one thing I wanted to do, it was be better than my parents. Prove them wrong. Show them…show them that I wasn’t going to be like them.
I was deathly afraid of that, you know.
To be married for more than twenty years, only to call it quits. Just…why? No, I didn’t want to be like them. I wanted to be happy, and in order to be happy, I had to focus on something other than Levi, something other than the mistakes I made while at Hillcrest. I had to buckle down and prove everyone wrong—even myself.
Did I think I was capable of actually doing it? I didn’t know. Only time would tell.
One thing was for certain. I had to get through this, one day at a time.
When the elevator doors opened, I headed down the hall to my room. Mel wasn’t there yet, which I thought a little odd, but I supposed normally after lab I swung by the union to pick up some food. The funny thing about all of this shit? I wasn’t hungry. The stress was making me lose my appetite and probably a couple of pounds.
Oh, well. I’d get my appetite back eventually. It wasn’t like I’d ever be as thin as Mel, anyways.
I threw my bag on my bed, collapsing on my desk chair. I laid my arms over each other and leaned my head down, my forehead on my arm. My eyes closed, and I felt my body trembling slightly.
Fuck. What the hell did I do? Would things ever get better? I knew people made mistakes all the time, but this…there was no coming back from this, and honestly, I wasn’t interested in pursuing anything with anyone else on this campus. It’d make for a boring few years, but hey, if I picked myself up from this and guarded myself well, that was my prerogative.
Mel arrived an hour or so later, her raincoat wet. Unlike some people, she prepared for the weather outside. Not like me; I just slapped on a hoodie, some sneakers, and called it a day. In the wintertime, I froze my ass off usually—but I hated big coats. Hated them with a burning passion that could only be matched by my current state of self-loathing. The big, ugly, puffy things. They seriously looked hideous, and I hated every single time one of my parents forced me to dress in one growing up.
Now that I was an adult, almost out on my own, I was giving a huge metaphorical fuck you to those big, puffy coats.
She hung her wet coat on the hanger on the inside of the door, slipping off her boots—yes, the girl wore rainboots over her leggings. Mel really did prepare for the weather. I felt like a helpless noob beside her.
“It’s raining cats and dogs out there,” I mused, suddenly wondering where the hell that weird saying came from. If it really rained cats and dogs, I doubted everyone would be in such a rush to get inside…unless those cats and dogs were vicious or something.
“Yeah,” Mel said, shooting a glance at me. “You must’ve missed it.”
“By literally seconds.”
She chuckled, a soft sound, a sound that, if the wind blew past, would carry it away. Such a light sound, it was ridiculous. How could a girl like her and a girl like me ever be friends? We were opposites; where she was soft and feathery, I was loud and boisterous. Where she was kind and gentle, I was a brute, never knowing when to stop. Opposites on the spectrum of personalities. She was no Ash, that’s for sure.
But…maybe that was a good thing.
“You’re lucky then,” Mel said. “It’s supposed to be bad all weekend, I think.”
Well, shit. The library was on the opposite side of campus; there was no way I was going to walk all that way in the pouring rain just to work on some papers. I could use Mel’s computer, but I knew she spent most of her free time on it, so I hated bugging her.
“That sucks,” I muttered.
Mel dropped her bag near her desk, tossing me a look. Her blonde pixie cut was less and less a pixie cut with each passing day. If she was trying to grow it out, she needed to get it cut to re-frame her face or something. Right now she
