University Days: Season Two

Second-Guessing

"I'm not in love with Brandon!! I hate his guts! That moment-- was... it was nothing. I don't love him anymore."

She was trying to say everything and anything. That panicked look, the tears, the hurt in his face was burning her heart.

Running his hands through his hair stressfully, Calvin expressed through a breaking voice, "Then why did you kiss him?! Why do you look so tortured every time we pass Shelby and Brandon together, like- like you're stuck in this relationship? If you want to be with him, if you can't love me like I love you-"

"I JUST SAID I WASN'T IN LOVE WITH HIM!!" Emily yelled, but saw that it only made him cry harder. She tried to soften her expression, but loosening herself only allowed more tears to run.

"I don't know- I know he's crazy. He's the one that kissed me, and I- I..." she blabbed on, but couldn't meet his eyes as she spoke.

Calvin waited through the pause, searching her eyes for some kind of answer.

Her mouth ran dry, as she scrambled to find some kind of response that could save their relationship. Their eyes finally met, both just as lost and scared.

Emily watched his face fall as the silence stretched. She'd never seen him so broken before, and it was all her fault. With the two of them having broken down in tears, trying to find the right words seemed impossible.

"We should take a break, Em..." Calvin faltered, beginning to make his way out of the hall.

Nothing she said seemed to work, and time was running out.

"Calvin- I..." Emily sputtered, eyes widening in terror. "How can I fix this?! I don't know-"

Seeing him continue walking, she cried out, "I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO!!"

Don't leave, she wanted to plead. Once he left, they were officially on bad terms. There were no more surprise hugs, no more kiss attacks, no more day-long video-chats.

Calvin Waterman would be her ex-boyfriend.

She reached up, yearning to grab his arm and pull it back to her. Her empty hand weakly squeezed into an empty fist, shakily lowering back to her side.

He stopped walking, and just for a second, she felt hopeful. If he didn't leave, she could change his mind. She could explain it away, as long as they didn't leave like this. What could she say?

"I need you to figure out what you want. I can't do this with you, knowing you're second-guessing something I thought we... we both chose. You have time now to figure it out."

Her lip quivered. He stood for a moment, their eyes locked with the same uncertainty and fear of what was to come without each other. He uncrossed his arms, almost as if he lifted them to comfort her in an instinctual manner, but he stopped himself.

Averting her eyes from his, she wrapped her arms around herself. Looking back at her one last time, he turned back around and continued walking.
Hearing his sob softly echo back to her, she couldn't stop her own tears.

She couldn't watch him walk away anymore, but she knew chasing couldn't fix this unless the right words were there. She spun around and ran straight back into her dorm where she shut the door quickly behind her, desperate to escape the painful sound.

This couldn't be over. Things couldn't really be over between them for good.

How could she have changed so much? She remembered how badly her heart was hurt by Brandon when he cheated on her, and now she'd done the same.

All that talk of how horrible and manipulative he was, and it turned out she was just the same monster he was.