I Shouldn't Have | Bojan Cvjetićanin

2. #backstabber

Neža's POV

I didn't know where Bojan found the courage to call me after two years. After the shit he pulled he must've had a damn good reason to call. It was only 3 P.M., even he couldn't be drunk yet. But no matter the reason he might have had, I wasn't interested. Fool me once, fair enough. Fool me twice, you're not gonna be given the chance to fool me twice. Bojan Cvjetićanin was history, to me, at least. It had hurt when he pulled his little stunt, but I had moved on to the point where I was just indifferent towards him. 

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You see, I met Bojan almost three years ago. It was the first day of uni. Bachelor's of Science in Economics at the University of Ljubljana. The two of us had ended up in the same seminar group. That first day we didn't talk much, but the second seminar that same week we ended up sitting next to each other, and when we were instructed to pair up to present an article to class later that semester, we paired up just due to the fact that we were sitting next to each other. And well, I wasn't too happy about it.

The first impression I got of him was that he was a wannabe finance bro. He wasn't paying attention to lectures, and even in the seminars he didn't seem genuinely interested in the topic. A bachelor's in economics, a master's in finance, a consultancy job, easy money, right? After that first assignment, my impression changed slightly. He was smarter than he let on at first. He was easy to work with, and his unlimited charisma was definitely something that came in handy when we were scored for our presentation skills. 

Even though we were scheduled to present in four weeks, I had the outlines of the presentation ready within a week. Bojan seemed all too happy with me taking the lead with the structure and the content. He gave some solid pointers to the argumentation I suggested and was able to decently write out the parts assigned to him. We worked well together. And so for the other classes that semester, we decided to pair up for the group projects as well. 

I later found out that Bojan sang in a band with people from his high school, who were now also in uni, apart from one of them who was finishing his last year of high school. Bojan was all too happy to let me take the lead on the assignments. And I was happy I didn't have to discuss my ideas and plans with someone else. I appreciated being able to discuss details to lift my plan to the next level. I wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of having to rewrite a plan I had already prepared by myself.  We were like a well oiled machine, and naturally we became acquainted with each other. We never hung out together after class unless we had to discuss uni work. But he invited me and my group of friends over for a concert in some sketchy venue once, and when we threw a house party, I invited him and his friends over.

That semester, everything was fine. It was the third week into the second semester when I last saw him. What bothered me the most was that nothing seemed to be off the last time I saw him in a lecture. For the next seminar, we were supposed to hand in a case study. Again, I had planned it out beforehand, providing a rough structure for us to work with. We had divided the rest of the work. But from his side, the Google docs document remained untouched. But I had gotten to know Bojan. Sometimes he did things last minute, but he always made sure to do them.

The night of the deadline, after I sent multiple worried texts to see if he was alright, I pulled an all nighter to finish both my (which I had been procrastinating) and his work. I was ready to tell him he had been a dick during the 9 A.M. lecture the following day. It was way too fucking early, especially on only three hours of sleep. But he didn't show up, nor did he to the seminar later that day, even though attendance was mandatory. More texts followed, all of which remained unanswered. I couldn't help but be genuinely worried for his well-being. He could be seriously sick, or in the hospital after an unfortunate accident. It took me two weeks to hear from another student that he had dropped out of university and that he was planning to start a sociology degree in the next academic year.