Read Between the Lines

Chapter 9: The DEAL-nial

MICHELLE's POV

It had been a week since their confrontation in Anntonia's dorm happened. Where the girl slapped her, stormed away, leaving her staring in absolute shock, wondering how she could've possibly managed to fuck up the only real human relationship she'd ever had.

Two weeks since she had been turning around to tell her silly jokes or to make fun of something, just to remember she wasn't there anymore. Two weeks since she started missing her, her absence nagging at her like a phantom limb.

This is stupid! She thought.

She was just so goddamn infuriatingly stupid. After already having been stupid enough to give in to whatever game Anntonia been up to, she had also been dumb enough to point a spotlight at it. Basically put it under a microscope. She should've just left it alone, pretend it had never happened and move on without ever talking about it again. But no, she chose to go over to see her, try to talk it out. But what was there to talk out? They'd made a mistake. They could just let it go and go back to being friends. Or if not, strangers and done.

Except there was this tiny little detail. The fact that she didn't exactly regret it. Or maybe, she regretted what it had done to their friendship and how messy it had all become, but she didn't regret the moment per se. She couldn't bring herself to. And there were things that caught her totally by surprise, knocking her dead like a high-speed train. This was usually when she said "pass". When she let it go. Because if she could still clearly remember, her mantra was that "if a chick was being difficult, there would always be one who'd be more willing."

She hadn't taken Anntonia to bed, but this was already too much effort, way more than she was willing to put. So what the hell was she still doing?

But that was the whole thing. She didn't want it to end and definitely didn't want a girl who'd be more willing. In fact, for the past couple of days since she hadn't seen Anntonia, she hadn't gone out and pick another girl. There was just something that felt wrong about another body in her arms when she was still having trouble washing away the girl's scent and the feeling of her skin under her fingertips.

She had it bad. So bad that there was no more lying to herself anymore. She clearly felt things for Anntonia that complicated everything. She couldn't tell if it was just blunt desire for something she couldn't quite have or if there were deeper feelings involved. She thought it's probably the first, since she doubted if she was capable of the latter.

After a while, she stood up and started pacing across her room, thinking that if she spent any more time locked up between these dumb four walls who keep mocking her for screwing up everything, she would go out of her goddamn mind. She let out a deep and heavy sighed and grabbed the book she was reading now, Fahrenheit 451, the one she'd started about a month ago and that Anntonia had teased her about, claiming it was such a 'manly' book to read but in her opinion, it one of those books that you should read before you die because it teaches you so much about books. It's strong message to humanity about the importance of knowledge and identity in a society that can so easily be corrupted by ignorance, censorship, and the tools designed to distract from the realities of the world.

Hypocrite. She thought.

She knew the girl loved it, too. It was also the one she hadn't been able to read a single page these pst days because she'd gotten used to reading stuff and debating it with her. Now she found herself stopping at every page and basically coming up with entire literary speeches in her head that she couldn't share with Anntonia anymore. It was murderous. She's gotten so addicted to her presence in her life that the past week had been a cruel kind of rehab and it's like she's going through withdrawal.