Made To Be (a Mailbox Girl spin-off)

7. First Day (Part 3)

PICTURE AN EGGPLANT. Now picture a chin. Now picture an eggplant in place of a chin.

This is what my face looked like by the time I got back to my dorm in the evening. Despite all the meds, the ointments and the ice, I didn't look nothing like my usual self. The vibrant purple of the bruise was running down my chin and all the way up to my right jaw. And of course, because a simple bruise wouldn't have been funny, the bottom of my face was so swelled up I couldn't even close my mouth anymore.

How could bumping into someone in a corridor amount to such a stupidly serious injury?

College life was definitely something new.

Thankfully I had managed to survive the day on a good dose of painkillers and had been able to attend most of my classes. As for the one I had no other choice but to miss, it turned out that Demarcus took it too. After making sure I was in safe hands with the nurse, he had typed in his number into my phone and sprinted there to take notes for me.

Demarcus, I forgot to say, was the name of that lanky, baby-faced boy. And I had to admit that he was actually a pretty nice person when he didn't throw his elbow around at people's faces. He would probably make a good friend.

I was about to push open the door to my room when the noise of another one opening diverted my eyes. It was a reflex, and I wished I didn't have it as I met Sofia's eyes, who was just walking out of her own room, a stack of dirty clothes in her arms. How had she even managed to stack up so many dirty clothes in under two days?

"What happened to your face?" The words left her mouth before I even had a chance to secure myself in my room, away from her. I would actually have to answer that now.

"Nothing much." I brushed away the question, attempting to smile. But my face didn't agree on this last move and made it turn into a grimace. What a nice impression I must have made on this ex-girlfriend I tried so hard to impress with my "I moved on" life.

"It doesn't look like much. Have you seen a doctor?"

"A nurse, yes." I snapped, coldly. "And why do you even care?"

"I care because I'm a compassionate human." Sofia replied, taking a step towards me. I rolled my eyes at so much hypocrisy. Did she care when I was balling my eyes out every night for the last months of my high school life and always arrived at school with puffy eyes? No,she didn't care back then. And she knew very well how shitty I felt.

"Since when?" I mumbled under my breath while moving towards the entrance of my room.

"Stop acting so condescending, Jane, okay?" I stopped right in motion and put my foot back on the floor, turning towards her. Her eyes were throwing deathly glares at me under her thick eyelashes. "We'll have to be living under the same roof for at least a semester, we can at least try and behave like good neighbors. Okay?"

 I tapped my foot on the floor, unnerved.

This was it. This was the last straw.

I had remained calm all day, all year actually. I had listened to her dictating me our relationship. Sofia had me hung around her little finger for too long and I had too much shit from her, and other people today, to let it slip without a word.

"No, it's not okay." She bit her lip at that, a warning look replacing the angry one in her eyes. "You have been deciding everything in our relationship for too long now and I don't want to obey your every word anymore."

"We don't have a relationship." She interrupted harshly.

"Yes, because you decided so!" I stated, fighting back the will to raise my voice at her. "You just dumped me like trash after two years of relationship without any reason. Then you kissed me at prom to tell me the day after you didn't want me to ever talk to you again. And I obliged, to all of those without saying anything. But I am tired of you never considering my feelings. So, no, you won't decide anything for me anymore, whether it is how we should act as neighbors or the things I can and can not tell you."