Laugh Until You Cry

3 Monday Mopes

“How long are we going to fight before we can… uh, not fight?” Andrew asks me as we’re sitting in the food court during lunch on Monday morning.

“I don’t know. How long are you going to be a jerk?” I fire a question back at him.

“I’m trying my best here, Stell,” He insists, leaning over the small table so that he can talk quietly to me without anybody else hearing the conversation. Our food court has different sized tables and usually, we sit in a long booth with all of our friends but today, Andrew said that he wanted to talk so we’re sitting at a small two person table instead. “I honestly do not know what you want from me.”

“I think it’s pretty obvious what I want,” I snap at him in irritation.

“Is it to break up? Because that’s what it seems like right now,” He grumbles.

“No, I do not want to break up,” I grumble as I eat my salad. “I just want to stop fighting. I love you, Andrew, and I just wish that you’d get off of your ass and try as hard as I am. It’s like you’re not trying at all here.”

“It’s just the tournament thing, why don’t you understand that?” He asks me in irritation. “After it’s done, everything’s going to go back to normal.”

“Everything is going to go back to normal?” I wonder with raised eyebrows. “No it’s not. You have been ignoring me for over a week now and I try. I try so hard to be with you but you just don’t care at all. You’re not trying. But you know what? Lunch is almost over so I’m going to start off to English because I’m tired of fighting. I’m tired of trying, so when you feel like being a boyfriend again, you can let me know.”

“Stella, we have English together, I can walk with you,” Andrew reminds me as if I don’t already know that we have next period together. It used to be really cool that we had English together and we also have two periods of dance rehearsal together at the end of the day, which was also really cool at first but now, it’s not as cool since we’re fighting all of the time.

“I’ll walk with Mason,” I inform him as I stand up and walk towards the long table where my friends are sitting. The chatter in the food court is loud because of all the people eating lunch right now and it’s busy so I have to push between chairs and tables a little bit but when I get to the table, Mason and Sienna, who are sitting beside each other, both smile up at me.

“Hey, how was your lunch with Andrew?” Sienna asks me as I stand by the edge of the table because I just want to get out of here, I don’t want to sit down and talk with everyone right now.

“It was just like every other conversation I have with him,” I sigh. “Anyway, Mase, do you want to head to class early or something? I’m gonna head out now.”

“Yeah, sure,” She nods. Mason has English with me too and usually, we all walk together to the academics building but like I said, I just want to get out of this slightly loud food court. Sienna has dance after lunch though, and her dance studio class is in the opposite direction as the academic building. Mason turns and gives Brian a goodbye kiss before scooting out of the booth. We both wave goodbye to our friends and she throws her trash away on our way out of the building.

“So we should all get together in the game room sometime this week and plan out May’s birthday party,” I suggest as we’re walking through the grassy campus. There are a few people eating lunch outside or just walking around during their lunch break but for the most part, it’s pretty calm outside. In about three minutes, the bell will ring and it’ll be pretty hectic with everybody having to get to their classes.

“Yeah, that really needs to happen. We need to go shopping for party decorations and stuff like that too,” Mason adds.

“Oh, and you just know how much I love shopping. I’m totally in,” I pipe with a smile. This is one of the best things about my friends, especially Mason, is that if I don’t want to talk about something that’s bugging me, she doesn’t push the subject. She helps me get my mind off of everything instead of insisting that we talk about it and working through it. Sienna’s like that too, she understands that I don’t want to talk about my problems all of the time and sometimes, I just need to get my mind off of things. I seriously have the best friends ever.