I held two pre-packaged meals in my hands, trying to decide if I wanted to eat Moroccan couscous or a suspiciously bright chicken curry for lunch. The choice seemed impossible to make until my phone buzzed and I instinctively set down the couscous so that I could answer it.

Curry it is, I thought, unlocking my phone with my thumb. Skimming the preview of the incoming text message, I maneuvered through the crowded cafeteria until I reached the line to pay. A group of Gamma Gammas stood giggling in front of me and I recognized one of the dark-haired girls as having gone out with Carlos the year before. She offered a small smile but didn't say hello before turning back to her friends. I didn't take the snub personally; in fact, I was relieved. The only thing worse than making small talk was making small talk with a friend's ex.

I returned my attention to Mattie's text. Date dash tonight, the message read. Buses leave at 9:45, so be in the foyer by 9:30. The theme is Jock Jams - 80s workout clothes and sports jerseys, no Speedos or jockstraps. Remember: if you or your date throw up, you both go home.

I groaned inwardly. I'd been at the exec meeting when tonight's date dash had been put on the calendar, yet somehow I'd completely forgotten that it was coming up. Then again, we scheduled so many of our frat's events in early September that I couldn't understand how any of us were expected to keep track of anything. When I reached the register, I handed the cashier my student I.D. and watched her charge the cost of my meal to my dining account. Even though I ate at the house most of the time, there were times when it was more convenient to stay on campus until I'd finished my classes for the day. I thanked the woman before walking off, and then scanned the campus center's massive dining hall in an attempt to locate Gemma.

Going to lunch had been her idea, surprisingly enough, though neither of us had seemed very excited when we met next to the fountain outside. Things had been tense between us since the football game, in part because our team had enjoyed the biggest comeback in a decade. I'd refused to believe it when I heard the news and I was still bitter that I'd missed seeing it live. Scoring forty points during a game was an anomaly for our team; scoring forty points in two quarters was, as our school newspaper described it, about as statistically likely as catching a unicorn. It didn't happen.

Of course, the fact that Gemma didn't care about sports meant that she didn't understand my frustration. "You don't even like our football team," she'd pointed out, and even though she was right, that didn't mean I wasn't excited by the idea of being in the stadium when ten thousand students stormed the field. I squinted, debating whether or not I'd finally spotted her in the sea of students who were sitting down for lunch. She was wearing a yellow dress, I knew that much, but that must have been the color of the day because it felt like every other girl was wearing the same shade.

"Scott," I heard Gemma's voice call out, and I turned in a small circle while I continued to look for her. Her hand shot up in the air with a little wave. Finally knowing where to go, I moved through the crowd until I reached the corner table that she'd saved.

As I sat down, I noticed that Gemma had already finished most of her meal. The wrapper from her sandwich lay crumpled beside a half-eaten bag of potato chips. Gemma pushed the bag towards me, but I frowned, annoyed that she hadn't waited for me to come back before she started eating. I must have made a face because Gemma asked, "What?"

"Nothing," I lied, peeling back the lid on my container of curry. I speared a piece of chicken with my fork and watched droplets of orange sauce roll down the plastic tines. "The frat's throwing a date dash tonight."

Gemma reached for her water bottle and placed its mouth against her bottom lip. "So?"

I chewed my mouthful of food slowly, wondering if there was any point in asking her the question that obviously followed. "So, do you want to go?"

She shook her head. "Sorry. I would, but S.P.L. is hosting a Speaker Series tonight."

"Seriously? Didn't you just go to one?"

"On Monday, yeah." Gemma shrugged. "It's the end of the semester, you know we always hold more events leading up to winter break."

"Yeah, but..." I set my fork down while I studied her. "Can't you skip it?"

The horrified expression on Gemma's face was almost enough to make me laugh. "Scott, I organized it," she said, as if telling me something I didn't already know.

"You organize all of them."

"Then you know why I'm not going to bail to go to a frat party." Gemma looked down at her lap before reaching across the table and taking my hand. "Why don't you skip your date dash and come listen to the talk instead? We can go to dinner after--"

"I don't really want to."

"Why not?"

"Because it'd be nice if we did something that I'm interested in for once."

Gemma pulled away again, folding her arms across her chest as she leaned back in her chair. "What are you talking about?"

"Forget it."

I picked up my fork and resumed stabbing at my food. I wasn't hungry anymore, but turning the dish's vegetables into mush was oddly cathartic.

"Are you still mad that we left that stupid football game early?" Gemma asked. I bit down on the inside of my cheek while she laughed, more irritated that I normally would've been.

"Nope." Another lie. Two in five minutes had to be a record.  

"Scott, come on," Gemma said. "How was I supposed to know we'd win in the fourth quarter?"

"That's why you stay for the whole game, Gem. You know, so you can see how things actually end instead of trying to guess."

She glared at me through narrowed eyes. I stared back, acutely aware that my invitation for her to come to a dance was going to end in us having a fight. I sighed, breaking eye contact just long enough to scan the campus center. The place was packed, full of people ready to listen to us argue. Although they weren't paying attention to us now, they would be soon. It was the curse of being a college student; even if we could only feed ourselves instant noodles for dinner, that never stopped us from devouring drama.

"What exactly do you want me to say?" Gemma demanded, no longer amused. "You didn't have to leave with me."

"I kind of did."

"No," Gemma said, drawing the word out for effect. "You didn't."

"Do you really expect me to believe that you wouldn't have been pissed if I'd stayed?"

"You can think whatever you want, but I wouldn't have been mad at all."

I knew her too well to believe her, but I also knew that there was no point in telling her that. Once Gemma picked a narrative, she'd stick to that story until she was blue in the face. It was what she always did, and probably what she always would do.

"Look," I said, "all I'm saying is that we never spend time together unless you get to decide what we're doing."

"That's not true."

"Are you kidding me? You picked the last two movies that we went to go see, and unless I'm paying, you always choose where we go to eat--"

"That's because you can never make up your mind about anything!" Gemma exclaimed, throwing her hands up in exasperation. "If I waited for you to make a decision, I'd--I don't know, I'd probably be dead. I'd love for you to take charge for once but I know it's never going to happen."

"Okay, well, then skip your S.P.L. thing and let's go to my date dash. Done. Decision made."

Gemma scoffed before taking a deep breath. "That's not what I meant."

"Of course it isn't," I muttered.

"You're being so unreasonable right now. Like, you do know that, right?"

"Whatever."

The fork that I'd been holding snapped in my hand, and both of us fell silent. Not that I'd ever admit it to her, but she was right; I knew that I wasn't being fair by asking her to skip a Speaker Series event. As president of S.P.L., Gemma worked non-stop during the semester in order to find guest lecturers who were willing to give a talk without asking for a large fee in return. It was one of the many amazing things that Gemma did on a daily basis, and ordinarily I was happy to support her, even if I still didn't understand where her passion came from. All I wanted, I guess, was for her to show some interest in the things I cared about--even if they weren't as important as saving the world. Even if that meant skipping an S.P.L. meeting now and then.

I broke the handle of the fork in half again before looking up at Gemma. To my surprise, her dark caramel-colored eyes were filled with sadness.

Of all the words I might use to describe Gemma, gentle and cute were rarely included. Beautiful, headstrong, genius. Those traits described her perfectly, but the way she was looking at me reminded me of a timid Cocker Spaniel. Part of me wanted to reach out and scratch her behind her ears, though I realized that probably wouldn't go over too well.

"I really am sorry," she said quietly. "If I'd known ahead of time, I could've asked Edmund to cover overseeing the set-up and introduction."

"It's fine," I replied. My annoyance was fading fast under her forlorn stare and I knew that I needed to apologize, too. "There'll be others."

"Winter formal's coming up, right?" she asked, peering up at me through full eyelashes. She smiled when I nodded. "I promise I'll make it to that."

Don't make promises you don't want to keep, I thought. "Maybe I'll ask Edmund if he can handle things tonight," Gemma continued. "We've actually hosted this speaker before so it's probably not essential that I'm there. What do you think?"

"Sure," I said, knowing not to get my hopes up. "That sounds good."

"I'll let you know by five, okay? Is that alright?"

"Five's fine."

I smiled at her before grabbing her potato chips and helping myself to a handful. Using them like tiny spoons, I dragged the chips through my curry, capturing pieces of chicken on their edges. Even though I really wasn't very hungry, I still felt guilty about letting my entire meal go to waste. Gemma watched me eat, filling the lull in our conversation with a story about... Something.

If I was being honest, I wasn't really listening. Instead, I was mentally running through the list of girls that I knew and who might agree to going on a date dash at such short notice. I still had a few strictly platonic female friends from freshman year, though most of them had been chased off by Gemma's previous bouts of jealousy. She'd mellowed out a lot as we'd gotten older, but that didn't make it any easier to reach out to the friends I'd given up in my attempts to ease her insecurities. For the life of me, I'd never known why she felt threatened by anyone at all; I'd never done anything to make her doubt my loyalty. Not once.

Well, at least not until now, said a nasty voice in the back of my mind, and my heart started to pound.

You could always ask Melanie, the voice continued, drowning out Gemma completely.

I'd largely convinced myself that there was nothing wrong with me spending time with Melanie without Gemma knowing; after all, I wasn't sleeping with Melanie, and unlike in the past, this time Gemma and I weren't really dating. I kept telling myself that Corey was right, that you couldn't cheat on someone that you weren't actually in a relationship with. Gemma was the one who'd asked me to stop pushing for us to be official, and we'd never agreed to be exclusive. It may have been implied, but it wasn't one of the Terms and Conditions. The way I saw it, I wasn't doing anything wrong by exploring my options, and for all I knew, she was doing the same. Hell, she probably was. She and Edmund had always been a little too close for me to believe that nothing had ever happened between them.

No matter how many times I tried to rationalize my behavior, however, I knew that I wasn't the good guy in this situation. Someone was going to get hurt. It was just a matter of time.

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A/N: Another split chapter! Will post the other half after I edit it later. Other than that, I probably won't update again until next Thursday or Friday because journal tryouts start tomorrow. I'll be spending the first half of spring break line editing a 30 page doc, reading 250 pages, and writing a 10 page paper. Yay. Hope you enjoyed this part of the update - votes and comments are always appreciated! <3