Tuesday, January 21, 2020

    The consistent buzzing from my phone woke me up at an unnatural time the next morning, as text messages flooded in and a conversation I knew nothing about seemed to be going on on that stupid piece of technology.

    I flipped over in bed at 7:12, ignoring the pounding headache that decided to overcome me at that exact moment. When one bad thing happens, it seems that the universe isn't satisfied until the rest of your life crumbles into pieces.

    I had 6 new messages when I opened my phone: 2 from Lindsey, 2 from Faith, 1 from an unknown number, and 1 from Leslie. I opened them one at a time, deciding to save the unknown one for last.

    Confused, I was more inclined to believe Lindsey, since Faith seemed to despise me more and more with each passing second. But the most interesting message came from Leslie.

    What was "probably fake"?

    The ironic part about my life in general was that I always seemed to end up listening to the people with my worst interests in heart.

    I opened the only message left, the one from the unknown number. It took a second for my eyes to register what was on the screen; there was a picture accompanied by a long string of data and website URLs, making it difficult to decipher what the sender wanted me to be looking at. But after a few seconds I clicked on the picture, and an image I thought I wouldn't have to see again filled my screen.

    My boyfriend stood in the hallway of his dorm building, staring into the eyes of his ex-girlfriend. Both were pajama-clad, Brenden with his hair ruffled from sleep and Lexie wearing a getup that would be considered trampy at a Las Vegas strip club. I stared at the picture, taking it in: she had her hand wrapped around the front of his shirt, as if she were pulling him towards her. Brenden looked completely surprised and caught off-guard, which was the only part of the picture that didn't make me want to scream bloody murder.

    The bathroom door opened and a towel-clad Faith walked into the room, wringing out her hair humming a song quietly. When she saw that I was awake, her smile grew wider than Jaime's on free pancake day.

    "Did you see the picture?"

    I nodded slowly, keeping my face strictly neutral; there was no way in hell that I was going to give her the satisfaction of knowing I was in fact furious and hurt by what I had seen.

    In all honesty I was deeply confused by Faith; girls who consistently valued flirting with guys over building friendships with girls were people I could not relate to on any level.

    "So how does that make you feel?" Faith asked, pouting her lip in the most mocking way she could as she pulled on whatever outfit she had in mind for the day. "Gonna go have a chat with your boyfriend? Maybe...break up?"

    "You would like that, wouldn't you?" I responded cheekily, standing up and walking out of the room, ignoring Faith's giggling from behind me as I went.

    I walked through the hallway and straight out of the dorm room, clad in my unicorn pajama pants and a tank top with no bra. I walked along the road, heading for the dorm room of someone who had better be expecting me.

    Everyone who I passed gave me the strangest looks imaginable as I did, and I became increasingly grateful that there weren't too many people walking around at 7:20 on a Tuesday morning at Berkeley. I walked up the stairs as I arrived at the dorm building I had just been in the day before, in a far better mood than I was currently in.

I stomped up to his dorm room and knocked on the door, sure that I looked just like Lexie had looked the night before, albeit far more covered up. I could hear someone moving around inside the dorm room, lazily walking towards the door. I squeezed my phone in my hand, ready to flash the screen at whoever arrived at the door in front of me.

"Ar?" A very sleepy and confused Brenden opened the door, looking around the hallway to see if anyone was with me. "Are you alright? It's like 7:00 in the morning..."

"7:34, actually." I replied. "Would you like to explain what this is?" I asked, shoving my phone into his face.

He rubbed his eyes and then stared at the picture for a few seconds before a look of complete dread settled over his face.

"I can explain that."

"Oh, I'd love to hear it." I replied, nodding tucking my phone back into the pocket of my pajama pants. "Go ahead, explain why your ex-girlfriend, who I asked you not to see again, was standing outside of your dorm room in the dead of night, dressed like a skank, holding onto your shirt like she's about to kiss you." I folded my arms, "I'm sure it's a good one."

Brenden rolled his eyes and stepped out into the hallway, closing his door behind him.

"I was set up." He said, trying to take my hands in his and recoiling slightly when I backed away from his touch.

"They knocked on the door and I answered because I thought it might be Andrew, and I promised him he could stay with me if his roommate got any weirder. Lexie pulled me out into the hallway, and while she did, someone else took that picture. I could see the flash but I couldn't see who was the one taking it. Lexie asked me to reconsider us and I said no, and turned her away as quickly as possible. Then I went back in the dorm and went to sleep. I'm so sorry if it looked like something else, I promise I would never do anything to hurt you. You know that."

I paused for a moment and looked up at him. He looked so worried, so concerned that I was going to deny his story and leave. His eyes showed that he was telling the truth, they really did, and yet I was still wary...there were simply too many things going wrong.

But at the same time, every relationship had its ups and downs. This was just a long way down.

"Alright." I nodded. "Thank you for telling me. And I'm sorry if I woke you up."

"You're fine." Brenden nodded, looking relieved as he gave me a quick kiss. "I love you, Hall."

"I love you too."

Thank you guys so much for 100,000 reads! ❤️

-Katherine