Acting On Love

I dropped my phone and sank down onto my bed. My heart was beating wildly, hurting against my ribcage. It felt as if it were gearing up to finally break free through my chest and out, away from the rest of my body.

What had just happened? Was that. . .it?

No, it couldn't just end like that. I wanted to go and see him, but I restrained myself. Would it only make him worse? No, surely he'd have calmed down by the morning. Surely in the morning, when I went to see him he'd be glad to see me, and he'd tell me that we would find a way to make it work.

Damn. Tomorrow was Monday, which meant lessons.

I finally decided that I would go and see him after the day was done. If I could last that long. . .

I spent the rest of that day distracting myself with Arizona Dreams. By the time the day was done, I was nearly finished. Although it was very hard to read, since my stomach was playing up with nerves the whole time. It was driving me crazy.

A light knock on my door brought me back into the outer world. I slowly went over to answer it. I nearly slammed it shut again as soon as I saw who it was.

She pressed her hand against it as I tried to shut it on her again.

"Kristen. . ." she whispered. I didn't want to look at her. But eventually I couldn't keep from it any longer. I lifted my head up to look at her, feeling the anger course through my veins.

"I don't want to talk to you," I said quietly. Even civilly, considering what she'd done to me. And to Ville.

"But I want to talk to you. You need to know how sorry I am. . . really. All I want is to somehow undo what I did. Please, if there's any way that I can do that-"

"There is no way, Lisa! He's being fired," I said sharply, trying not to raise my voice.

Her eyes widened, and her bottom lip seemed to quiver a little. Before I knew it, she was crying.

"This is. . . all my. . . fault," I heard her mumble through the sobs. She wiped at her eyes, trying in vain to dry them. Her whole face was steadily turning red. As much as I hated to admit it, I was beginning to hate her less. She obviously was sorry. But sorry wasn't good enough, I reminded myself.

"Lisa. . . " I sighed, making her look up. "This isn't helping," I said bleakly.

"I'm sorry," she insisted. "What will happen to you?" she asked, pulling out a crumpled bit of tissue from her pocket. She blew her nose. "Please tell me they're not kicking you out too!"

"No, they aren't. But they may as well be. . ." I muttered.

This made her cry even more.

"What will happen with you and Mr. Valo, then?" she asked through the tears.

". . .that's a good question," I murmured, feeling drawn away from reality again. I gulped, but my throat was dry. I felt the tears begin to collect in the corners of my eyes, but I blinked them away quickly.

"Oh, Kristen!" she suddenly whined, crashing her arms around me, to pull me into a bone-crushing hug. "I'm so, so, so sorry! I'll never be forgiven for this, will I. . ." she mumbled into my neck.

I didn't answer her, but we both knew the answer already. She pulled away from me, and tried looking into my eyes with her own bloodshot ones. She truly looked burdened with guilt.

"I can't stay here. . ." she mumbled, still staring into my eyes. Her's started to waver slightly, as if they wanted to look away, but simply couldn't. "All I see when I look at you. . .is the sorrow. All I see is what I have done."

I was the one to finally break the eye contact. I looked back into my room, away from her.

"Did you. . . love him, Kristen?" she finally asked. My eyes shot round to look at her again.

I simply nodded, letting my eyes wonder down to look at the floor beneath us.

"Right. . ." she said to herself, looking at the floor, too. "I understand that you can't forgive me. . .and I wont ask you to again. I just hope that, when you look back on this, you'll realise that I truly was sorry."

With that, she turned away from me slowly, and walked down the corridor towards her own room. I didn't know then if I'd ever see her again, or if I would see her every day that I spent in that university, but that didn't matter.

I closed the door behind her and tried in vain to get to sleep.