These Years

I was sitting on my bed with several books lying out in front of me. My eyes widened as I looked over all the material I needed to study; no idea where to begin. A dreadful sigh escaped my lips as I picked a book at random to start with.

The past three weeks have flown by. I couldn’t believe I was already a month and a half into my freshman year. My classes were surely heating up, though. Just like now, I found myself swamped my assignments and studying, as of late. I haven’t had a lot of time for a social life, but I had managed to get out to a couple hockey games to cheer on the boys. Jordan’s been over quite a bit lately as we continued our study sessions and TJ decided to make a habit out of trying to break up these times so we could go –and in his words- ‘have some fun.’ Simply said, the three of us have grown very close. Then there’s Jonathan. He’s been around quite a bit too. When he’s not busy with his own school work or training he’s been joining in on our occasional movie nights and hangouts. The two of us found out we have a lot in common and have been spending some afternoons having a coffee or even just chatting. Our relationship was even starting to rival my one with the other two boys.

The three of them were at practice right now, so I was left alone to my studying. But at least TJ wasn’t around distracting me, I suppose.

I began reading through the book that I was holding and putting sticky notes on the pages I deemed important.

I went through the entity of two books when my phone started ringing. I dropped the book I was currently studying back onto my bed as I looked around for my phone. After finding it on my nightstand I glanced at the caller ID. But I surprised to see only a number came up; it wasn’t one of my contacts calling me. Assuming one of my friends broke their phones and was using a loaner I shrugged and answered.

“Hello?” I said casually.
“Oh, good,” The voice spoke. It was deep; a male’s, “So you do still have the same number, Sur.”

I sat in silence with my brow furrowed. I was trying to piece things together: some guy was calling me, I didn’t have his number in my phone and he obviously knew who I was.

When I didn’t respond, the person on the other line spoke again, “Sur? You still there?”

It was then that I finally recognized the voice.

“Brandon...” My voice said, simply. It scared me with how weak it sounded.
“Babe,” He smiled, “How’s school been?”

I bit on my lip. It was obvious with how my voice came out before that I still felt something, but then everything that happened in the past few months hit me. I felt all that pain come back to me.

I found a new sense of strength and voiced it, “Why’re you calling?”
“Suri?” He sounded hurt. It almost made me feel sick, “I just wanted to talk to you; hear your voice; catch up...” Brandon trailed off.
“Really?” I clenched my fist –the one that wasn’t holding the phone up to my ear.- “You didn’t seem to care back before I left. Why should you bother caring now?” My previously even voice began to crack. I wasn’t sure if it was from rage or sadness.
The boy let out a tired-sounding sigh, “I made a mistake then and I want to fix it now.”
“Brandon. After what you did to me, there’s no way I can let you in again.” I took a pause, “Goodbye.”

I ended the call and dropped my phone onto my bed. I sat motionless in my bed before taking in a deep breath. That’s when I realized I was crying. Bawling, actually.

I thought I was doing fine. I thought the past few months erased all the feelings that I had and I was finally over the pain.

But I guess not.

I curled myself up into a ball as all the bad memories came back to me. I felt them all swarm me and I started to feel so alone.

Just then, my phone rang again. Anger started to replace my sadness as I answered the phone. I didn’t bother checking the ID, assuming it was Brandon again.

Before he had time to speak, I did, “Just stop it,” I stuttered strongly through my tears, “I never want to talk to you again.”
I was about to hang-up when I heard a voice.

But the thing that worried me was the fact that it wasn’t Brandon’s.

It was Jonathan’s.

Oops.

“Suri,” His voice sounded soft and worried, “What’s wrong?”
I tried to make my voice sound more natural before responding, “Nothing. It’s okay, I just thought you were someone else. Sorry.”
“You don’t sound okay, Suri.” He paused before continuing, “We just got out of practice. I’ll be over in a couple minutes.”

I was ready to try and convince him not to come over, but by the time I was ready to speak I was greeted by a dial tone; he already hung-up.

I put my phone down and jumped off of my bed.

I didn’t want anyone to see me in this kind of state. Especially, someone like Jon. Sure, we were friends, but I wasn’t really close enough with him to be comfortable looking “badly” –for lack of better wording- with him around.

I ran into the bathroom which was beside my bedroom. I threw some water onto my face, trying to make it less blotchy and red. Then I wiped at my eyes trying to hide the fact that I was crying so much. I applied a tiny bit of makeup onto my face right before I heard a knock on my door.

I let out a slight curse before making my way over to the door. I plastered a fake smile on my face as I opened the door. Standing on the other side was, as expected, Jonathan. His face had a worried expression on it and he almost pushed his way in the door. I was taken aback by his forward actions.

We stood in my kitchenette facing each other.

“What’s wrong, Suri? Why were you crying? Who did you think was calling you?” He blurted this all out in one breath.
“Jonathan,” I tried to speak calmly, “I’m okay. And don’t worry about who was calling, it was just someone from home, that’s’all.”
He could see right through me. “You can tell me what’s wrong. It’s not good to keep it in.”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.” I even started to hear the breaking in my voice and my eyes started watering.

So much for playing it off.

Jonathon took a step forward, wrapped his arms around me and pulled my close to him.

“You don’t have to pretend everything’s okay. I’ll listen if you need to talk.” His voice spoke into my hair.
I held back a sob as I replied the phone call in my head. It might not’ve seemed like much but it scared me with how many memories it brought back. “Will you tell TJ and Jordan?” I asked quietly.
He pulled me in closer, “Not unless you want me to.”
I shook my head, even thought it was tightly pressed to his chest, “Don’t. Please.”

We stood in silence for a few moments before I pulled away.

“Come sit down.” I led the way into my bedroom and sat on my bed; Jonathan did the same.

There were a few more moments of silence before I started speaking. “I thought it was Brandon who was calling. That’s who I was on the phone with before.”
“Who’s Brandon?” He asked, looking at me with worried eyes.
“Brandon,” I let out a sigh, “Is my ex-boyfriend from home. We dated for four years. He decided to go to a college close to home while I decided to come out here. Obviously being so far away would be hard, but since we lasted through so much in the past I was going to ask about staying together through a long-distance relationship. Like, I’ll probably only be around here for a couple years anyways. But when I went over to his house to talk to him about it –this was about two months after I found out I was accepted-I walked in on him and another girl were having...y’know...” I took a deep breath, trying to hold back tears. Jonathan wrapped his arm around my shoulders as I continued, “I found out he was cheating on me since the day he found out I was accepted into UND. Obviously I wasn’t going to try and make it work after that. So I told him it was over and hadn’t talked to him since.”
“Until today?” Jon asked.
“Until today.” I confirmed. “He called and just started talking like nothing happened. I told him things couldn’t work after what he did and then I hung-up...”
“I’m sorry,” Jonathon said. He tightened his hold on me for a moment before dropping his arm.
“Don’t be,” I said. “It’s just a process. I’ll be over him soon enough.” I shrugged and wiped the remaining tears from my eyes, trying to make the best of it.
Jon gave me a tight smile, “I’m glad you’re looking at this positively. But if you ever need someone to talk to again, just remember, I’m here.”
I nodded, “Thanks Jon.” I gave him a quick hug. There was a pause before I spoke again, “Wanna watch a movie?” I asked.
“Sounds good.”

We picked out a movie and got comfortable.

As the movie played my mind drifted a bit. I don’t know what drew me to tell Jonathan everything and it kind of scared me. I just spilled my heart out to someone I’ve only known for about month. I just hope I made the right decision in doing so.