Stubborn

“I've been up for days,
Trying to find a way to write this confession down
Seems every line I write's a miss,
At least this I'll admit
For what I've done, I am not proud
But there's no need to pretend, no need for innocence
I've got to be honest now.”

I flipped over on my bed, realizing that this particular song wasn’t going to do me any good. Sitting up, with the soft screech of bedsprings following, I pulled the headphones out of my ears and looked at the time on the luminescent screen of my iPod. The hollow music streamed out into the empty dorm room, creating a soft echo. Things were different; there was no denying it. A month ago, at 4: 30 pm I would have been running out of time to get anything done, but now I just couldn’t wait for the day to be over. To say that I never thought about him would have been a lie. I thought about him often, but I wasn’t sure if it was in a good way or a bad. A week had passed – a week where I continuously wondered if I had done the right thing. Of course, my indecisive mind never could come to a solid conclusion, but the way I saw it, losing something you never had wasn’t really losing anything at all. If anything, I had done everyone a huge favour. Jordan was free to spend his nights with whomever he wished, Emma and Aaron were free of any drama in our friendship, and I could go back to the way things were. Couldn’t I?

I sighed then rolled off my bed. Saturdays weren’t usually eventful in my boring life, but it felt even more so today. I had studying to do that just didn’t seem enough to distract me from everything. The sound of jingling keys was heard from the other side of the door. Emma and Aaron walked in mid-laugh, talking about something that “you had to be there” to understand. I was really getting sick and tired of them being like conjoined twins that could read each other’s minds. It made it so much harder to be able to talk to just Emma. I wanted to tell her what happened between Jordan and I, because that was the unwritten girl code (you hook up with someone, you tell your best friend), but I didn’t want her reading into it more than necessary. Actually, I didn’t want her to make me read into it more than necessary.

“You guys look like you had a fun day,” I managed to say, mostly as a means of being involved in their conversation than actually caring. Lately, it just felt like I didn’t even exist. At least before the whole Jordan situation I was comfortably the third wheel to Emma and Aaron. Now I was just the hopeless roommate.

“Yeah,” Emma replied with a smile as she took off her coat and tossed it on her bed. “Didn’t do much though. Just hung out and stuff.” I nodded, feeling worse that they could have such a good time doing nothing. “What did you do today?” Ah, the dreaded question had finally come up!

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Not much.” Really, Alex, there wasn’t a better lie to come up with? “Just hung around here and stuff.” Emma nodded, not surprised in the least.

“Well, tonight’s gonna be a lot more eventful,” Aaron said, taking his jacket off and hanging it on the back of Emma’s desk chair.

I perked up. Had they actually made plans that involved me? “Why?” I asked, somewhat hopeful and excited.

Aaron’s mouth fell slightly open, appalled. “Uh…the game! Pens against Caps. It’s gonna be amazing! You can’t tell me you forgot.” I hadn’t so much forgotten as I had purposely stricken it from my memory to the point where I’d completely erased the knowledge that a certain someone was even on a hockey team.

“Right,” I replied flatly, “No, I didn’t forget. I – uh – can’t go though.”

“What?” Emma exclaimed. “Why not? We have free tickets and I intend to make the most of them.”

I licked my lips and ran a hand through my hair, pushing it away from my face, as it grew hot with the lie I was trying to force out. “I – uh – I’m sick.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “You seemed excited a second ago to do something.”

“Yeah…” I swallowed hard, “It just suddenly happened. My stomach.” I wrapped my arm around my torso. “Must be the flu or something.” I faked a groan of pain. “Yup, yup definitely the flu.”

“The flu?” Aaron asked. I nodded. He pursed his lips and plopped down on Emma’s bed casually. “I thought you’d give me more credit than this.” He said. “I took two years of film studies. I know a bad actor when I see one.”

“I still say Kristen Stewart has potential,” Emma interjected in a mumble.

Aaron rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to me. “C’mon Alex, what’s wrong? Honestly.”

I took a deep breath, letting my arm move away from my stomach. “Honestly?” He nodded. “I made plans with Casey tonight.” Would this lying ever end?!

They were silent for a moment, looking at each other skeptically.

“We went to the bookstore today,” Emma said. “Casey didn’t say anything about hanging out with you tonight.” Crap! This was it. I had cornered myself with no possible means of escape. “What’s going on, Alex?” she demanded and I chewed on my bottom lip. It suddenly felt like an interrogation, minus the blazing light and uncomfortable metal chair. “Just tell us.” I closed my eyes for a second. The last thing I wanted to do was tell them the truth. “We’re your friends,” she urged. “Does it have something to do with the guys? With Jordan?” Her voice grew more eager at his name.

I let out a breath and before I could stop myself I blurted out, “I had sex with him.” Everything went silent. Only Emma could have gotten something like that out of me. I noticed her and Aaron look at each other before she sat next to me on my bed.

“What?” Her voice was almost a whisper.

I licked my lips again. “Yeah.”

“Was it –”

“At his party?” I finished the sentence for her. She nodded. “Yeah…It’s not something I want to go around advertising.”

“I didn’t even know there was anything going on between you two,” Aaron said with all his attention focused on me.

“Well, now you know why I don’t really want to go to the game.”

The room was silent again.

“Did he, you know,” Aaron paused for a moment, “force you into it?”

“N – no!” I said quickly. I may not exactly be on speaking terms with Jordan, but I didn’t want anyone thinking he was a rapist. “I wanted to do it just as much as he did.”

“So, then what’s the problem?” he asked with a furrowed brow. This is why confessions like this had to first go through the female friend.

I contemplated this for a moment, trying to find the right way to word the conflict I was feeling. With a deliberating sigh I said, “I wanted to do it with Jordan, but I didn’t want to do it with Jordan Staal. The cocky, NHL superstar that’s probably had his fair share of women.”

There was a long pause on Aaron’s part. “That makes no sense,” he finally said in a huff. “Girls are so weird.”

Emma placed her hand on my knee gently. “I get what you mean.” I smiled at her meekly. “You want the guy, not the name.”

Aaron sat up straight in the bed, somewhat flustered by all of this. “But he is the name. They’re one and the same person.”

“I know,” I said softly. “Which is why I think the best thing to do is just forget all of this and let me keep my distance from him for a while. Before you know it he’ll have moved on and everything will be back to the way it was.

“Alex,” Aaron said more severely, “you can’t just brush something like this under the carpet. I mean, I’m getting emotional and I’m not even involved.” I chuckled at the thought of Aaron breaking out into tears.

“He’s right,” Emma said.

“I just need some time guys.” They listened to me silently with grave expressions on their faces. “You know, to figure things out.” They both nodded simultaneously then stood up. I could tell they understood that the night’s game was out of the question, and perhaps a few more after that. I was just going to have to find another way to keep myself busy and keep my mind off of Jordan for a while. Though in Pittsburgh, where every bus stop had a poster of one of the Penguin’s players, that was going to be a difficult feat.