Taking Chances

Gritting my teeth, I stabbed my fork into the stack of pancakes sitting in front of me. Four little holes like four little mouths screaming for help. But I just kept stabbing and stabbing, trying to get out some of my anger that was getting built up in my stomach.

Rebecca’s laugh broke through my trance. “Bailey, honey,” she intervened, putting her hand over mine to stop me, “the pancakes are dead.”

I let out a sharp breath. “I know.” I stared at them, seeing all the holes I made, and winced a little, imagining them as bleeding cuts. Maybe I’d gone too far.

There was the sound of a fork scraping across a place from in front of me, and then Rebecca spoke again. “What was the point of going to breakfast if you’re not even going to eat?”

“I just needed to get out of the apartment,” I sighed. I reached forward and took the mug of coffee in my hands, taking a short sip. “And I have no idea when I’m going to be able to go back. I just…I love Zayn. I love him so much. But I’m incredibly pissed at him right now.”

“Oh, I got that, trust me.” She smiled at me for a second before taking another bite of her waffle. “I could hear you screaming at him from down the hallway. And then, the yelling stopped, so I thought it would be okay to go in...right as you started shouting again.”

I cringed before running a hand through my hair. “Ouch. Poor guy. And poor you."

“Oh, don't worry about me. And maybe he deserved it,” she assured me. “What did he do?”

After a short hesitation, I told her the whole story, since she hadn’t been around for weeks.

The more I said, the sterner her face became. She was clearly feeling my pain, being the wonderful friend she was, and she was almost starting to look violent.

When I got to the bit about the party, she actually broke in with, “Wait, so hold up…Zayn grinded with this chick? In public? And in front of you?”

“Yeah,” I breathed, trying not to cry again. “I tried to tell myself that they were just having fun. We were at a club, after all. People do stuff like that all the time in a club. It’s not supposed to be a big deal. But it was to me.”

“Well, you’re not the partying type,” Rebecca reminded me. “Neither of us are. That’s why we worked so well as roommates.”

I let out a small laugh, though I felt guilty that I was. I should have been miserable, like I was sure Zayn was. Or maybe Zayn was having a grand old time, thinking about how he could cut himself loose from me.

Rebecca interrupted my depressing thoughts by saying, “Anything else?”

Blushing, I told her about how I got nearly drunk and how far I had gone with Zayn. She looked absolutely shocked, though I could tell she was trying to hide it from me. “Uh…wow, Bailey,” was all she could manage to say.

I slammed my forehead against the table, sending the plates and glasses and silverware shaking and clinking against each other. “I hate this,” I expressed. “Why did I even come here?”

“Because you want to revive your career, and Simon’s your only chance,” Rebecca stated simply. I brought my face up to look at her just in time to see her shrug. “Plus, there was no way that you would have wanted to do the long-distance relationship with Zayn.”

She took a sip of her orange juice before grinning at me. “And you got to miss midterms. It was kind of a no-brainer.”

I laughed for a second. “God, I’m so glad you’re finally here.”

Rebecca’s face fell a little bit. “Yeah, me, too. I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. My parents insisted that I had to spend some time with them before I left. I think they know that I’m not going back.”

“You haven’t even told them?” My eyebrows shot to my hairline as I sat up straight again. “You’re going to be going to school in London, and you haven’t even told them?!”

“Nope,” she admitted sheepishly. “I figure that I’ll tell them when I pick out my college.”

“Oh my God,” I sighed. “Rebecca, love, you’re just too much.”

“HA! You called me love again!”

“Shut up,” I whined. “I’m spending too much time with Louis again. This can’t be good for my health.”

There was a silence, and the thoughts of Zayn rushed back into my head, bringing my mood immediately back into the valley it started in. Sighing sadly, I reached across the table to get the syrup. “You know,” I voiced, watching the thick liquid pour over the stack of pancakes in front of me, “sometimes, I really wish I was one of those emotional eaters. But I’m kind of the opposite.”

“Why would you want to be an emotional eater?” I looked up at Rebecca just long enough to see her staring at me like I was crazy.

“Because I’m staring at these pancakes, and they look so good, but my stomach doesn’t want them. My sadness doesn’t want them. It only wants Zayn and me to be good again.”

“So why don’t you meet up with him and apologize?”

“Because…” I bit my lip. “Because I guess I’m too immature. We just argued. I don’t want to give in already.”

Rebecca let out a sigh that accused me of being extremely pathetic. Which I already knew. “Bailey…”

“I know, I know. I’m just like a stubborn child.” I took a bite of my pancakes, straining to choke it down. Groaning, I pushed the plate away from me. “This is really serious if I can’t eat.”

“You know what?” Rebecca voiced, putting her fork down on her nearly empty plate. “What you need is a day out. You and Zayn have been too cooped up in the apartment together. We’ll go shopping, walk around a bit, talk…and when it’s over, you’ll know what you want to do and how you want to do it.”

I stared at her for a long time. Her cheeks flushed a little, and she reached forward to take a sip of her orange juice, clearly uncomfortable with the attention.

“Rebecca,” I finally said slowly, “I don’t know how I possibly got a friend as awesome as you.”

“You lucked out, for sure,” she agreed. “Now are we leaving? Are you going to eat?”

“Nope. But we have to pay first.”

Ten minutes later, we walked out onto the sidewalk. “Where are we going to go?” Rebecca asked, her head going back and forth, as if she was waiting for it to be safe to cross the street.

“I don’t know,” I responded honestly. “I have no idea where anything in London is.”

She chuckled. “I missed you, Bailey.”

“Ugh, you have no idea how much I missed you,” I responded with a groan. “But we’re going to focus on happy things. Let’s go…” I checked both ways before shouting, “Left! I’m feeling left.”

I started in the indicated direction and heard Rebecca hurry to catch up behind me.