Forelsket

Isn’t it funny how the brain and heart are constantly in a tug-o-war for your well-being? They seldom want the same thing and it leaves us in quite a predicament as to what’s truly best for ourselves. Some people are really good at deciding between the two, others aren’t. I’m definitely the latter. My feelings overwhelm me and I subconsciously begin to shutdown. I’ve never been the best with expressing my emotions. When I start to come out of my comfort zone, if begin to go awry I panic, expect the worst, and shove people away from me.

I was so fidgety and anxious by the time art history rolled around on Tuesday that I could hardly function correctly. I was scared of what Professor Bentor would say about our paper and I was even more terrified of how Seth would act towards me. A part of me was pining and I knew that. A part of me wanted to forget about his existence entirely, and the other part of me wanted desperately to take back my initial cold words and pretend I was a normal functioning human with a mutual crush.

The lecture was slower than usual and I spent the majority of it fidgeting uncomfortably. Seth didn’t sit near me, and I hoped he’d make the same kind of smoldering eye contact from Saloon, but there was none of that either. It was like I didn’t exist to him and it made my chest tighten in a fashion that I was all too familiar with. And in that moment I felt myself shutting off.

“Class dismissed. Reynolds, Stewart, please see me before you leave.” Oh no. Was the paper bad? I felt my self-pity fading away and suddenly I was looking back in Seth’s direction, glaring. Did he mess this up? Did he write a horrible paper that Bentor wanted to personally tell us we failed? We both approached his podium, Seth still not making eye contact. If he's messed this up I swear I’ll-

“Well done you two.” What? “I’ll admit I wasn’t expecting much from you initially, but you both pulled together one of the best papers I’ve read in some time.” I couldn’t even speak, Seth had singlehandedly written a great paper and I almost felt bad for taking his credit. For the first time all class period he looked over at me. It was a look that’s hard to describe, but it sat somewhere between “I hate your guts” and “You owe me big time.” I definitely felt bad. I’d completely underestimated him, and if I had gotten something as minimal as his work ethic all wrong what else had I wrongly assumed about his character?

“I just wanted to tell you that you’ll both be receiving an A on the assignment and that I hope to see you in my future classes. See you both on Thursday.” And with that Bentor was gone and it was just Seth and I left. Without a word, he started for the door.

“Wait.” He turned back slightly to look at me. I didn’t even know what I wanted to say, my stomach was in my throat. There was a long pause and I cleared my throat. Say something, Stupid. “I just um,” I felt myself shrinking in front of him. “Thanks. For the paper I mean.”

“Yeah.” He turned back on his heels and left the room. I didn’t know whether to be embarrassed or angry. Not even a ‘you’re welcome.’ The way he was treating was infuriating. Yeah, okay, I’d shut him down after kissing me but he’d been going out of his way to be undeniably cold—colder than even I deserved. I had so many feelings stirring up inside of my body that I decided the best course of action was to suppress all of them and pretend I’d never met him. He was clearly already doing so.

Hours fused into days and days began to become indistinguishable. During Thursday’s class I returned Seth’s cold shoulder, pretending to take extremely detailed notes while actually doodling up all the ways I’d love to inflict pain upon him. As class ended, I tried to be one of the first out of the door. I just wanted to retreat back into the sanctuary of my dorm room and begin the long-awaited movie marathon Gabriella and I had been planning since the beginning of the semester.

“What’s the rush, Princess? Gotta’ go meet your boyfriend?” I clenched my jaw; his voice was grating. Before I knew what I was doing, I’d abruptly stopped and spun around. Seth, who’d been walking behind me, almost crashed into me.

“Go fuck yourself.” I spat. He seemed taken aback, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little bit too. “You seem to get such a fucking hard-on antagonizing me, I’m sure you were planning on it anyway.”

“I antagonize you?”

“Yes!” My voice echoed through the empty hallway. “All you do is see how far under my skin you can bury yourself and I’m sick of it, okay? You've been making it pretty clear that you want me to leave you alone so take your own lead. And maybe I am going to go hang out with Adam. It’s none of your business, and you seem to be rolling in girls anyway so I’m sure it’s hardly a loss. At least Adam doesn't treat me like a pawn in some elaborate fucking game!”

As my verbal assault went on, I’d taken the liberty of getting up in his face, backing him into the locker unit. It was dead silent; the only sounds being ceiling pipes rattling and my pulse. This is the first time I'd seen him without any kind of comeback. Had I scared him? I had certainly scared myself. I’d never gone off on anyone like that before, not ever my ex who probably deserved it much more than Seth did.

Maybe that’s where this was all steaming from; maybe the lack of closure I’d had in my past relationship was why I was so jaded towards Seth from the very start. Maybe I hated his guts just because I could, but maybe, just maybe, I’d grown so accustom to him being in my life that I was trying to sabotage any kind of relationship (friendly or not) before I let him in any further. After all, the pain of losing a ‘what if’ is substantially less than that of losing a concrete partner.

He seemed to be searching my eyes for something and I refused to back down from our staring contest first. I pressed my lips firmly together, trying to mask their quivering. If I was going to make this goodbye for good, I wanted to at least have something to remember it by. I wanted to come out on top for once. It was completely stupid, and I knew that before I did it, but having him just stare at me like that was driving my crazy. You wanted payback Keelyn, here’s your chance.

I grabbed Seth by his shirt and crashed my lips onto his. He let out a surprised groan as I kissed him forcefully. His hands were cupping my face in less than a second, intensifying the kiss if that was even possible. I moved mine up to his hair and pulled hard as I ran my tongue over his bottom lip. I could hear him mumble something along the lines of ‘Jesus Keelyn’ under his breath and that only fueled my assault. He opened his mouth invitingly and our tongues fought for dominance, stopping only to catch a breath of air. Fingers still tangled in his hair, I moved my mouth to his ear.

“Do you know what I really want?”

“What?” His breaths were ragged and his voice was low and pleading.

“For you to leave me the fuck alone.” I let go of his hair and shoved him back against the wall. "I've got friends waiting for me outside, it'd be rude to keep the guys waiting." His mouth hung open, flabbergasted. I let my words hang in the air for a moment before turning on my heels and sauntering out of the art building.