“It’s nice to see you’re still an asshole,” I said, watching the numbers above the door light up with each floor we passed. Only twenty floors left and I could get back on an elevator going down. I’d take a cab to Melissa’s and let her know what I thought of her fiancé’s interference.
“And I’m not surprised you’re still a selfish bitch.”
I tore my eyes away from the numbers to glare at him.
“Some things never change,” he snarled just as the elevator came to a halt.
Relieved that I could finally escape the oppressiveness of the enclosed box, I waited for the doors to slide open. When they didn’t open after a moment, I looked up at the numbers, confused that they were all lit up.
“You have got to be kidding me,” Justin said, reaching for the telephone in the elevator’s call box.
Dread filled me. “We’re stuck?” I asked as panic quickly made its appearance. “We’re stuck?” I repeated, since he had ignored me the first time.
“Can I help you?” I heard through the receiver in Justin’s hand.
“We stopped moving here. Is something wrong with the elevator?” Justin answered, holding the phone closer to his ear so I could no longer hear her response. Not that anything the mysterious person had to say would have mattered at the moment. I was freaking out, making it hard to hear anything but my own shallow breaths.
I frantically jabbed at the OPEN DOOR button over and over again to no avail. My breaths became short quick pants as I struggled to bring air into my lungs, which were refusing to cooperate. The elevator walls felt like they were closing in on me. I instinctively held out my arms to push them away. Black spots popped up in front of my eyes and I felt myself swaying slightly. I could hear Justin’s voice from far off as he hung up with the operator.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked, still sounding like he was talking from the other side of a tunnel.
“I hate closed-in spaces,” I mumbled, realizing just as blackness pulled me under that this was another thing he didn’t know about me.
Maybe we really never had known each other at all.
4.
November 2010
The crashing of our dorm room door against the wall woke me out of a sound sleep Halloween night. I sat up confused, rubbing my knuckles across my eyes so I could fully comprehend the sight in front of me.
“What the hell happened to you?” I asked, taking in the sight of Melissa standing in the doorway with half-inflated balloons covering her from her neck to her ankles. She looked like a cluster of grapes that had been left on the vine too long and had started to shrivel up.
“I met someone,” she squealed, bouncing up and down on my bed, not caring that she was crushing my legs.
“Again?” I asked, tugging at my legs to dislodge them from under her bony butt.
“This one’s not like the others. He’s different,” she said in a dreamy voice as she absently picked at the balloons that covered her body.
“Right,” I answered, swinging my legs off the mattress. Glancing at the clock, I grimaced when I saw the time. “Gahhh, Melissa. It’s two freaking AM. I have a trig exam in the morning,” I complained, heading to the communal bathroom we shared with the room next door. Whoever came up with the brilliant idea that four girls could share a teeny-tiny bathroom must have been smoking crack. >Leaving Melissa to her costume dilemma wasn’t that much of a hardship. Despite the dreary day, I enjoyed sitting by myself at one of the cafés just off campus. I was supposed to be doing my schoolwork, but people-watching kept distracting me while I sipped my coffee and nibbled on a sinfully good Danish that practically melted in my mouth.
I was halfway through my second cup of coffee and finally working on my paper when the annoying squeals from a nearby table broke my concentration.
“What about this one?” a girl asked in one of those fake baby-talk kinds of voices that got on my nerves. I could practically hear her eyelashes batting.
“Well, sweetheart, I designed that one when I was seventeen. The other half is here,” a masculine voice drawled behind me.
“Oh my God. On your thigh? I want to see,” another voice squealed so loud that I’m sure dogs halfway across the state were sent into a barking frenzy.
“I’m not that easy, babe,” the same masculine voice chuckled as he answered. “What are you willing to trade?”
“Oh brother,” I said, louder than I intended. The sudden silence behind me clued me in that my comment had been heard. Now was one of those times I wished my best friend Tressa were here. She hated when girls made an ass of themselves by fawning over some guy. Better her making the loudmouth comment than me.
“You mean, like, I’ll show you mine, if you show me yours?” the same piercing voice asked after a few awkward moments had passed.
I waited to hear what his response would be, completely annoyed with myself for paying attention to their conversation. I fought the urge to turn and look at Mr. Sure of Himself to see what had the two girls so entranced.
“You have no interest in seeing my art?” he asked into my ear, making me jump.