Misunderstandings (Woodfalls Girls 2)

“Your side? Your side! She was in your goddamn arms. Let me guess. She slipped and just happened to land in your arms with your mouths inches apart. If I wouldn’t have shown up, you would have been lip-locked.”

“No, we wouldn’t have been. She’s an old friend.”

“I bet she is.”

“She just found out she got into the master’s program she was hoping for. She was happy and wanted to share it with me.”

“She certainly did,” I said sarcastically. I sank down on the rain-covered bench in front of my dorm. The fact that it was raining seemed fitting and matched my mood. Dark and brooding. Earlier, my mood had been the exact opposite. Melissa had labeled it as “downright chipper,” claiming I was a different person now that I was dating Justin. I didn’t even try to argue. She was right. Being in a relationship with Justin had changed my outlook on life. Of course, that was before I saw his arms wrapped around another woman. The arms that I was growing quite partial to were wrapped around a blond girl with legs practically up to her armpits. I wanted to snatch her by that long shiny hair and tie it in knots. Most of all, I wanted to punch Justin to make him hurt as much as he had hurt me, but I did neither of those things. Instead, I stomped away, trudging through the puddles and belittling myself for being so stupid for falling for him. Melissa found me on the bench in front of our building an hour later. My raincoat had kept my clothes relatively dry, but my hair was a mess of dripping curls. Justin arrived ten minutes later. It didn’t take an Einstein to deduce that Melissa was behind his arrival. Twenty minutes after he showed up, we were still arguing.

“Nothing happened,” Justin said loudly.

“I know what I saw. She wanted you.”

“But I didn’t want her. I only want you, you idiot.”

“Don’t call me an idiot, you cheating jerk,” I said, surging to my feet as a new wave of anger roared through me.

“I’m not a cheater. If you could get past your narrow-minded prejudiced views, you would see that.”

“I am not narrow-minded or prejudiced,” I shouted, thrusting my balled-up fists into my jacket pockets so I wouldn’t punch him. Two girls from my dorm stopped to stare at us but scurried on when I glared at them.

“You are. You’ve assumed from day one that I was a cheater. You are prejudiced. I have never cheated on a girl and I never will. So for the love of God, will you stop expecting me to?” he pleaded, gripping me by my shoulders as if he wanted to shake some sense into me.

I wasn’t sure if it was the actual words or his pleading tone, but all my anger began to leak away. “Okay,” I finally whispered, sagging beneath his hands.

“Okay?” he asked.

“Okay, I believe you.”

“You should,” he said, tucking me under his arm and leading me out of the rain and into the building.

“Did we kiss and make up?” Melissa chirped as we entered the room.

I stuck my tongue out at her in a completely childish way.

“Does that mean we’re still going to see that new indie band tonight?” she asked, ignoring my childishness.

“Eight o’clock?” Justin asked, looking at me questioningly.

I nodded, giving him a small smile. All the anger was gone, but embarrassment and confusion had replaced it.

“See you then,” he said, placing a tentative kiss on my lips.

“Okay,” I said, shrugging out of my raincoat as he left the room.

“How goes it?” Melissa asked once the door had closed behind him.

I shrugged, flopping back on my bed. “I swear he’ll ruin me. Never in my whole life have I ever shouted at another person like that. He brings out the inner monster in me,” I said, feeling sick now that all the anger was gone.

“Not anger, passion,” Melissa piped in.

“What?”

“You feel passionately about him,” she said, proud of her diagnosis.

“I’m pretty sure what I felt was anger,” I said wryly.

“Anger and passion are basically the same thing. If you truly were angry, you would have walked away. Instead, you faced the problem. You embraced it passionately,” she said insightfully as she stood up and stretched. “Now, I need to take a shower before the person I feel passionately about shows up,” she said, flouncing off to the bathroom.