February 14, 2018 Today felt like the longest day of my life. I knew it would be, because I’ve had the Computer Science and Art History midterms marked in my calendar for weeks, plus it’s Valentine’s Day, and with everything that happened with Justin last month I knew any mention of the word “love” would make me want to throw up. (I didn’t, but I came close.) Sometimes when you expect bad stuff to happen, you can kind of beat it to the punch so it doesn’t seem so awful, and I guess I was hoping that would be the case. I usually never go to the dining hall for breakfast because I’d rather NOT see anyone before 9 in the morning and the food sucks anyways, but I was completely out of bananas, so I thought I’d just go grab a bunch and eat really quickly while brushing up on Java script for my CS test. I had just sat down and opened my computer when Alexa walked in. She’s the one Justin’s dating now. (That’s probably the first time I’ve written that and I’m trying so hard not to scratch it out.) Of course I was looking up and literally mid-banana-bite when she walked in and we looked right at each other. I felt this pang through my whole body, but she didn’t react at all. Her eyes slid right past me. She didn’t even recognize me, and if there was a way to make me feel worse about the whole thing, that was it. She got oatmeal and sat with some friend and I ate my gummy banana and stared at my laptop for another 10 minutes without reading anything. It’s not mature of me to blame the rest of the day on her (it’s not mature of me to blame anything on her, I know that), but from the second I saw her I knew it would be a bad day. I got hung up on one problem for the whole CS test, one of those where I knew that I knew the answer but my brain closed up like a clam and wouldn’t let anything out. Professors always say to just write something, like your brain’ll just cough up gibberish and 2 or 3 words might be half-right, so I did that but by the time I moved on we had 20 minutes left and I had 3 huge problems left to go. I didn’t have time to freak out, but I did anyways. I ran straight to Art History and tried to drink some water and eat one of the cookies Mom sent last weekend, but my stomach wasn’t having it. It felt like swallowing wood chips. I stared at the first painting in the test packet for at least 10 minutes before realizing what I was looking at, and then realizing that I had no idea what I was looking at. We were supposed to write the name of the painting, the artist, and the year, and then analyze the symbols and make some kind of conclusion, but I couldn’t even tell what the painting was of. Professor Jansson eventually came in to say we had 30 minutes left, and I had only gotten to painting 2 out of 6. I came out of the test at 1 pm and just sat outside for a while. It snowed 2 days ago and it’s been cold enough that there’s still a thin layer on the ground, even though the sun was shining bright and hard. I didn’t know whether I should think about Justin or not, but in the end it never matters what I decide. I could see him perfectly, I always could, sitting cross-legged on the ground outside my room last month, waiting for me to get back from class. There’s a perfect recording of his voice in my head and a crisp, clear picture of him sitting there looking up at me, his mouth open, saying, “I think it’s over.” Isn’t that stupid? He broke up with me. That’s all that happened. He broke up with me, and now he was moving on, like you’re supposed to do, like everyone does, like it’s the easiest thing in the world. Everyone breaks up. Everyone gets broken up with. The way Megan looks at me, I know she doesn’t know what to do. I can’t explain it, and I don’t even try. I keep seeing it, I keep feeling the pain of it, like when you stay in the ocean too long and afterwards you can feel the waves still coursing through your body. It feels like seasickness, clinging on. When I got back to the room, I crawled up on my bed and saw this little red note card, right in the middle of the comforter. All it said was, “We’re all here for you,” and it was signed by everyone, Megan, Olivia, Zachary, Jose, even Bianca, who’s been so busy this semester that I’ve barely seen her. I’m just laying here and looking at it now, trying not to think about Justin or Alexa or the tests I probably (definitely) failed. It’s kind of dumb, but I’m glad they wrote it. It’s hard to admit that I need them. It’s harder to admit that I need to stop ignoring this whole thing, but I think I’m ready to start. (And I’m glad they didn’t write “you’ll be ok,” or “everything will be alright.” I guess they know I have to figure that out for myself.)