by Mia Archer
Great. As if this night couldn’t get any fucking better.
“Decided to hit the dance after all I see?” he asked.
“I guess,” I muttered. I looked away so I wouldn’t have to deal with the same of his gaze.
“So you basically ditched me so you could run off and see that girl? Is that what this is all about?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t think I could’ve felt any worse than I did when Natalie showed up, but here we were and I’d found an entirely new way to feel like a huge piece of shit. Great.
“Whatever,” he said. “I’m going to go have fun at the dance. Without my friend who couldn’t be here tonight.”
He shouldered past me, and still I didn’t say anything. What was there to say? I’d ditched him. There was no way to sugarcoat that. I didn’t even try to chase him down. I’d reached my bullshit limit for the evening and I wasn’t equipped to deal with Jake getting pissy, however justified, on top of everything else.
So I didn’t deal with it. I kept on walking. I needed to get away from this place and really think things over.
This had been the most eventful and crappy convention I’d ever been to even as it had also been the best convention I’d ever been to in many ways. I just hoped things got better from here on out. I didn’t see how they could get worse.
But this con had taught me the dangers of tempting fate with thoughts like that.
16: Late Night
Hailey:
I leaned back in my chair and let out a long deep breath. For some reason I just couldn’t get into playing Tales of Elassa tonight. Most of my guild were out doing their own thing and living their lives, which is more than I was doing.
A whole week since the convention. A whole week since I’d had girls throwing themselves at me. A week since I’d likely peaked, because it was all downhill from here. I wasn’t going to have another time when two girls were throwing themselves at me. Two gorgeous women.
Now that I was alone in my apartment on a Friday night I could even think of Natalie as gorgeous. I was far enough removed from the craziness that she’d given off that I could stop and wonder if I’d been a little crazy in dismissing her.
I shook my head and pushed those thoughts away. Just as I had every other time they occurred to me. I wasn’t going to go for a girl who was certifiably nuts just because she was interested in me. I didn’t care how long it had been since I was with someone. I wasn’t playing that game.
“You’re going stir crazy Hailey,” I muttered.
I heard a familiar sound that brought me back to my computer. A notification that someone had come online. Without thinking I clicked over to my messages and saw that it was Jake. Not that it would do much good to get rid of my boredom. In the past when he logged on he’d always messaged me right away if he knew I was online. To be honest there were a couple of times when I’d pretended I wasn’t online so I wouldn’t have to deal with him sort of maybe but not quite hitting on me.
There was nothing tonight though. Just like there’d been nothing every other night this week. The closest thing I had to a best friend, my geeky partner in crime, wasn’t interested in talking to me. Not that I could blame him after what I pulled.
Whatever. If he was going to be weird about things then I could be weird right back at him. I didn’t want to have anything to do with him if he didn’t want to have anything to do with me. The big jerk.
I pulled out my phone and looked down at it. There was a way I could get rid of this boredom and maybe meet up with someone tonight, but it was a step I’d been reluctant to take all week long for some reason. I looked down at Zoey’s number in my texting app. I hadn’t even created a contact for her. Creating a contact felt like it was too close to… well it was too close to something. I couldn’t exactly explain what that something was. Like adding her in my phone was a permanent step I didn’t want to take.
Yet.
Okay so I was being weird. Weird was what I did. Weird was part of the reason why I felt more at home at a convention than I id out here in the real world. Weird was the reason why I was single right now and couldn’t get any girls interested in me despite being in grad school and on a college campus where there were plenty of eligible girls.
“You have to go out and look for eligible girls if you want them to be interested in you Hailey,” I muttered to myself.
Yeah, there was the problem. A problem that I could solve. Damn it. I frowned down at Zoey’s number. I had to look for eligible girls if I wanted them to be interested in me. Well I could make the first move, damn it, even if it killed me.
My hands shook just a little as I poised my thumbs over the text message I’d sent. What would I even say to her? “Hi, I’ve been thinking about you nonstop ever since the convention. How hot you are and how much I wish I hadn’t gotten all weird and freaked out like I always do. Wanna come over and make out because that would be super!”
I sighed. No, I wasn’t going to say anything like that. I put a hand on my mouse and clicked to bring up a window I kept minimized whenever I was on my computer. The website for the Cosplay Angels group. It talked about all the charity work they did and visits to hospitals to cheer people up and stuff like that, but most importantly it also included pictures.
Lots of pictures. Pictures of Zoey. There were still some pictures of Natalie on there as well. I guess it was too difficult to take her out of some of them short of doing some Photoshop work. I didn’t care about her though. All I cared about was getting a look at Zoey. She was so beautiful. She made my cheeks color and I felt all hot and bothered.
I desperately wanted to contact her, but on the other hand I still felt weird about everything that happened at the convention. The whole situation was so fucked up that I could understand if Zoey wouldn’t really want to hear from me no matter what she said. It was like the part of me that had no confidence was reaching out to ask me why the hell I thought a girl like Zoey would ever be interested in me in the first place.
I fucking hated that voice.
No.
I wasn’t playing that game any longer. I wasn’t going to be an antisocial shrinking violet. She’d acted like she was interested in me and that was good enough. That had to be good enough. I shot off a quick text message. Nice and simple.
“hi :)”
Much to my surprise the response came back almost immediately. If I didn’t know any better I’d almost think Zoey had been sitting by her phone waiting for me to message her. The idea of her sitting around waiting on me to contact her was a nice one, to be sure, but I didn’t think that was what was really going on.
I’d probably just interrupted a game of Tetris or something so she was right there at her phone.
“Hi yourself :)”
“What r u up to 2nite?”
“Not much, u?”
“Pretty bored.”
“Yeah…”
“Yea…”
“Wanna video chat?”
I blinked and looked away from my phone for a moment. Did I want to video chat? I guess I wouldn’t mind. It seemed like an odd request though. I also was suddenly aware that I was not done up for a Friday night in any way shape or form. I’d been planning on my usual feast of chips and some Mountain Dew while I played games all night long. There’d be hell to pay for it when I went to the gym to work the night off, but it was tradition at this point and I had no intention of stopping.
“I guess that would be okay,” I tapped back. “Here on our phones or on the computer?”
“Computer would be better,” she said. “You at yours?”
“You know it,” I sent back. “Another exciting Friday night playing video games.”
“Same here. Just a sec,” she replied.
A minute stretched by where she didn’t say anything. I was starting to wonder if something was wrong when she was back and she sent over her video chat ID. A moment later I had the program up and my stomach was twisting in knots as the familiar dialin
g sound came up. It occurred to me that the reason she was gone for a couple of minutes was because she took the time to make herself look presentable for a video chat.
Damn. I should’ve done the same. Stupid. It was too late to do anything about it now though. No sooner had it occurred to me that I should’ve done something to look better than Zoey popped up on the screen in a tank top with her hair done up in a ponytail.
She. Looked. Absolutely. Delicious.
Seriously. I wanted to jump through the screen and jump her. I thought about how good it felt dancing so close and so tight with her, and I thought about how much fun it would be to be that close to her right now. Of course that would involve getting her out to my place or vice versa so it wasn’t likely to happen right now, but it was a nice thought.
She blushed and smiled uncertainly, then she looked right at me. Which is to say she was looking right at the camera so it looked like she was looking right at me. Still, the overall effect was enough to send a chill running through me. I thought about when she’d looked at me like that when it was just the two of us out on the dance floor.
That had been really nice.
“Fancy meeting you in a chat like this,” I said.
“Same to you,” she replied. “How’s your week been?”
I rolled my eyes. “Horrible. I’ve had to deal with a couple of crappy students who tried to get me to raise their grades, and then when that didn’t work I had to deal with crappy student parents who were upset that I wouldn’t raise their baby’s grades.”
“Really? You teach?”
“Well I’m a grad student. I assist for a couple of classes but it’s not like I’m a real teacher. Not yet. With the way the job market’s going I’m not sure I’ll ever be a real teacher for that matter.”
“I know how that is,” Zoey said. “I work in IT but it seems like everyone wants you to have ten years of experience before you can get a job. I’m busting my butt in some low level job trying to pay my dues, but it sucks big time.”
I giggled. I couldn’t help myself. Though from the look on Zoey’s face it seemed that she was curious why I’d be giggling at her plight. It wasn’t a very nice thing to giggle about, after all. It looked like I was laughing at the fact that she couldn’t get a good job, which couldn’t be farther from the truth.
“So is there something funny about my job misery?” she asked with a smile that let me know she wasn’t entirely serious. “Because whatever it is please share it with me. I’d love to get some humor out of the idiots I have to support on a daily basis.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I was just thinking of all my friends who got on me for going to grad school instead of going out and getting a real job. It’s nice to know it doesn’t work out all the time, because there are times when I think I’m crazy for not just going out and getting a job.”
“I think it pretty much sucks for everyone,” Zoey said. “At least you get to stay in school for awhile. That would be so much fun to keep going to college for a few years.”
I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, something tells me grad school isn’t quite like the undergrad you’re used to.”
“Maybe not, but it still has to beat dealing with a bunch of people who entered the workforce before the personal computer was invented and trying to fix all their computer problems when they think it’s a magical glowing box that’s out to get them.”
I grimaced. “Okay, so maybe you have it a little worse than I do. Probably the worst I get every semester is a student trying to hit on me. Or maybe a professor trying to hit on me, but word pretty much got around that I’m not into what those dudes have to offer.”
“Sounds like a tough job. I get a couple of the IT weenies around here hitting on me, but once word got around that I was into the ladies they pretty much started treating me like one of the guys,” Zoey said.
“Must be nice,” I replied. “All I have are professors who are convinced they’re the next best thing to God on campus.”
“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not all sunshine and rainbows. They still stare at my tits when they think I’m not looking, but it’s not that bad. They’re a bunch of geeky guys. It’s what they do.”
“I got plenty of that over the weekend at the con,” I said. “I’m pretty sure a couple of guys tried to cop a feel while they were moving in for a picture too.”
“You’ll get that,” Zoey said. “The costume does things to them. Speaking of, you have to tell me how you put together those awesome wings on your costume.”
I turned around and looked behind me. My living room also doubled as a computer room. And a kitchen, though it was separated from everything else by a chest height wall. The only room that was separate was my bedroom, and that was even smaller than the living room.
The joys of being a poor grad student.
The one nice thing about the room was the display that was the first thing I saw when I walked through the door. My giant set of wings I’d put together all by my lonesome by gluing feathers individually on a frame I’d custom built in what little free time I had, and that wasn’t much.
I turned around an angled the camera on my laptop so that it was facing the wings rather than me. “Is that what you’re talking about?”
“Damn. Those things even look impressive on a tiny webcam,” Zoey said. “What would you say to showing those off in person?”
I grinned. This I could get behind. Maybe it was because I was really in need of a friend. Maybe it was because I was feeling so lonely tonight. Whatever the reason, I decided to be impulsive, which was completely out of character for me.
“Name the time and it’s a date,” I said.
“How about now?” Zoey asked.
Now that brought me up short. I liked the idea of seeing Zoey, but tonight? Right now? Then again why not? Wasn’t this just more of me being a wimp and trying to avoid social situations even if it was a good thing happening?
I wasn’t going to do that, damn it. I was going to let her come over. Sure my mom would freak the fuck out if she knew I was letting some random girl come over to my apartment, but my mom wasn’t here and she had an outdated idea of what was involved in online dating anyways.
“That sounds fine,” I said. “I’ll message you my address and you can come on over.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ll grab a pizza on the way over and it’s a date!” Zoey said.
A date. I liked the sound of that. Like I really liked the sound of that. It made all the trouble I went through at the convention somehow seem worth it if it ended in this moment when we were finally connecting.
Not to mention I had a girl coming over to my apartment. Booyah. Shit. That meant I really needed to clean up a little bit, because a grad assistant cave was not the kind of place that was designed for seduction, let me tell you.
Pizza. She was getting pizza. That would give me time. Although…
“Are you sure we should be eating pizza?” I asked. “After all, we do have to squeeze into those outfits.”
“Eh, don’t worry about it. There’s plenty of time until the next convention. Just don’t tell any of the girls in the group. They get mad when I cheat on my diet,” Zoey said.
“It’s a deal,” I said.
“Good! See you in a few!”
The connection closed out. I stared at the spot where Zoey had been on my monitor just a moment ago. I was reeling. I couldn’t believe we were planning on getting together that quickly. Everything was moving so fast with Zoey, but I guess that wasn’t a bad thing.
The only problem with everything moving so fast was I wasn’t anywhere close to being presentable. I was “night of gaming” presentable. Not “date night” presentable. Not to mention my apartment was still a disaster area.
I jumped up from my laptop. I had work to do if I was going to be ready for my night in with Zoey.
17: Confession
Zoey:
Okay Zoey. You are not an idiot. You are not making a huge mistake. You are
not jumping into the middle of a situation that could end up bad.
I kept telling myself that over and over as I made the short drive over to campus where Hailey lived. I kept telling myself there was nothing wrong with what I was doing. I wasn’t cheating on Natalie because Natalie and I were no longer a going concern.
It was hard getting over that feeling though. I’d been with her for so long, we’d been an item forever, and I was having trouble getting over the feeling that I was stepping out on her.
I was also painfully aware that I was still on the rebound. I’d only kicked Natalie out of the apartment a couple of days ago. And now I was going over to see the girl who was a big part of the reason why we broke up?
Crazy. It was all fucking crazy, but I couldn’t stop myself. Besides, it’s not like it was all Hailey’s fault. The symptoms of our breakup were there long before Natalie and I actually split. It’s not like I could blame everything on the girl.
It’s not like blaming her for our split was keeping me from going over there either.
I pulled into Hailey’s apartment complex and smiled as I got a good look around. I recognized the place. It was one of the bigger apartment complexes off campus and I’d been to a few parties here a few years ago when I was in college. I’d had a few hookups here, for that matter.
Then again just about everyone who went to school in this town had their stories of hookups in this place. If someone wanted to make a nature documentary about the mating habits of the typical college student then this is the place they’d come. Well, maybe here or down on frat row where the frat types and the sorority girls did their thing.
I shivered as I looked up at the building where Hailey lived. The mating habits of the typical college student. Was that what was about to happen here? I was surprised that I was so conflicted.
There was that stupid fucking feeling as though I was still with Natalie. I needed to get the fuck over it. That relationship was over long before I pulled the plug.