57
<
The next morning, I left home early without
saying goodbye and went back to school.
Chad didn’t call back until late last night.
I didn’t answer, and he didn’t call again.
He seemed completely oblivious to why I hung
- up.
After I got to school, I saw he’d texted me
this morning.
[Babe, I’m really busy right now and probably
won’t be back for a while. Tell our parents for
me.]
I just muted the conversation.
Г
I got back to my dorm, tossed my phone
aside, and crashed.
My roommate eventually woke me up.
“Ashley, it’s eight at night! You’ve been
sleeping all day!”
I grabbed my phone and saw it was dead.
“Oh, hey, why’d you come back to school
today? Usually, your boyfriend comes to see
you after his matches.”
“He’s, like, busy.”
My roommate saw I wasn’t in the mood to
talk and just gave me a pat.
“You hungry? You haven’t eaten all day. You
<
“You hungry? You haven’t eaten all day. You
wanna grab some food?”
I nodded, forcing a smile. “Yeah.”
It was better to get some good food than
think about all this crap.
After dinner with my roommate, I went back
to my dorm and worked on my thesis.
For like a week, I didn’t talk to Chad at all.
He didn’t reach out either.
I knew I should be trying harder to get his
attention, win him back.
Instead, I was just pushing him away.
But it didn’t feel worth it.
I had my own life, my thesis to work on,
graduation to get ready for.
It was already exhausting enough just trying
to keep up with him.
And I just didn’t want to keep chasing him
anymore.
