Our Story, cont. (part III)

part III, baggage


I had a subscription to Entertainment Weekly. I liked that magazine, but I mostly had the subscription so I could check my campus P.O. box with some regularity and find that I had some mail. When you go from a family of four stream of mail to a college student stream of mail, the transition can be rough. 


For some reason, Eric had one of my EW magazines, and decided that it was super necessary that I get them back before I go on my trip. I told him this was not necessary, but he insisted, totally ruining my plan to limit all contact between us between Wednesday and Monday. So I was packed and ready to go, and he said he was coming over to return the magazine. 


So come over to my dorm room he did. He acted totally normal, you guys. Infuriatingly, maddeningly normal. I don't know how I acted, but I just know I felt awkward to the max and wanted him to leave so my plan could resume its course. We talked about nothing. He offered to carry one of my suitcases for me. I probably protested initially and then said sure. He left the room before me, headed down the hallway of my 4th floor dorm and toward the stairs. I was gathering up my other stuff and started down the hallway, and then I heard a loud crashing noise; the noise of someone falling down stairs.


I rushed to the stairs and was frantically like "Are you okay?!?" as I saw him at the stair landing, on the floor with my suitcase next to him. These were metal stairs, by the way. Not carpeted or cushy stairs. 


Then he laughed. He hadn't really fallen. This was a "joke." 


Ohhhhhhhh I was angry.* Here I was, super vulnerable, having confessed my love for him and having heard nothing in return, and then he goes and plays a prank on me the inevitable result of which is me acting caring and concerned toward him and looking a fool because it wasn't really real? 


Not. Cool.


I think he was trying to lighten the mood? Maybe make me laugh? Or, more likely, saw stairs and thought " I could pretend to fall down these!" and then promptly did so. After this nonsense and fool-making, we had to sit in the lobby of my dorm and wait for my roommate who was coming on the trip with me.



We talked about Phil Collins. Eric made disparaging remarks about him and I defended him. Well, this is over, I thought. I tried not to cry. 

Eventually my roommate came and we all went to the place where we got picked up by the van and went skiing. I taught my roommate from Colorado how to ski, I skied on fake snow in the Southeast, had fun with my friends. But my mind was elsewhere. There was no contact from him the whole time. I came to the conclusion that I wasn't going to get an answer. I was still furious--that he had made a joke at me, that he couldn't be bothered to give me a straight answer, that I was in turmoil and he seemed to be going about his business unchanged. 


We returned from skiing on Sunday, and I found out I was wrong. 


~~more later. this story is longer than i thought. ~~

*Still makes me a little angry to tell the story!