The new semester is here, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why I am sitting in this classroom. The professor is still attempting to get his presentation to work on the projector, but I can’t care less. The only thing on my mind are the last words she said to me as those last sweet moments of summer escaped from my fingertips. “This isn’t going to work.” The words had wrenched my heart from my chest as quickly as a power-point presentation is loaded from a flash drive. I guess someone should tell my professor. My mind drifted idly back to the day before the school term had begun.
Move in day had been a bit rough after I dropped my chest of drawers on my big toe, but apart from the possible nerve damage, I was enthralled about the coming semester. She and I had worked together at orientation to get some classes together, and I could tell she was happy about it. The smile across her face as we sat in the dining hall for lunch was enough evidence to let me know. As I iced my foot under the table, we reminisced about the perfect summer that had come and gone too fast. To me it still seemed like the graduation party where we first hooked up had just been yesterday, but unfortunately the calendar was seemingly against me and had the habit of telling me that it was August and not June. She picked up her salad fork and I looked into her eyes, and those great blue vessels told me that she was also longing for those summer days that had gone as quickly as they had come, and as she lifted her fork upwards, I had a quick lapse of judgment and decided to utter those three little words that we had been carefully tip-toeing around the entire summer. Her eyes that had just been singing sweetly to me suddenly began to sing a different tune, and I knew something was wrong as her still full salad fork fell from her grasp and hit the table. She mumbled something that could have been “that is so sweet” and we sat quietly and awkwardly through the rest of the meal. Needless to say, that small exchange had me a bit worried about my newfound love’s feelings towards me.
We went our separate ways for the afternoon, agreeing that we would hang out again that night and have one last celebration before our first college classes the next morning. I went to my dorm and had a quick conversation with my roommate consisting of a short discussion of the opening and closing hours of the dining hall. I attempted to log onto the internet but the password my roommate had scribbled down to access the network was illegible, so instead of checking my email, I just put on my favorite Rolling Stones record and took a nap.
I woke up to a small beep and vibration, alerting me that I had a text message on my cell phone. It could have only been one person; the only person that I wanted to receive a text message from. The brief message instructed me to “meet at the big fountain in 15.” Later, as I was strolling up to the fountain, I saw her leaning sweetly against the fountain’s base, wearing an outfit that I had seen her wear about a hundred times over the summer. As I approached for a hug she quickly leaned away and began “I am going to make this easy,” and unfortunately, it was anything but. I went to bed that night thinking of the best summer of my life and concluding to myself that all dreams must come to an end someday. I woke to the pain of remembering that she and I had the first class of the day together. I dressed for the first and what would certainly be the most awkward fifty minutes of my college career.
Did I really love her? I’m not sure, but as I sat watching my toe throb like the vein of frustration in my professors forehead as he continued his struggle against technology I saw her across the room chatting and giggling with a number of rugby players. They all seemed to be as happy as I had been twenty four hours before this moment. Finally I realized that the Rolling Stones were right all along, because truly I can’t get no satisfaction.
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