It's dawn and I'm already done with packing. Samuel said he'd want to speak with me later. I told him I wouldn't be around. I don't think he heard. Whatever, I'm leaving. We are taking a bus to get home, two, in fact because of the distance. Some friends and I. I wake up long before time is up. I'm rarely able to sleep on days I'm bound for travel. I sit up on my bed for a while, wondering how things could be different if I had never done any of that. Now, I regret it with all my heart. At least I'm still not far gone, if I can feel regret, I think to myself. Hello, I look down to see him standing there looking up at me, I sleep on the top of the bunk bed. It's not Samuel, no, it's Jahed. He has a sheepish smile on his face as he looks up at me. He's rather short. Hello, he says again. Hi, why are you here at this time? I ask.
Oh nothing, I was just checking to see if you had left. Oh, I see. And...? I asked.
Well, I can see you haven't. Yes, I'm still here Jared. Is there anything you want?
Well...yes, the money... What?? Really? Oh God Jared. I can't help but smile. I'm quite uncomfortable but this is also very amusing.
I owed this dwarf no money but he'd been pestering me for money...all of a sudden for some weeks now. I shook my head. Jared, I don't have enough money on me. He gives me a look that says, Really? You?
Seriously... I actually don't. Sure, if you say so, he responds. Well then I'll help you with your things then, when you're leaving.
And why would you want to do that? I ask. He just shrugs. Sure, I say, I will need help anyway. He just sat there waiting, staring at nothing, and I thought about how he just started talking to me randomly, asking me for money I didn't owe him. It made me hate him. I thought he was picking on me. Most people do, in different ways. I'm sure he thinks me weak, easy to trick, a fool who'd dance to his tunes. I didn't like that. It didn't particularly help, I smiled whenever he asked me for money too. But I can't help it. I smile when I'm uncomfortable. It's not something I can control. But he has no right to take advantage of that to take my money. That's not right. Alas, who am I to speak about right and wrong? The next time I look, Jared is gone.
My roommates are on their beds, I wake them up and we talk a bit before I leave. They're also doing what Samuel did, leading me on. But I don't like them the way I did Samuel, no, that wasn't like. It was pure lust. I don't have that for them. Sometimes they hug me too and grind me and all that. And there's nothing I can do but smile while hating them in my head. Can you not see through my smile the pain and unease behind that smile? Of course they couldn't, no one ever did. I gave one of them a peck, because they asked, before I left, and I hated myself more after that. I had to be assertive. I had to tell them how all this really made me feel. But it was the last day, things would be different next semester. I hope.
It's time now. Jared comes to help me with my luggage outside the dormitory. And I feel so grateful that I gave him the money. It's not even that much....honestly. Jake, text me when you get home ok? Sure? I say with that same smile. Of course, I'm not gonna text him. I don't even know him. But I can't say that to his face. I'm sure he thinks I'm stupid. Always smiling at things that are not funny. But like I said, I can't help but smile when I'm uncomfortable. It might be my toxic trait, whatever that means.
I do get uncomfortable when he talks to me but there's also some genuineness in the smile because I think, maybe he really does want to be my friend, which makes me happy because, I mean, it means I'm a good person, likeable and all that. That makes me happy. But then again, maybe he thinks I'm a fool. And I can't have that. Whatever, I'm going home. I have a lot of thinking to do before next semester begins so that at least, I'll come back as me, the old me, the only me there ever should have been.