Mixed Signals

“What?” she asked furrowing her eyebrows, worried. “What do you mean?”

“There are no mixed signals,” The guy repeated taking his hands that were resting idly in his pockets. 

“If I was interested, I would text you, ‘Hey do you want to meet up for dinner?’, if I was interested…” he pointed both of his hands at her as if trying to explain something that was plain as day to a child,

 “…I would take you out to dinner. “

Her heart thumped against her ribcage. Her breathing now faster, shorter. And with each breath she could swear her lungs were getting smaller. She didn’t imagine this was where this conversation would go. She thought that if she intercepted him first, maybe he would say the things he always wanted to say. And confess his undying love for her for the past year and tell her that they couldn't be together because of 'circumstances'. But if she made the first move and broke off the tension everything would work out. They would hug and kiss and head-dive into the most romantic relationship of all. She had ran the scenario through her head, of what he was going to say and how she was going to answer it. But what she was hearing was not in the script.

“—But…I don’t understand,” she cut in, confused. “You said a lot of things… that night…about your feelings,” she slowly lifted her head up, meeting his gaze slowly with her eyes.

"I was drunk..."

 “What do you mean? I had alcohol too, I still remember, and in the morning, we were, still, you know….” She blushed trying to search for the words instead of saying it.

 “…We were still doing it, you know…”

“I had 30-shots…Have you ever had 30 shots?”

“No,”

“Exactly,” he said quickly as if impatient to prove his point. 

She clutched her wrist.

 “But…you said a lot of things…you just turned me to face you in the bed…You made me look inside your eyes and said ‘you knew how I felt about you, you knew how I felt about you’. I am not stupid...That isn’t something you blurt out when you are drunk. Do you mean you lied?”

The guy was getting even more impatient. He sighed. 

“No, that isn't lying.”

“So, do you feel anything?”

“No,”

“So, you lied…”

“No…You don’t understand…” he said impatiently twisting his head. “People crazy things while they are drunk. When I get wasted, I get into fights, I even proposed to a girl. I was like ‘she is so pretty’ and I went up to her and said ‘you are so pretty will you marry me?’. It didn’t mean it was real. I was drunk...”

She fidgeted with the lays in her hand. 

“How can you lie to such an extent, I just don’t understand…You were…sincere.”

The guy sighed again.

“It wasn’t lying” he insisted. 

She fiddled with the bag of chips again, clutching it so firmly in her hands. 

“Well why did you say those things then? You know I feel…You know exactly how I feel. You just couldn’t let me be? Why did you say so many things you didn’t mean and treat me so poorly afterwards?”

“What was I supposed to do? Were you expecting me to hold your hand through school or something?”

“No…” she said her voice slightly cracked, cutting off. “I wish you never told me you had feelings, because it's a lie that changed things for me.” Her voice was thinner now, without her usual thick and ear filling voice, now was like the squeals of a sickly animal. 

The guy was fed up with repeating himself. Instead he just sighed. She continued. 

“I guess it is just me. When I see that someone has feelings for me, I tread very carefully. Because I know, the human heart is a frail thing, and people can’t choose who they are attracted to. This is not about me blaming you not wanting to be with me. I know you can’t choose who you are attracted to... But you can choose how you treat people. And you have treated me so poorly. We live on the same campus, you knew we were going to run into each other at some point. So why do you pretend like you don’t know me. Is it only me that thinks this is unnatural? To be so close with someone in one moment, and not at all at the next...” 

Her voice cracked a bit more as tiny tears swelled near her eyes. “To have the person you want more than anything admits their feelings and then walk away like nothing happened. Why did you even bother? Why even try to hit on me that night at the party after all that has happened last term? Why did you say you couldn’t come to my birthday last year because you were afraid to catch feelings?  Did you pull these excuses out of your ass? You just couldn’t fucking let me go. You just couldn’t let me be. I was over you after the summer. And I was so happy to have let you go.  And you saw that and you just could not take it. You wanted to see me beg for your attention…. again.  So, seeing you treat me this way, I just feel like…Not even like, you don’t even care at all, for me as a person. I understand that you might not feel the same way as I do for you, but I would at least expect the bare minimum respect from you, and I haven’t even gotten that after all that has happened on Friday night. You have done nothing but ignore me after we spent one night together instead of just talking to me. I don’t know what to say…I thought there was more humanity and depth to you,”

“It is not like I disrespect you,” The guy said slightly confused. “I still say ‘hi’ when I see you,” 

“I am talking about how you didn’t want to talk about it after Friday and how you refused to come talk the other day, you didn’t even text me back,”

“Because I don’t like being told what to do,”

“I wasn’t… I just wanted to talk…” she said grasping her wrist tighter, her finger-nails digging into her skin. “This awkward tension, is just too much. Just seeing you every day, and being like this. I just want it to go away, don’t you?”

“That awkward tension only takes one second of my day,”

She breathed in. “So, if there is something eating it away at you, and you would choose to ignore it, and do nothing?”

“Yes,”

"So if you are in a house that is burning down, you would just ignore it even though you live in the house?"

"Yes,"

She looked away averting her eyes. He spoke up instead. 

“But I don’t understand when you said disrespect, I still respect you a lot,”

“It doesn’t work that way!” She raised her voice slightly. “I don’t believe that you do, your actions have to speak for themselves,”

“Believe what you want!” he raised his voice, fed up. “I don’t have to prove myself for you to believe in anything,”

He saw a teardrop rushing down her check. But she was silent. So, silent, while only lonely teardrops sizzled down her face. He immediately regretted it, backed off, cursing at himself, not because he made her cry, but he was afraid people inside would see from the huge glass windows.

She turned sideways and held her hand over her eyes, embarrassed, desperately trying to hide her face. He tried to peek through her fingers that she was covering her face in as she wept silently. 

“Hey…Hey…What did I say to make you so upset?”

In truth, she didn’t know. She thought she would start crying when he started saying ‘If I was interested…’. Why now? It was embarrassing. She felt her windpipe getting crushed. Speechless she prayed for the ground to crack open so she would vanish into it. If only the crack in her throat vanquished so she could talk without crying.

“Hey…Hey, please don’t leave” he tried to make her feel better desperately. “I do respect you a lot,”

“I DON’T CARE WHAT YOU THINK!” she snapped. 

“Ok so what do you want me to do, I don’t understand…”

“FUCK YOU!”

“Now you are just being rude,”

“I am only speaking in the way I feel, and this is how I feel.”

She tried to calm herself down wiping her nose to the sleeves of her sweatshirt and took a deep breath even though her legs were still shaking and her head was spinning. 

“Now I will say one thing and go and probably never come back.”

“Which is…” he lifted his brows skeptically 

She stopped, hesitated for a moment to think about what she had said. She was sure she wanted to say it and end it but in her heart, she still hoped that if she turned back and ran, he would never come chase after her. He, whom did not even talk to her while living two feet away, she knew he would never feel regret. He would never feel a void in his life without her. Saying it was pointless. But she continued.

 “An old Chinese proverb once said...go fuck yourself with your limp dick.”