Chapter 1
Sitting in the common area of the College Union I stared at the American History book, my head starting to ache...
How the fuck was I going to remember all of these dates, and people, and... and... other bullshit! Who fucking cares about any of this stuff anyway! I'm a goddamn Business Major! What do I need to know about American History?
Shaking my head, I was about to close the book and give up, when a friendly voice caught my attention, "Hello! Link, right?"
I looked up at the petite, light-skinned beauty looking down on me from her horn-rimmed glasses. She was slim, well, slim was a bad description of her, more like athletic, with a nice figure. Her face was framed with dark hair pulled back in an adorable ponytail. Her dress was conservative... dark blue cargo capris and a low cut, lighter blue, V-necked t-shirt, with the barest hint of cleavage showing. Still sexy, but not nearly enough to look slutty. She had the cutest stud piercing in her right nostril. She was pulling off a really sexy nerdy-chic look.
The thing I noticed most, however, was her energy. This adorable, full of life, pixie-like energy...
As I stared at her dumbly, a nervous smile slipped onto her face. She held her hand out to me nervously, "Hi! I'm Laurel! We-" she pointed to the book I was, unsuccessfully trying to wrap my brain around, "We have American History together. I always sit way up in the back..."
My brain finally started to kick into gear, "Oh- Uh! Sorry!" I wiped my hand on my shirt, to make sure that my palms weren't sweaty, I really didn't want to make a bad impression, and held my hand out to her, "Uh, yeah, it's Link, well Lincoln if you want to get all technical, but Link is fine!"
She reached out, daintily shaking my hand. Not the handshake a man gives, the full, somehow overly manly grip between two men that always seemed to be a contest of wills or measuring of dicks.
Instead, she gently shook my hand, as a lady does, wrapping my fingers into the palm of her hand, and not really shaking up and down but just holding it. Her hand was warm and soft...
She smiled as she let my hand go; a pure, infectious smile, filled with life and energy. Pointing at the open chair at my table, "Do you mind if I sit down?"
Putting a very serious look on my face I told her, "Yeah, I mind. Why don't you go fuck yourself..."
Honest to god, she actually put her hand on her chest, her fingers just below the V in her shirt. The shocked look on her face was completely comical, so comical in fact, that I couldn't keep the smile off my face, or the laugh from my voice. Giggling, I shook my head, "I'm sorry. I'm just being a smart ass."
Laurel stood there, the shocked look still on her face...
I realized then, that I may have pushed it a little too far...
Standing quickly, I tried to make it up to her, "I'm sorry!" I told her as I pulled the chair out for her, "That was a really shitty joke..."
She put her hands on her hips, "Well maybe you can just go fuck yourself!"
The venom in her voice, the anger in her eyes, all of it, made me let go of the chair and take a step back from her...
Nice one asshole! Great job, I screamed at myself, my brain mentally beating me over the head.
"I, uh... I'm sorry..." I managed to stumble out, looking like a complete idiot.
Laurel's face lit up in a beatific smile, her teeth, white and straight standing out, "Gotcha!"
I had a moment of pure, blinding shock, a moment where I was unable to even think...
She started giggling, tenting her fingers over her mouth.
It was fucking adorable...
All I could do was smile, "Good one..." I motioned to the chair, "Never really had one of my famously bad jokes turned back around on me..."
She put on a cockney accent, tilting her head, "Turnabout's fair play, eh, love?"
That's how I met Laurel...
After that day, we met every day, after History class. We'd chat, we'd study. Mostly, we'd just share our time together. She was my first friend, or at least the first friend that I'd met since leaving my family and heading off to college, which was really embarrassing considering I was a senior now...
I almost instantly developed a huge crush on her and it took me about four weeks to work up the courage to do anything about it...
One day, I brought her coffee, and sitting next to her on a couch in the common area, I managed to screw up my courage...
"Laurel?" I asked, swallowing past a lump in my throat, "would you... would you maybe like to go out with me sometime? Maybe like a dinner and a movie kind of thing?" She just sat there, a blank look on her face, and I have to admit, I kind of fucking panicked and started babbling like an idiot, "Like a date sort of thing... you know, like a guy and a girl thing... or... a... um... yeah, a date..." I mumbled, forcing myself to stop talking like an idiot, my confidence breaking as my voice trailed off...
The look on her face, well, it would have been comical if it weren't so heartbreaking...
At first, she kind of had an 'oh shit' face...
Then she looked down, covering her eyes with her hand, keeping them well away from her glasses...
I knew it instantly for what it was... rejection.
Taking a deep breath, I braced myself for it. As she started talking, my brain fast forwarded through how badly I had fucked up. Do you know that feeling where you're not quite embarrassed, but you can see pretty clearly the embarrassment on the way in? All I could think of was how I had just embarrassed myself. How I had just ruined the one friendship I had by thinking with my dick instead of my head...
I tried to cut her off... to keep her from answering... to spare myself, and her, the embarrassment of making her answer... "I'm sorry, I shouldn't..."
"I'm gay." She blurted out.
It was so sudden, I was actually taken aback. I felt my eyebrows go up, felt the shock down to the bottom of my toes, felt my face register it...
She put both her hands up, waggling her fingers, "Surprise!" she cheered, looking around nervously...
Putting both my elbows on my legs, I let my face fall into both my hands. She continued to sit beside me, a cute giggle blubbering from her throat.
"This is so embarrassing..." I mumbled into my hands.
Her laugh was louder, heartier. Not a laugh of derision, but one of sympathy and awkward humor.
I felt her hand on my back, rubbing in small, sympathetic circles.
"I'm sorry," Her voice was filled with humor, with that singsong quality I loved so much about her.
Looking up at her, I could see the amusement on her face, tinged with a bit of embarrassment. "You're not lying are you, just to spare me the rejection? 'Cause It'd be a thousand times worse if like a month from now you quietly ghosted me and then I saw you making out with some guy on campus..."
Her eyes got wide and she leaned in close to me, her voice taking on a husky glow as it lowered conspiratorially, "Or you know what would be worse than that?"
I looked at her dumbly.
She continued, "If I was really straight, but because I wanted to spare your feelings and I lied to you," Her face screwed up a bit as she curled her lip, showing a sharp incisor, "But I wanted to, you know, keep up the act. So, I started dating girls, you know sleeping with them..." she grabbed my arm, "and this goes on for years!" She gave me a bit of a push, her right hand reaching out and playfully pushing me to take the sting out of what she was saying, "And then, like a decade from now, I invite you to my wedding with this wonderful girl, who you have, of course, developed an awesome friendship with, and you're sitting in the front row, just glowing with happiness for me, and the minister asks, 'Do you take this woman-' and I just cut him off and I'm like, 'Okay... this has gone too far. I'm not really a lesbian, I just wanted to get out of going out with this really sweet guy back in college!', and I point at you and I'm all like, 'There he is now! Get him!'"
The image she painted was so vivid, so complete, I couldn't help but shake my head and laugh.
"And everyone starts mobbing you!" Her head fell back as she wrapped her hands around her throat, miming the people attacking me at her fictitious wedding, "And you're like, 'No! Why did I ever ask her out!' as people tear you apart." She had a full-on laugh going now, "And they're pulling your guts out," Her hands made little shoot gestures as she threw herself dramatically back on the couch, "And blood is spraying everywhere!" She leaned in closer, her face screwing up in disgust, "Or what would be worse than that? If I was so repulsed by my friend asking me out that you turned me gay, right here on the spot!"
Laughing again I turned my head away from her, slowly shaking it as I thought about her two scenarios, "No. I think the wedding one was worse..."
She laughed, leaning into me and putting her head on my shoulder. "I really am sorry... you are a really sweet guy, and any girl would be lucky to go out with you."
I looked back at her, feeling the quiet friendship we had shared slipping away from me. All I could do was watch it slip away...
She looked down, an awkwardness coming into her features that I had never before seen in her. She picked up her bag and stood up, "I should get to class..."
I knew it for what it was. She still had nearly thirty minutes before her class started. It was her giving me a chance to bow gracefully out of our friendship. To do the standard guy thing. The I-was-only-pretending-to-be-your-friend-so-I-could-get-in-your-pants thing...
She took about five steps away from me before she stopped and looked back at me, "You are a really sweet guy though... and if I was into that sort of thing... it would have definitely been a yes..."
She gave me a final, sad smile and a brief wave, her fingers trembling as she raised her hand, before she turned, walking away...
Chapter 2
The next day, I did the only thing I could...
I swallowed my fucking pride and prepared to do some serious fucking begging.
I got me a black coffee, and her one of those super sweet, double chocolate, caramel sprinkle, mocha thingies that I swear they make by jamming a whole fucking cinnamon roll into a cup and just filling the empty space with coffee, and I walked to the CU, where we always met. The walk was like the trudge to the gallows, part of me wondering if she was even going to be there. That part of me was convinced, absolutely sure, she was just going to head off, forgetting me forever. The other part of me was picturing her telling me to get lost, or better yet throwing a too expensive cup of coffee in my face, which, now that I thought about it, would be poetic justice.
Shaking my head at my own stupidity I just put one foot in front of the other.
My heart sang seeing her sitting there, her books open in front of her as she sat at the table we had had our first conversation from.
