“And there’s nothing wrong with that,” she told me. “You need some fun in your life. You’ve needed some for a long time. For you, your whole life has just been… school.”
Ah, yes, and of course she had to remind me of the problem.
Unfortunately, the more time I spent with Kaitlyn, the less studying I got done. So much for recommitting myself to school and studying. With her, it just didn’t work. There was nothing else I wanted to focus on besides her.
Which was actually the reason I’d asked her not to stay over last night and not to come over today, though not spending time with her when I knew I could be was absolute torture for me. I had a test in the evening, and I really had to spend my time studying.
The worst part was, I hadn’t even been getting that much of it done. I’d spent way too much time last night texting her, telling myself that it wasn’t too distracting, because I had time in between texts to work… when really I’d found myself zoning out of my textbooks often because I’d been thinking about what she was going to say in response.
It was really bad timing, because I had already been finding myself more and more uninterested in my schoolwork, and then I’d met Kaitlyn, who was the most interesting person I’d ever met. Of course my mind wanted to focus on her more than anything else.
“That’s actually kind of a problem for me,” I told Abby. “I haven’t been able to study much lately.”
She laughed. “Welcome to my life.”
“Seriously though, Abby, I’m hardly able to keep up with my lectures anymore. I just zone out and think about Kaitlyn.”
“Well, just make sure you force yourself not to see her a few nights a week so you can binge-study. It’ll get easier with some time. The beginning is always hard, because when you’re in the honeymoon stage, all you want to do is spend time with your new love.”
“So, this is totally normal?” I asked her, because honestly, I was starting to wonder if I was a little too hung-up.
“Of course it is! I’ve been through it tons of times. Eventually, it gets less exciting.”
“I don’t know if I like the sound of that, either…”
I was having so much fun with Kaitlyn, more fun than I’d ever had in my life, and the last thing I wanted was for all of it to end.
“I mean, it’s not necessarily a bad thing. When the honeymoon phase ends, a new phase can begin. A stage with comfort and security… but don’t worry about it. Just let things progress naturally.”
I rolled my eyes. “Easier said than done for me. You know me… I’m not good at accepting things I can’t control.”
“Yeah, I know, but relationships aren’t like school. You’ve just got to give them room to grow and let things happen at their own pace.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “I’ll just try to learn to live and let live. I’ll take a page out of Kaitlyn’s book, I guess.”
“Is she a pretty relaxed person?” she asked.
It was weird, I felt like I was getting to know Kaitlyn so well, but Abby still didn’t know her at all. Like, obviously they’d met and talked a few times, but for the most part, we stayed in my room and hung out to stay out of Abby’s way.
“Very much so. She’s so free spirited and spontaneous…” I said a little dreamily.
“So, basically your exact opposite?” she laughed. “And you two get along?”
“They say opposites attract, right?”
“Right.” She nodded, taking another bite of her now soggy cereal.
“You guys really need to get to know each other,” I told her.
“I’m so glad you said that!” she said excitedly. “I wanted you to bring her to Alexa’s birthday party on Saturday!”
Alexa was an art major friend of Abby’s. I didn’t know her super well, but she’d always been nice to me, and whenever Abby’s friends were having an organized get-together, she always tried to get me to go.
When they had last minute, impromptu plans, I could always say no, but I had to try a little harder to wriggle my way out of the events planned in advance. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Abby’s friends; for the most part I did. It was just that I was so introverted, and Abby was often the life of the party, so I never had anyone to talk to.
This time, though, I wasn’t going to try to get out of going at all. On the contrary, I was excited to go if it meant I could bring Kaitlyn! That meant I definitely wouldn’t be left on my own with nobody to talk to, and I’d get to show off my incredibly gorgeous new girlfriend.
Okay, so maybe I wouldn’t actually introduce her that way, because we hadn’t made it official or anything. But still, I’d always been the geek without a significant other at these parties. Well, nobody had ever said that, but that was how it’d felt.