The Beautiful Monster

"He said you got upset and ran off," Zoe continued telling Alyssa what she knew.

"Because he didn't kiss me back. He was the one who looked upset," Alyssa replied with a shake of her head. "I messed up. I shouldn't have kissed him."

Zoe frowned as she scooted closer to Alyssa on the bed.

"Maybe he was just surprised. Did you give him time to react or say anything?" she asked.

Alyssa threaded her fingers through her hair as she stared at her socked feet. She left pretty quickly after the kiss, but she hadn't felt the need to stick around. It was easier to run.

"I didn't need to. I could tell how he felt," Alyssa replied. He nearly looked horrified when she pulled away, and that face was burned into her memory. She couldn't unsee it.

"Have you talked to him at all?" Zoe asked.

Alyssa glanced at her phone and shook her head. He had tried to text her and call her more times than she could count, but she couldn't pick up the phone. She didn't even read his texts or listen to his voicemails.

"He's just going to try to make me feel better. Nothing he can say is going to make me feel better about what happened," she muttered. "I ruined everything."

"Maybe you didn't. Just talk to him and see," Zoe urged her.

"I'm not ready," Alyssa said in a firm tone. She didn't want to act like that toward Zoe, but she wasn't ready to cross that boundary. She wouldn't even know what to say, and she wasn't ready for what she might hear from him.

Zoe nodded and put her arm around Alyssa's shoulders to draw her close.

"Okay. That's okay. Another time," she replied as she rubbed Alyssa's arm.

"I just wanted to talk to you because I'm not good at talking to myself," Alyssa explained. She told herself the wrong things. She needed to hear actual advice from someone other than herself because she couldn't trust herself right now. She was hurt.

"Well, you know I'm here for you. As long as you need me," Zoe replied as she gave Alyssa a smile. "How about we just eat and watch movies all day? That's what I do when I'm down."

Alyssa felt a small smile tug on her lips as she nodded. That didn't sound bad. At least she wouldn't be alone. Maybe this would take her mind off of him because he refused to leave. 

"Sure. I'd like that," she said as she gave Zoe a grateful look. She couldn't begin to thank her for all she was doing, but she would pay Zoe back somehow.

"Great! You look for a movie. I'm going to order pizza," Zoe said before patting Alyssa's and then hopping off of the bed.

Alyssa grabbed the remote for her small television across from the bed. She turned on the television and started scrolling through the movies as Zoe called the local pizza parlor.

She couldn't find any movies that really caught her eye. They were all romance movies, and that was the last thing that she wanted to watch right now.

"Find anything?" Zoe asked once she got off the phone.

"Just a bunch of romance movies," Alyssa muttered as she kept scrolling. She knew that she would just see her and Elias in the roles if she watched one of them.

They would actually get a happy ending, though. That stung her even more. 

Zoe scoffed and took the remote from Alyssa.

"Hell no. We're watching something scary," she said before finding an older horror movie to play. She clicked on it and tossed the remote on the bed before hopping on it herself.

Alyssa hadn't told Zoe that she liked horror movies, so it was a nice surprise that she picked one.

This was how she could relax. She needed jump scares, danger, and tension. No romance. No love. No heartbreak.

*************

When Monday came, Alyssa had no idea what to do. Her psychology class was in thirty minutes, and she knew that Elias would be looking for her there.

He would want to talk, and she still wasn't ready for that yet. She knew it would be an embarrassing conversation with him letting her down gently and her being reminded of what she did.

She didn't want to deal with that on a Monday morning. She just wanted to get this class over with and have as little contact with him as possible.

She wasn't sure how she was going to do that, but she would figure it out. Hopefully, he would take a hint and leave her alone.

Alyssa pulled on her book bag and lingered in front of the door to her dorm room. She could always skip.

She never skipped, though. She knew that the day she skipped, something important would happen, and she would miss it. She needed to suck it up and go, even if she didn't want to.

She wasn't going to let a guy derail her from her success. If she wanted good grades, she had to go to class, even if a guy she could never have was there too.

It was torturous but necessary, and that was enough to get her to walk out the door.

She did walk to class slower than usual. She figured that she could get there right on time, and Elias wouldn't be able to try to talk to her for long because Dr. Pierce would start his lecture. It was the best plan that she could come up with, so she was rolling with that one.

Even though her time with Zoe was nice, it didn't lessen her heartbreak. The horror movies they watched took her mind away for a little, but those memories came flooding back the moment that Zoe left. She was then once again alone with her thoughts.

She was still grateful to Zoe, though, who offered to come by throughout the week. Alyssa told her that wasn't necessary and that she was feeling a little better. Zoe seemed to believe that enough.