The Long Winter #60
Previous Engagements part eight
Something was different about the atmosphere around the University this one fine day. It was not the weather. It was gray and windy like every other day had been. Huge mountains of snow were piled up from the plow trucks that would last well into May. Other students or professors rushed around on their way to or from class bundled up as best they could (except for one large boy she always saw in a Hawaiian shirt and a fedora).
She smiled at this boy who held the door open for her and strode into the library with a ballerina’s bounce in her step. Maybe it was only in her head. After dinner with her friends she felt freer than she had at any point since school started in the fall. She had spent the winter so far a slave to her feelings for Lin. While these feelings were still there she was happy to realize they did not rule her and she began to allow herself to move on. Especially after the disastrous way they parted at the party, she was ready, finally ready, to move on.
And Lin had never moved on her to begin with. Even after they spent more than two weeks sleeping in the same bed. It was finally time. She walked into the coffee shop and ordered herself an overpriced coffee. It took a few minutes of whirring and stirring and they handed her the too-sweet beverage with its cardboard heat wrap for her to take to a seat at a table next to the window. The north half of the campus was visible from there, the dorms arranged around a central field crisscrossed with walkways and decorated by gardens that bloomed all summer long. At that moment everything was covered by a thick blanket of snow, the walkways lined by shoulder-high berms of it. Students milled about, only a handful of boys looking comfortable with the winter weather.
“Hey.”
Delaney’s heart froze. Her eyes snapped up and she watched Lin settle into the seat across from her with a coffee of her own.
“What are you drinking?”
“A latte.”
“Peppermint?”
Delaney shook her head.
“Vanilla.”
Delaney nodded.
“This one’s chai. I get the pumpkin spice one in the fall.”
“Why are you here?”
Lin’s face did not falter as she took a careful, careful sip of her coffee. She set it down on the table and leaned forward.
“I broke up with Andi.”
Delaney gasped.
“I should have done that months ago. Way before I even met you. I should have probably dumped her before I graduated high school. But no one told me she was bad for me. I had no idea she was until I met you.”
“I’m… sorry?”
“I refuse to accept your apology. I should be thanking you, honestly.”
“Thanking me? For breaking you and your girlfriend up?”
“Yes. I never would have done that if not for you. I’m free now.”
“But…”
Lin nearly smiled at Delaney and the redhead scrambled through her mind for an appropriate response. She had just freed herself of this very situation! And there sat Lin, telling her it was not over between the two of them. Or at least that’s how Delaney was interpreting it. She leaned forward herself, wondering if she looked angry or annoyed. If she did, Lin did not seem to care.
“I spent the weekend trying to talk myself into…” Delaney swallowed her next words and frowned. “Why did you come up to me to tell me this?”
“I was under the impression you wanted to be closer to me Friday night.”
“Yes, but—“
“I broke up with my girlfriend. We’re separated completely. And now I can do the things I wanted to do with you since we first met.”
Delaney blinked back at her.
“You were trying to hint to me that you fancy me, right?”
Delaney answered with a slow nod.
“Well, now I’m telling you in no uncertain terms that I fancy you.”
Delaney fell back into her chair. She ran her hand through her auburn hair.
“If you ain’t pleased I can always go try and patch things up between me and my ex.”
Lin smirked at her and Delaney snorted.
“I was…” Delaney paused and took a sip of her still-too-hot coffee. “I was heartbroken after the party. I didn’t want to go after Penny. I only did that because it hurt so bad when you said no. I was disappointed I went after her—“
“Did you catch her?”
“No, then I went inside and you had left.”
“I did a lot of thinking.”
“Apparently.”
“Andi is mean-spirited, rotten to her very core. She enjoyed teasing me. I thought that was normal, but being with you I started thinking maybe it isn’t. I can’t imagine you doing half the things to me that she did, and it got me thinking, why was I putting up with it? Part of it was that I was used to Andi, and I barely know you. I mean, I know we spent the break together, but that’s only a few weeks compared to the years I was with her. But since coming up here, I’ve made new friends, my professors like my work, and everything is just different compared to how it was when I was back home in high school. I can’t let her, or rather, let anyone, treat me like that.”
“I’m sorry—“
“No, you helped. Like I said, I’m here to thank you.”
“No, I mean, that’s terrible you had to go through that. I’m sorry you had to.”
“Well, like I said, you helped me see it. And now…” Lin took a deep breath and her half-a-smile faltered. She glanced around the room and leaned further forward over the table and lowered her voice. “Now I want to see if you’ll go out with me, on a real date. I don’t know what you cosmopolitan big-city girls consider a real date, but I’m fine with anything, even another freezing walk in the woods.”
Delaney nodded and reached across the table. Lin’s hands were shaking, and she moved slightly away, but their eyes met and Lin let Delaney grasp her and the shaking stopped.
“I can’t today,” Delaney whispered. “I work tonight as soon as my class is finished. Tomorrow, though…” She squeezed Lin’s hands. “Tomorrow we’ll get sandwiches and go back to my apartment and watch movies all night. Who knows? Maybe we’ll do some other stuff, too.”
Lin swallowed hard and nodded. They released each other’s hands and Lin took her cup up, taking another careful sip. Delaney did the same.
“It’s weird,” Lin said after her sip. “I think I was trying to trick myself into thinking you weren’t really interested in me that way.”
“I was interested in you the moment we met, just like you said. I was so afraid you weren’t interested back, and you’re a lot harder to read than anyone else I’ve ever met.”
“Harder to read? Please. I wear my emotions on my sleeve.”
“You almost always wear tank tops or sleeveless t-shirts!”
They laughed together. Lin stood up.
“Well, I almost never spend any time here. Don’t like the atmosphere. So I’m going to get to moseying to the art school. I’ll message you. See you later.”
Delaney smiled and then Lin left. Delaney breathed a long sigh of relief. It was different on campus. That ballerina's bounce would be in her step all the way through her shift. Lin had her smiling. She knew it would last, at least for a little while.
Follow The Long Winter into #61 Previous Engagements part nine here.