Chapter 8
Arthur
“What is wrong with you?,” I mouth at my reflection in the mirror.
I’d spent the whole afternoon trying to make sense of the seminar material and figure out what topics I was going to cover for my section of the presentation. Yet, instead of absorbing any information whatsoever, I felt nothing but a stab of guilt in the pit of my stomach. The words on the paper just seemed to blur into one the more I read, and it began to occur to me that it had much less to do with the fact that I didn’t understand the topic, and a lot more to do with the fact that I had the devil on my shoulder calling me a prick for walking away earlier from a certain perky brunette. I was supposed to be doing this with her. But again, I let my fear stand firmly in the way like a troll guarding a bridge. I’m not sure if it’s just the guilty conscience acting up, but I swore I’d seen her down by the river on campus earlier and it looked an awful lot like she was heading towards me.
Fuck sake, I’m paranoid.
My self-interrogation is quickly squashed by the sound of the main door of the flat swinging open.
“Honey I’m home.” I hear a familiar voice sing at the top of his lungs.
If I’m being honest, as much as I usually find humour in Sam’s domesticated housewife routine, all I want to do is crawl under my bed, demolish a share bag of Doritos, (read: all for me), and pathetically wallow. Before I even have the chance to shamelessly reach for the pack on my shelf, Sam is barging his way through my door, his backpack slinging halfway down his arm. He lobs his backpack on the floor with such desperation, that he looks like a kid who had just run home from school, gunning for the sofa so they didn’t miss their favourite cartoon.
“Make yourself at home,” I mumble.
“How are you on this fine evening Arthur m’lad?,” Sam asked with quite possibly the biggest beam I’d ever seen, he was flashing his full set of molars.
“Um, good yeah,” I lie. My brow creases in confusion as I ask, “What’s got you so happy?,” don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that he’s happy, but he’s grinning so intently now with wide eyes he’s starting to give me ‘here’s Johnny!’ vibes and quite frankly, it’s giving me the creeps.
“Guess who’s scored a date later?,” he chirps.
“Well judging by the sappy look on your face, I’m guessing you?,” I add.
Sam is quite literally bumbling all over my room now, excitedly fidgeting with any objects he can find on my desk, kind of like dad’s whenever they’re on a phone call, and suddenly things as mundane as a stapler seems like the most interesting thing on earth.
Once he’s finished fondling my box of Post-it notes, he’s stood by my desk and turns to me, the smile reaching his ears, “Yup. Met her in my Ethics seminar this morning, turns out she was also bitten by a goat at a farm park when she was a kid too.”
“Wow, there’s nothing quite like a bond over childhood trauma,” I say, my tone burning with sarcasm, “wait-how did you get onto that topic anyway?”
Sam, in his dizzy lovesick haze, responds, “Our seminar leader put us into groups to debate the ethics of capital punishment an-
“So naturally that leads you to debate whether death row would be ethical for goats who bite you at farm parks?,” I interrupt, breathing out a laugh.
Sam rolls his eyes, “No. We were getting really into the discussion actually, so much so, that after the seminar finished, I asked if she wanted to go and grab a coffee in commons to debate more. To be honest, the conversation quickly turned from ethics into just getting to know each other, like a blind date but without all the boring ‘what’s your favourite colour?’ shit. She ended up having to leave to go for another lecture after, so I took the plunge and asked for her number, and just to make myself sound even more freakishly eager, I thought bugger it, so I texted her when I was on the bus back and asked her out. We’re going for drinks at Slug and Lettuce tonight.”
I swallowed down the lump in my throat. How did he make it look so easy?There’s me literally sprinting out of a seminar to avoid having to talk to a girl, yet here’s Sam, all guns blazing, not only bagging a girl’s number but also managing to get a datewith said girl on the same day too. Oh, to be ballsy.
Nonetheless, I quickly squash down any brief feelings of jealousy I may have had and try to say in my most convincingly happy tone, “Congratulations mate,” adding a piss-take for good measure, “Who’s the unlucky girl then?”
Sam grins, “Poppy. She lives over at Charlton Court. I said I’d meet her at the bus stop.”
I guffaw at this, “escorting her to the U5 bus I see, always a Gent.”
He smirks, “I know, smooth criminal me.” He pauses, his smirk gradually morphing into a look of concern, “Is everything all right with you? You looked pretty pissed off when I walked in.”
Remind me never to go into poker.
I fiddle with the cords of my sweatshirt, as I awkwardly stifle, “Remember the girl from the silent disco during freshers?”
Sam grimaces, “think she was hard to forget.”
Picking the skin around my fingers now, I say, “Well turns out, the stars haven’t aligned in my favour because guess who turned up to my lecture today?”
Sam shakes his head in disbelief, “No way.”
“Oh, trust me, it gets worse,” Sam looks fully invested now, ready to grab the metaphorical popcorn. “She turned up late and the only seat left in the lecture hall was next to mine. The lecture finishes and I think I’m safe. Nope. I go to my seminar and it turns out she’s in the same group as me. Then, in a series of unfortunate events, she accidentally bumps into me, making me drop my phone and I make a stupidly dickish comment about it, she gets put into the same presentation group as me, and finally, whilst everyone else mingles together in their groups at the end of the seminar, just to pin that final nail well and truly in the coffin…I run away from her.” I look down at my lap, feeling my cheeks heat in embarrassment as I relive the monstrosities of the day.
A good 20 seconds of silence passes before Sam gives me a sympathetic, “oof.”
“Tell me about it. Now I’m bricking it for the next seminar, how do I even come back from that?” I plead, more to myself than to Sam.
He puffs out a sigh before saying, “Granted, that is pretty shit. But the best thing you can do, and you’re probably not going to like the answer, is own it mate. She’s in your group, you could always ask to be in a different one, but then that kind of makes you sound even more of a dick and defeats the object.”
I know he’s right. But that doesn’t stop that little jeopardizing voice from trying to get me to abort the mission and just ask to switch groups. I know I can’t though, people have already likely started planning their presentations anyway and Sam’s right, if I thought I was a dick now, I think throwing in the towel and deciding to swap groups altogether would grant me the status of the king of dickery. If I stood any chance of making it through the course without going insane, I knew I needed to take a leaf out of Sam’s book, I needed to own it. I just wish I knew how.