Alyssa flips the script

I trudge back to my room after my last class before break. At least I have something to look forward to tomorrow, I think wearily. I open my door, and the business line buzzes—it’s Jenna again. “Hey, Jenna, what’s up?” I ask.

She almost screams, “What the fuck did you do?” Fortunately, the astonished delight in her voice registers before the words do, or I’d have been sure I did something wrong.

“Uh, nothing?” I respond cleverly. “What are we talking about?”

“Paul just knocked on my door,” Jenna says in tones of sheer amazement. “He said he’d been thinking it over and realized that I was right and he was wrong, and he wasn’t going to do anything to you, he was sorry for everything he had said, and would I please take him back?”

I’m almost too stunned to speak. I manage to croak, “And you said . . . ?”

“I told him he could go fuck himself, but I was done fucking him.” The deep satisfaction is clear in Jenna’s voice. “Then I shut the door in his face as hard as I could. Seriously, what the fuck did you do?”

“Seriously, I didn’t—” The phone buzzes against my ear; I look at it, and it’s Alyssa. Hurriedly, I tell Jenna, “I need to get off—Alyssa is calling, and I suspect she has the answer to your question. I’ll talk to you soon.”

“OK,” Jenna says, bemused.

I answer Alyssa’s call. “I had Jenna on the other line,” I tell her. “She called to say Paul ter Haar came crawling back—she slammed the door in his face. What happened?”