Six months earlier

Six Months Earlier (Flashback)

***

Day one of the second semester of Mark’s Freshman Year was one to remember. Partially for the right reasons but also for the negative ones.

It was the first time that Mark had seen his new girlfriend in person since he left New York City on the first day of January. A constant montage of video calls, FaceTime chats, sex talk, it all was nothing like the real feeling of embracing in person.

At this stage, their relationship was not public to the world, so their friends and peers on campus were unaware. This included Winter who knew that Mark turned the Hawaii trip with her family down but just didn’t know the reason why.

Well... this was the day she would find out.

Not knowing how to build up the courage to tell her the news, he basically had ghosted her the entire holidays, not really relying to messages, claiming to be quite busy with work. But when you have to live in the same building as someone for months on end, there’s no where to hide.

As Mark found himself unpacking his things in his dorm room, there was a knock on the door. Opening it up, he wasn’t surprised to see Winter standing there, politely smiling at him.

‘Damn’ he thought to himself, why did she have to look so damn good. Her large breasts were on display in a white singlet that showed more than enough cleavage. Right there and then he considered ripping her clothes off and fucking those big bouncy tits.

“Mind if I come in,” she asked him. Mark responded with a smile and a nod of the head. He didn’t know how to tell her the news so he decided to let Winter control the conversation.

She took a seat on the edge of his bed, “How was your holidays?”

“Uhhh yeah not too bad, yourself?” he replied.

“It was okay, can’t say I didn’t think about how it would have been if you came to Hawaii with us,” she then told him. Mark took a seat on the opposing bed, he didn’t say anything back to her, this had to be the time he gave her some bad news.

She noticed his silence and the way he was constantly looking at the floor or to the side, anything but looking into her eyes.

“Sooo are you going to tell me what’s up? Why you’ve been pretty much ignoring me all holidays?” she straight up asked him.

Mark gulped before finally responding to Winter. “Look, I don’t know how to say this but I’m dating Tiffany,” he said, leaving a little bit of shock on Winter’s pretty face. “I went to visit her in New York and I left that trip with the two of us a couple. I wanted to tell you but I didn’t know how, I just feel really bad about it all.”

It was now Winter who was silent. Mark now looking at her, noticed that her head was bowed, clearly more than disappointed. “I’m sorry Winter,” he apologised.

Her face twitched, “What changed?”

“Sorry?” he asked, a little unsure what she was asking him.

“What changed between the end of semester and your trip to New York? You pretty much told me that you wanted a relationship with me. That I was the girl for you. We freaking had that chat at the beach that night where we spoke about waiting until after exams to make anything official.”

Mark felt his heart aching as she spoke, knowing just how heartbroken she appeared to be.

“I just don’t understand how things could change so quickly,” she told him, now looking him back in the eye. It was the first time that he had ever seen her truly pissed off.

“I-uhhh-I don’t know, I can’t explain, I didn’t know it was going to happen like that,” he mumbled back to her.

“Please don’t lie to me Mark. You don’t turn down my invitation to fly to New York for another girl to have no intentions of perusing something with her.”

It was all true. He was just making things worse by lying. He loved Tiffany and wanted desperately to be an item with her. It didn’t take away how much he loved and cared for Winter for but it also didn’t make it easy for her to hear this.

Mark again stayed quiet, not sure how to make this situation any better.

“Maybe this is my fault, maybe I shouldn’t have made that arrangement or just never got attached in the first place,” she said, dropping her head again.

Wanting to say something, Mark’s mouth opened but nothing came out. Just silence, he couldn’t put any words together. And just like that, the door opened up again in the middle of the stand-off-ish silence.

They both darted their eyes to the door, seeing Tiffany walk in, her bright smile like a dagger to the heart of Winter. “Ooh sorry, I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she said as she entered the room.

Winter got off the bed and headed straight for the door, bypassing Tiffany, not saying a single word.

“What was that all about?” Tiffany asked him, closing the door after the busty freshman had left. Mark tried to shake off things as she took back his attention. “Oh umm nothing... nothing important.”

As life went on and Mark and Tiffany’s relationship went public, his connection with Winter was virtually non-existent. They didn’t have another proper conversation for the rest of semester, besides awkward little exchanges or passing by one another, Mark and Winter weren’t partners, weren’t friends, they were nothing.

***

Fast forward to the present, Mark couldn’t help but think about this as he stood just meters away from his old flame.