Talking Over the Seminar Assignment With Brooke

The rest of the day—psych class, a few hours holed up in the library, and then dinner—goes by in a blur. As you’re struggling with the Writing Seminar assignment, trying to organize your thoughts, you get a strike of inspiration and decide to message Brooke.

A few minutes later, you’re sitting inside her cushy double, leaning against her art easel with your laptop whirring softly on the floor besides you. She sits on her bed, feet dangling inches above the ground, her own laptop half-open beside her.

“Were you serious about what you were saying earlier in class? Love is dead and all that?” you ask her.

“I mean… I was maybe exaggerating a bit, but, yeah, I think so,” Brooke says, glancing at you. “Do you really think most people these days fall in love?”

“Maybe not people our age,” you say, “but I think most of us find someone, eventually, right? You know, we both had to have parents to have been born.”

Brooke makes a face at that.

“Yeah, but mine kind of hate each other,” she says. “I know I’m just one girl, but…”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” you say, genuinely meaning it. “It must be tough.”

“You learn to live with it. Kinda like most things in life,” she shrugs. “I know I started painting much more whenever the shouting started across the house. Probably explains why I’m so good at it.”

You crack a sympathetic smile, hoping that it will at least console her some, and stand up, putting an arm around her, giving her a much needed hug. You break away after a second and stay sitting next to her on the bed.

“I just don’t understand how you can look at someone and say to yourself, yes, that’s the person I want to spend the rest of my life with,” she says.

“Neither can I,” you say, although, in your case, it’s more because of all the missed opportunities that would come with settling down.

“Like, what if things go wrong? Then what do you have? What are you left with?”

“The good memories and the good times,” you offer. “That’s got to be worth something.”

“But if you go into a relationship, thinking to yourself, I know it’s going to go sour at some point, but I’m just here to have a good time for a short while, and then whatever happens, happens… that’s not love! Love takes, I don’t know, commitment, sacrifice, the willingness to make hard choices!”

“Small wonder that it’s so hard to find these days.”

“Yeah, I guess so...”

Brooke picks up her laptop and types down a few lines, before turning to look at you.

“Wouldn’t it be nice, though? To love someone and be loved back?”

You think about it for a second, and nod. How bad are things with her parents, that she doesn’t think she’s ever experienced that? Even though you and Lisa certainly have your differences, you’d like to think that there’s still a certain kind of love between the two of you. Or maybe, you’re being unfair to her, and she really does only mean love in a romantic sense.

“It’s only right for all of us to move at our own pace,” you say, and she leans into you slightly, looking at you with big eyes. “There’s no need to dive into commitment if that’s not what you want.”

She shakes her head, and you venture a set of fingers onto the smooth of her thigh. She turns her head towards you, her mouth hardly an inch away from yours, the heat of her breath escaping from her lips.

She stares into your eyes, something igniting in her eyes, and she kisses you, quick on the lips.

A moment later she’s back on her laptop.

“You don’t want another?” you ask, craning your neck around her screen to look at her.

She blushes.

“I’m kind of confused,” she says.

“No commitment,” you promise.

She tosses her laptop to the side and suddenly straddles your lap, kissing you hard, her arms wrapped around your back. You return the favour, drinking in her lips, soon sporting a boner as she shifts on your lap.

Your hands wander up the sides of her shirt, and just as they’re about to go further, the door bangs open, and Brooke’s roommate stumbles in, saying: “Holy shit I am so tired… whoa! Get a room, you two! Oh shit, this is your room too…”

The door bangs shut again, and you look at Brooke, who looks back at you, then at the door.

“Sorry, roommate,” she mutters, brushing her hair to the side. “But um… I think I’m still confused.”

“We can pick this up some other time,” you say, not wanting to press her.

Clearly, there’s stuff going on in her head that still needs to be worked out.

“Okay!” she says, almost too quickly. Then, as if realizing her mistake: “But it was nice to talk. And to kiss.”

“I liked it too,” you say, packing your laptop back into your bag. “Until next time. And, uh, I’ll let your roommate know it’s safe to come back in on my way out.”

“Thanks,” Brooke says, blushing again, clearly not anticipating that particular conversation.

Brooke +15