The single life

Mark sat in a chair recovering from his embarrassing display of emotion. Across from him sat Alex, as Abigail had left after saying bye to Mark, to give them some time to talk about things. "So, you broke up with Sophie? That's what you're telling me?"

"Yeah, I was a jerk, I deserve it. Double standards never work in a relationship Alex remember that."

"Yes, oh wise sage. I don't think you're qualified to preach just yet, but after losing Sophie you might want to consider the church to keep girls away, if you're going to act like this every time you break up. People make mistakes Mark, I made a mistake with Alice, I through away her number by the way, and I also told Abigail about what happened. She was mad, but she forgave me because of two things, because I was drunk, she knows how I get when I'm drunk as do you and Sophie. Secondly, because I came to tell her. You have to communicate in a relationship Mark, otherwise there's miscommunication, and bad things happen. I'm not going to ask what happened between you two, that's between the two of you, what I will suggest is that you pick up that phone over there, and call a girl you know, go get a drink, get your mind off things."

"Yeah, Ok. You're right as always, I'll call someone I met at one of the motels we stayed at, she gave me her number, so let's see if she's available."

"Sounds good. I'd wait a couple of minutes, you don't want to be sniffling from the aftereffects of crying while trying to convince a girl to go on a date with you."

"Date? I'm not going on a date, I'm just meeting a friend is all, it's much to soon to be thinking about dating again."

"Do what you please Mark, as long as you're smiling and happy again when you get back, remember no late nights, we have class tomorrow morning at 8."

"Oh yeah, what's first class again?" Mark and Alex had picked the same schedule, so that they had company until they started to make new friends.

"Calculus first thing in the morning. Ugh! Why couldn't it be something more interesting?" Alex complained. It's going to be plenty interesting, isn't that the course Nicole teaches? I hope we have her section.

"I'm sure it will be fine, it's first day anyways, I'm sure it will probably just be intros and intro to the course."

"Yeah, true. Ok, you sound much better, give that phone call a try."

"Alright here it goes." Mark took a deep breath and walked over to the study desk in their room. He sat on the chair, and rotated the number in. As the phone was ringing, Mark said "Hey Alex, what do you think about getting one of those new cell phone things, we could carry them around with us."

"Yeah right. Have you seen how large they are, where would you put it, you can't even put it in your pocket. Unless you put it down the front of your pants to give off a certain image, I don't know how much better it is than a regular phone."

"Shh, I think she just picked up!"

"Hello?" A voice said from the phone.

"Steph? It's Mark, you know from the motel" Mark said while trying to move his back towards Alex.

"Oh Mark! How are you? Did you just get here?"

"Well, we actually got here yesterday, Alex and I had a baseball team meeting today, so we had to go to that. Today was a pretty crazy day for me, and I was just wondering if you wanted to meet up, maybe get a drink and just relax?"

"That sounds great! Instead of going to the bar, why don't you come up to my place? I've got some drinks up here, and my roommate should be out for another couple of hours. What do you think?"

"Sure! Sounds good, let me just give you my room number, and we can go together?"

"Yeah, sure. Is Sophie coming too?" She asked slyly

"That's one of the things we should talk about."

"Oh, Ok. Sure." Mark told her the room number, and she said she was on her way. "She's on her way." Mark told Alex.

"Great! Have I met her before?"

"Yeah, when you were drunk, before you passed out in the bar at the motel."

"Oh..."

"Don't worry about it bro, you'll have a chance of making a good impression on her now." Just then Mark heard a knocking at the door and opened it

"That's not Steph is it?"

"Alice? What are you doing here? Mark said in surprise.