“After Carlos stupidly admitted that’s what was happening, I blocked his calls, and ended up marrying your best friend in Vegas on a whim.” Obviously, I could not pick apart the particulars of that whimsical Vegas wedding, or the fact that it had been a business transaction in the works, but Wes would understand what it meant.

“Carlos ran into me on campus a few minutes ago and demanded to know why I was ignoring him,” I continued my recap. “I told him I couldn’t talk about it until I’d eaten breakfast, since I was in a shit mood after just bombing a quiz that I wasn’t able to study for, thanks to all of life’s recent changes and stressors.” I flipped both hands in the air, as if to encompass the whole café and maybe all my troubles too. “And here we are, where you overheard the worst part of a ridiculous conversation and assumed too much. Now that everyone is all caught up, I’d very much like it if you would get the fuck up so I can leave. I’m pretty sure your girl of the night would also like it if you paid more attention to her than me.”

The sorority girl did not like being called out that way, and I felt a little bad about calling her a ‘girl of the night’, but she had to know that’s all it was with Wes. She stomped off and Wes didn’t appear to notice or care. “You know this wouldn’t look good if someone saw,” he mentioned while making a quick motion to indicate the fact that I was sitting across from another man.”

I glared at him. “Carlos is sitting across the table from me in a public place. It’s not like he is, oh, I don’t know, sitting in the back seat of a car driven by my best friend, groping me like an octopus, or jumping me on a sidewalk in front of my apartment building.” I huffed. “This,” I pointed out the window, “is my world. I’m a college student. I know people. Some of those people are going to be male and I’m not going to apologize for speaking to them, especially when there was unfinished business that needed to be tidied up.”

“You didn’t need to tidy anything up with that dick. He was using you,” Wes insisted, as he started showing a little temper.

“And he’s not the only one who was doing so, now, was he?” I laughed when he realized the error of his argument. “Pot, meet Kettle,” I told him before sliding down under the booth and crawling across the floor until I was free of the table. When I stood, I pointed to the mostly eaten breakfast sandwich still sitting there. “You can pay for that since you ruined my appetite.”

“Did you just crawl under the table to get away?” he asked while staring stupidly at me.

“Yeah, so?” I turned and walked out of the café, pissed off at the world all over again. Stupid men! Stupid life! Stupid tears! I was not going to cry again. I was sick of crying. Damn it. I swiped at the wetness on my face and then stared at the sunshiny, blue skies above me. Where was the rain when you needed something to blame for the tears that you didn’t want anyone to see falling?