My Romance Life System Chapter 6: She really did

My daily routine had been the sa for months. Wake up, go to school, sit by myself at lunch, co ho, play gas or read manga, do howork, go to bed. Repeat five days a week. Weekends were just longer versions of the sa thing without the school part.

I told myself I liked being alone because it was easier. No drama, no expectations, no one to disappoint. But maybe the real reason was that I was scared. Scared of trying and failing. Scared of putting myself out there and having people reject .

’Like what happened with AJ in middle school,’ I thought.

AJ had been my best friend in 7th grade. We hung out every day, played the sa gas, liked the sa shows. I thought we’d stay friends forever. Then his dad got a new job and they moved to another city over the sumr.

We texted for a while, but it got less and less frequent. Eventually he stopped responding altogether. Probably made new friends at his new school and forgot about completely.

That had hurt more than I wanted to admit. Not just losing a friend, but realizing how easy it was for soone to just disappear from your life. One day you’re important to them, the next day you’re not.

So I decided it was safer to not get attached to anyone. Couldn’t get hurt if you didn’t care, right?

’Except that plan kind of sucked,’ I thought. ’Being safe is boring as hell.’

And lonely. Really fucking lonely, even though I had convinced myself I preferred it that way.

But today, talking to Nina, I rembered what it felt like to actually connect with soone. To have soone care about whether you were okay. To laugh with soone who thought you were funny.

It felt good. Really good. Like taking a deep breath after holding it for too long.

’No wonder Mom said I sounded different,’ I thought. ’I probably haven’t sounded that relaxed in years.’

The weird thing was, talking to Nina hadn’t felt forced or awkward like I expected it would. I kept waiting for that mont where I’d run out of things to say or say sothing stupid and ruin everything. But it never happened.

She made it easy sohow. When I made jokes, she laughed. When I was being serious, she listened. When I got quiet, she didn’t try to fill the silence with aningless chatter.

’But I shouldn’t get too close, I might ruin her school image or sothing....’

That thought, about ssing things up for Nina, stuck with . ’What if people started treating her differently just because she was seen with a nobody like ?’

That wouldn’t be fair to her at all. I pictured her popular friends side-eyeing her, or rumors starting. It made my stomach churn a bit.

And then there was the whole ’she’s probably just feeling guilty’ angle. That was a big one. Once I was out of the hospital and she didn’t feel responsible for anymore, would she just go back to her usual life and forget I existed? That seed pretty likely. Or maybe I was just setting myself up to get hurt again.

My brain kept throwing out all these reasons why this whole thing was a bad idea, why I should just stick to being alone. It was safer, wasn’t it? Less complicated, for sure.

But then I thought about how I’d felt talking to her earlier. How good it was. How I hadn’t felt that... not-empty feeling in ages. Mom was right; I had been miserable for a long ti, even if I didn’t want to admit it to myself. Maybe being ’safe’ was just another word for being miserable and alone. And that sucked.

Yeah, maybe this whole Nina thing was temporary. Maybe she’d stop being nice once she didn’t feel guilty anymore. Or maybe I’d screw it up sohow. There were a million ways it could go wrong, and my brain was excellent at listing every single one.

But even if that was the case, I decided I was going to enjoy it while it lasted. For once, I wasn’t going to overthink everything into dust. I was just going to... see what happened. Try to actually live a little, instead of just watching from the sidelines.

I shifted a bit in the hospital bed, trying to find a comfortable spot for my sore body. The painkillers were definitely doing their job, making everything feel a bit hazy and distant. For the first ti in what felt like forever, the usual knot of anxiety in my chest wasn’t quite so tight. It was still there, probably, but it was quieter.

I slowly fell asleep, and I think I was actually smiling.

The next afternoon, I was dozing off when soone knocked on my door. I expected it to be Nina, but instead Mr. Imms walked in carrying a stack of papers and looking like he’d rather be anywhere else.

"Afternoon, Kofi," he said, pulling up the chair Nina had been using. "How are you feeling?"

"Like I got hit by a car," I said. "Because I did."

He gave this look like he wasn’t sure if I was being serious or making a joke. Mr. Imms was one of those teachers who never quite figured out when students were ssing with him.

"Right," he said, settling into the chair. "Well, I brought your chemistry test. Nina ntioned you were worried about falling behind."

’Did she really say I was worried?’

He pulled out a test paper and handed it to along with a pen. "Take your ti. There’s no rush."

I looked at the test. It was the sa format as always - multiple choice questions, a few short answers, and one longer problem at the end. The kind of test I could usually finish in twenty minutes if I was paying attention in class.

Which I had been, surprisingly. Chemistry was one of the few subjects that actually made sense to . All those formulas and reactions followed logical rules. If you understood the basics, you could figure out the rest.

I started working through the questions. The first few were easy - stuff about atomic structure and the periodic table. Basic morization stuff that I had down pretty well.

’This is way easier than I thought it would be,’ I realized. ’Maybe being in the hospital isn’t affecting my brain as much as I worried.’

Mr. Imms sat there quietly while I worked, occasionally checking his phone or looking around the room. He seed uncomfortable, like he wasn’t sure what to do with himself.

"You know," he said after a few minutes, "Nina was very insistent that I co here today. She said you’d be stressed about missing the test."

I looked up from the paper. "She said that?"

"She seed quite concerned about your academic performance," he said. "It’s nice to see students looking out for each other."

’Looking out for each other,’ I thought. ’Is that what we’re doing?’

I went back to the test. The short answer questions were about balancing chemical equations, which was actually kind of fun once you got the hang of it. Like solving little puzzles.

The longer problem at the end was about calculating molarity, which required so actual math. I had to work through it step by step, but it wasn’t too bad. Just had to rember the formula and plug in the numbers.

"All done," I said, handing the test back to Mr. Imms.

He looked at his watch. "Twenty-three minutes. Not bad for soone recovering from a car accident."

’Not bad?’ I thought. ’That’s about the sa ti it usually takes .’

"How do you think you did?" he asked, flipping through my answers.

"Pretty good, I think. Most of it was stuff we covered last week."

He nodded, still looking at the test. "Your handwriting is a bit shaky, but I can read it fine. I’ll grade this tonight and get it back to you tomorrow."

"Thanks for coming here," I said. "You didn’t have to do that."

"Well, like I said, Nina was very persuasive," he said, standing up and gathering his papers. "She’s a good friend to have."

After he left, I sat there thinking about Nina.

"She really did tell the teachers about my situation. I should thank her when she drops by."

So I waited and waited but Nina never showed up.

’Figures. Had my hopes up way too much.’