Page 48 of Love, In Balance

I hope you are well. Sorry to bother you. As you may have heard from Professor Peters, I’m taking this week off, and working from home. I will therefore be cancelling our study session tomorrow - Friday evening. I’m sorry for any inconvenience caused by this or by any of my actions recently.

I will be in touch next week to sort out future study sessions. Alternatively if you wish to no longer be my advisor, do let me know.

Kind regards,

Callista Harper MSc

PhD mechanical engineering student

Lived experience practitioner

She’s hurting. It’s because of me.

But this is better than the alternative, I keep telling myself.

It’s Thursday, the third day of not seeing her.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity, I’m heading out for a bowling and arcade night with the guys for what they call a‘guys night’. Despite not feeling the best in myself, I agree to go. Drew, Oli, Reed, Pip and Si seemed to realise that I seem off and invited me to cheer me up.If only they knew.

It’s clear that Lista hasn’t mentioned any of what’s happened to the guys.

Otherwise I doubt I’d be getting any invitation to their gatherings. Drew would destroy me if he knew I’d hurt her. I feel like destroying myself.

I’ve considered not going, but Oli and Drew both insisted it’d be good for me. They know something’s up, but I’m not one to spread my business around, especially when it involves Lista, so I’ve just made up an excuse about feeling under the weather.

They don’t prod any further, because they’re guys I guess, so I just carry on and try to act like I’m ok, even though I’m really fucking not.

I’m glad it’s a guy’s night, otherwise I’d have had to decline. Not that there’s anything wrong with the usual nights they have. But their gatherings usually involve Callista, and I couldn’t just gate crash, when she was there first after all. These are her safe people, and I’m not ruining that for her.

But tonight, I’m safe to be around without making her feel uncomfortable. I realise it will be good to do something to just take my mind off her.

That is until halfway through the night, when she walks in.

We’ve already garnered some attention from a bridal party in the lane next to us throughout the night.

They keep coming over to us, taking selfies and flirting. Any other guy would be happy with this arrangement, but all I can think about is holding Lista and how her legs were wrapped around my waist the other day on my desk.

We’ve just started the second game of bowling, and as I take my turn, I hear Drew and the guys talking to someone.

I turn around and make direct eye contact with Lista.Shit.At that exact moment, the tall blonde woman from the bridal party slaps me on the arse and they all erupt into laughter.

“Sorry, it was a dare” she says and skips away.What fantastic timing.Lista sees the whole thing and looks down at the ground, walking in the opposite direction of where I am. Damn. I have sincerely fucked upagain.

I join the guys and acknowledge Lista normally so that the others don’t realise that something is up. We continue the game, but it comes to a pause when something malfunctions. Despite being engineers, we leave it to the staff to fix and use the malfunction as an excuse to top up drinks, grab snacks, take toilet breaks and have a look around the arcade.

On my way back from the men’s room, I notice Lista at an arcade machine alone. Not knowing whether I should or not, I just decide to walk over to her before thinking too much into it.

She notices me and sighs, looking away but acknowledging me by speaking.

“Quin. I didn’t even think to ask Drew if you were here when he texted me asking me to come, ok? so yeah. I’m not stalking you. I just thought I’d get out of the house for an hour” she says with a hint of anger.

No wonder.

I cannot and do not blame her for her anger and hostility at all. I’d feel the same if I were in her position. I just wish I could explain it to her without repercussions.

“Callista. That’s not why I came over to you. You don’t need to explain why you’re here. You came to see your friends. It’s me who shouldn’t be here” I say, clearly with no effect because she still looks completely drained and pissed off.

She doesn’t speak straight away; she continues assessing the machine she’s at whilst sipping her drink, before looking over at the lanes we were playing on and raising her eyebrows, followed by a huff.

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