One week later

“I already told you I’m sorry!” Kevin’s voice resounded in the corridor as he was walking behind you, trying to catch up to you.

“I don’t care, I’m not going to the restaurant with you!” you growled at him.

“I didn’t want to make you cry…”

You sighed. One week after that massage class, Kevin was still apologizing for making you cry in the middle of the class. You had tried hiding your tears, but it hadn’t worked. He had seen them and, since then, he kept on bugging you about these. And today, on your birthday, you really didn’t feel like being bugged about this.

“Please? To make you forgive me…” he pleaded.

“I don’t give a .”

“Please… I’m paying…”

“Dude, use your money for yourself. You’re so skinny I thought I’d impale myself on your bones last class while massaging you.”

“Fine, I won’t pay, then! But please just come with me…”

“I already said no!”

Ugh, he was so stubborn. You could kind of guess that he knew today was your birthday, and that he probably wanted to give you something. Like Hell you’d let him do that. He was your ex-boyfriend. Not even a friend. Just an ex.

You were in an extremely bad mood for some reason, and it wasn’t just because Kevin was a freaking glue stick, you could feel it. Recently you just felt like something inside you wasn’t being satisfied, but you didn’t know what it was, and no, it wasn’t your ual needs. Since you couldn’t pinpoint what you were lacking, you couldn’t satiate it, and it only kept growing worse and worse with each passing day.

“C’mon, please…”

Too much.

You turned, extremely irritated, and threw your backpack at him. It contained heavy books and a lot of other heavy stuff, making your back hurt, so you figured that throwing it at him would maybe knock him out or something and give you time to escape.

You never thought it’d work so well.

He was literally thrown back trying to catch it, since the bag was probably a quarter of his own weight, and he fell on the floor with a little high-pitched ‘ouch!’. You walked to your backpack and grabbed it before leaving, feeling bad for doing that but needing time alone. And honestly, Kevin wasn’t giving you any, and it obviously didn’t help your mood.

You realized after a few minutes that you couldn’t escape from Kevin for long, because the two of you had PE, and class would start in about ten minutes. You rolled your eyes, sitting down next to the door. Well, . You mumbled to yourself, calling Kevin an idiot and a glue stick and a mofo and a and an and everything that went through your mind, just because you needed to insult someone and he was, strangely, the first person you thought about. You stopped grumbling when he arrived, simply so you wouldn’t feel like an idiot, talking alone, but you clearly avoided looking at him. He sat next to you with big sad eyes, but you only glared at him, growling. He sighed.

“I’m sorry about the other day…”

“Oh my ing God, this again?! Would you just ing stop this?! Get over it!”

“But I didn’t make you cry on purpose…”

“I KNOW. THAT’S WHY I’M TELLING YOU TO OFF.”

He looked at you with even sadder eyes and you suddenly just felt like punching him. This guy was way too sensitive. And not manly enough. And he kept on following you everywhere like a lost puppy. You liked puppies. But this…! UGH. At least puppies would shut up and stop worrying about trivial things in no time. That was if they even did start worrying about them in the first place. But this dude was just…

“I’ll leave you alone if you come to the restaurant with me after class. Just this once. Okay?”

You glared some more at him, resisting the urge to punch him. You kicked his bag, instead, making it fly on a few meters before it landed heavily at the end of the corridor.

“I said no,” you hissed.

He sighed and got up, going to get his bag before coming back. You had no idea why he kept on coming back but it was definitely just getting on your nerves. You hated people who were too stubborn just about as much as you hated when your friends would ignore you for hours for other friends. Jealous? Probably. Lacking real attention? That too. Now that you were back in school and everything, nobody was paying you attention as much as when you had woken up from your coma. And you didn’t want attention from that dude. He was giving you way too much of it. And he was in your personal space, constantly…

“What can I say to make you accept?” he sighed in a soft, sad, broken voice.

“Nothing. I said I don’t want to go. I have no reason to go.”

“I want to apologize…”

“You ing did billions of times and if you say stuff like that again, I’m going to punch you for real and I’m not going to hold back and you’ll need the massage to put your spine back in place.”

He sighed again.

“Why won’t you come?”

“Because you’re my ing ex. Who the goes out somewhere with their ex?!”

“But…”

“Especially an ex who was the one to break up.”

It was a coup bas, but you didn’t care. In this game, all tricks were allowed.

Kevin hugged his bag, eyes getting a bit wet. He looked away, and when he spoke, his voice was trembling and pleading.

“I… I want to apologize for that, too…”

You sighed. You couldn’t stay mad at him when he was looking like that. But you didn’t want to go to the restaurant. You didn’t want to go anywhere.

“I’m not going,” you mumbled. “You don’t need to apologize for anything. And I don’t need to hear your apologies all over again.”

“…”

“You were the one who left me. But you’re the one who keeps following me around. What’s with that? Just leave me alone like you wanted to do in the first place.”

These were quite harsh words, or at least, they were, for Kevin’s sensitive heart. You didn’t care about whatever explanations he had given you. He hugged his bag some more.

“… I didn’t want to leave you. I just… didn’t feel worth you. I felt like… like you’d be happier with another man…”

“Uh-uh.”

“I’m not lying!” he exclaimed, turning to face you.

You could now easily see the tears in his eyes. They weren’t falling, but they were definitely there. Kevin wiped them off softly with his sleeve.

“I’m not lying…” he repeated softly. “Please… just… just give me… another chance. Just one chance. And if, tonight, after the restaurant, you’re still mad at me… then I’ll give up. Okay?”

“…”

“Please…”

One chance. One time. One day. You had the opportunity to just make him go away and leave you alone.

Did you really want him to leave you alone?

You sighed. Those fragmented memories of him… those little bits of weird, incomprehensible happiness that sometimes struck you in the middle of the day for no reason… those eyes that looked at you with sincerity…

“Fine. One last chance. After that, if it’s not okay, it’s over,” you mumbled.