“Yo, girl. Are you good?” Giselle’s waving hand has Karina blinking rapidly. She doesn’t even realize they were in the middle of a conversation until the noisy cacophony of the crowded dining hall blurs her senses back to the present.

“Oh. . . Sorry,” She awkwardly clears under Giselle’s inquiring frown.

“Sis, you’ve been spacing out all day. Is something wrong?”

“No, I’m fine. Just a little tired from all these assignments,” Karina absentmindedly forks at her fruit salad.

Giselle offers her a disbelieving look. “But you’re caught up on all your assignments you nerd.”

“I’m not a nerd,” Karina gasps in mock hurt.

“You right, you’re more like a freak,” Giselle laughs as Karina missiles a cotton candy grape at her head, “You’re like mad talented at chess and a monster in science, all STEM majors are freaks.”

“Whatever,” Karina’s lingering smile falters the moment she catches Jeno and her saunter through the cafeteria hand-in-hand.

Wendy.

Autumn-colored irises, down-to-earth personality, clear quartz perfection.

An earthquake temper rumbles in Karina’s chest, snowflake obsidian pupils zero in on his hands entangled with someone else’s. With Wendy.

Wendy, Wendy, Wendy. Damn Son Wendy.

In the beginning, there was tremendous guilt. Karina had cried herself to sleep from committing something even her own mother would criticize her for. But as time passed, the waves of guilt receded and ugly desire stubbornly grew in place.

(Wendy is honeysuckle and innocence, a grainy and cinematic summertime full of ice cold beers and dewy tulips. She’s vinyls crooning Lana Del Rey sentimentality, paisley denim, and salted caramel ice-cream with maraschinos on top. Her voice sounds like buttery sunlight drying white dresses, her sunny aura moves through the campus like molten hot gold and wading Californian ocean blues.

Truly, if the sun smiled, it would resemble Son Wendy.)

Karina feels an alienated loneliness fold over herself, encasing her feelings in a shield of rigid ice.

“Karina, you sure you good? Who are you looking at?” Cue Giselle’s annoying persistence.

“I’m fine,” She surveys Jeno from her peripheral vision. With her, he’s mysterious and majestic, grotesque Sylvia Plath journals, sugar melting in the stars, lazy smiles and crushed cigarettes. A vulgar and timid portrait covered in smoke. An enigma of wicked games and midnight charisma. Her mind reels to black-and-white scenes; angry tears, doors slamming, burning photographs, and paranoia veiled through rainy windows. To city lights spilling over leather, Don Julio kisses, overdosing on poetic tragedies and silent pleas.

But with Wendy he’s honey and daisy-bewitched. He’s brighter, lively, and energetic. She’s his, and he’s hers. A dripping grapefruit sunset splashing across afternoons like a marvelous fruit juice. An electricity lines his actions, erodes his edges, a boyish heartbreaker who softens at the warm touch of his owner. Everyone knows him as Wendy’s. Not Karina’s.

“Sooo, are you done ogling over Wendy sunbae’s boyfriend or what?”

The fork in Karina’s grip tightens. “I wasn’t looking at them.”

“Girl. . . You’re literally drilling holes into his head, I’m surprised he’s still alive.”

Am I not enough? What does she have that I don’t have?

Jeno lovingly pats Wendy’s head at some remark she makes. Pink dahilas flourish across her cheeks beneath his doting touch.

I bet I love him more than she does. Can satisfy him more than she does. She has nothing on me.

He squishes her cheeks in his big palms, causing her to squeak in laughter and push him away. Their friend group wolf-whistles and teasingly coo in response.

What’s wrong with me? Why am I being pathetic like this? She shines even without him.

“Karina!” Giselle’s eye-rolling exasperation snaps her out of her soul burning reverie. The ebony haired girl apologetically shakes her head while gathering her lunch tray.

“I’m sorry. Something came up, text you later.” She ignores Giselle’s hollering concern and the unbearable guilt threatening to resurface.

That night, Winter is gracious enough to leave her alone but she’s not spared from her mother’s prying questions.

“Karina, dear, what’s with all this sleeping medication?” Confusion etches the elder’s aged features as she inspects a prescription from her daughter’s cluttered desk.

“It’s just mild sleeping pills, no big deal.” I can’t sleep, umma. I think it’s insomnia, or maybe something is seriously wrong with me. All I do is wait for someone who won’t love me the same way I love them.

Her mother hesitates. “Are you sure? I could drive you to the doctor in the morning, college isn’t stressing you out too much, is it?”

“I’m okay. Really. Don’t worry about me.” I can’t think straight, can’t eat well or sleep well. I’m up all night thinking of him. I don’t remember what I do outside of our time together, everything is meaningless. I’ve become a spineless person. A pitiful person. Because of love, I’m a hurt person.

“What are you doing here?” Her feline gaze narrows under Jeno’s quiet pensiveness. It’s Sunday and she’s been avoiding him vehemently all week. She had craved him and missed him through gossamers of sanity, and now. . .  The only barrier that separates them is the front door held slightly ajar by the safety chain lock. He doesn’t visibly react to the restraints. Or to her razor sharp stare.

“I missed you,” A wet romance dampens his mellow words.

“I’m busy,” Her disobedient heart gallops at the wistful tick in his eyebrow.

“So busy you missed ten missed calls?” A dull humor seeps in the cracks of his lowered tone. “Is everything okay? You’re not sick, are you?”

Sick of you. Sick of your girlfriend, too. “I’m fine. You didn’t have to come all the way here.”

“Let me in?”

“Why?”

Time momentarily anesthetizes, his head slightly tilts. “Do you want me to leave?”

She studies his reserved indifference. “Are you testing me?”

A glittering devastation flinches in his unaffected expression. He doesn’t say anything, only leans against the doorframe and reaches his crystallized fingertips out to graze behind her earlobe. “Why are you doing this to me?” His hand travels to fondle the side of her reddening face, thumb skimming over the beauty mark on her chin like a butterfly hovering a flower. She fights the shivers that threaten to skitter across her flesh as his fingers ghosts down to play longingly with the nameplate necklace nestled against her collarbones. Senses heightening as he softly squeezes her neck, an airy exhale escaping her petalled lips once he finally retreats. His prolonged silence has her squirming, looking away, palms all sweaty.

“Okay. I won’t bother you anymore,” She doesn’t know what kind of face he’s making when he says it, she can only shut and lock the door, sliding down against it as slow tears glisten her broken irises.

That’s impossible. You bother me in my dreams, my thoughts, my solitude.

I can’t escape you.

I hate you.

I wish you were mine.

Love me the way you love her.

Love me even more.