#2

The next afternoon I walked into Jack's dorm room to find it half empty. Jack was reclining on his bed, hands linked behind his head. "Danny ... relocated," he stated flatly.

"Why?"

"He wanted a different roommate, I guess."

I felt a tinge of anger. "Why?"

"Why? I don't know why. He just didn't like me. I tried to get along with the guy, but our personalities clashed for some reason."

"It's not as simple as that," I quietly challenged.

Jack sprung off the bed and put his arms around my waist. "Lilith, honey. Why does this bother you so much? It's actually a good thing. I have the whole room to myself now, until they stick me with someone else."

"Everyone likes you, Jack," I said. "But Danny looks at you like you raped his mother or something. Moving out of the dorm just to get away from you is a pretty drastic move."

Jack's face lost a bit of its glow. He stopped smiling.

"All I'm saying is, you did something," I continued. "Maybe unintentionally, I don't know. But there has to be a reason behind his hatred for you."

He shook his head. "Your guess is as good as mine. I have been nothing but kind to him since day one. I've tried to be his friend. I've tried talking to him. I always invite him whenever I go out with friends. He wants nothing to do with me. I just think he's an antisocial jerk, to be honest."

It was the first time I had ever heard Jack insult someone. The way he spoke about Danny, the way his eyes tremored slightly, suggested an imbalance in the way I percieved my boyfriend. His disposition, his outlook, his motives dimmed a little.

"All right, so someone doesn't like me," he said. "What do you want me to do, cry about it? Despite what you may think, I'm not some God-like celebrity that everyone loves and fawns over. Some people like me, some don't. Big deal."

My heart took on a new weight. I pretended to shrug it off and I spent the rest of the day with him in a feigned good mood. The fact that he couldn't detect, or could but didn't care about, the artificiality of my demeanor simply confounded my newfound sense of uncertainty.