Chapter 2

Despite my resolution to forget that Aaron existed, by the time I’d gotten back to campus, parked my car and walked up to my dorm room, I was fighting to keep the tears back.
When I walked into my room, my roommate, Bet,h took one look at me and said in alarm “Dicia! What’s wrong, girl?”
I wiped my eyes, as I replied “Aaron just dumped me, he found someone else.” I shook my head in disbelief.
“What?! What a JERK!” She hopped off her bed and rushed over to me to fold me into a huge bear hug. I let her hold me as I let go and gave into the torrent of tears that I couldn’t hold back any longer.
“I just thought you left your phone in the car or something! He’s been trying ot call here every 5 minutes for the past half hour! I didn’t know this had happened! Thank goodness I didn’t! I woulda ripped him a new one.”
As if on cue, the phone in our room rang at that moment.
Beth marched over to it and snatched it up. “WHAT?!?!?!” She answered. I had to smile.
….
“Yes, Aaron, she IS here, and NO you CANNOT talk to her!! WHAT is your PROBLEM?! Don’t dump her and tell her you found someone else and then call here actin’ like you wanna be friends! She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
….
He must have said “But I need to explain” or something to that effect, because she said “Aaron, I can explain it JUST fine! You’re a JERK, that’s the ONLY explanation I can see for your selfish stupidity! And DON’T call here again, if you don’t wanna be with her, fine, but just get the hell away, and leave her alone!”
She slammed the phone down.
I raised my eyebrows at her, and grinned. “Really?” I said then couldn’t help breaking into laughter at the self righteous look on her face.
“I don’t know who the heck he thinks he is, callin’ up here like nothin’ goin’ down. Men! Stupider than a box of rocks, I tell yah!” She said.
“Thank you, so much! I knew there was a reason we were friends!” I said, wiping my eyes with a kleenex.
“Girl, he’s just lucky he called on the phone and didn’t show up at the door!”
“I believe that!” I said, giggling.
Beth gave me another hug, and patted my back “You’re gonna be alright, he’s a jerk, forget about him! There are way more better fish in the sea, and all that!”
“I know, I just need some time to get over this, we were together for THREE years! THREE FRIGGEN YEARS!!!” I shake my head in amazement. What a waste of time. I thought.
“So, you wanna do somethin’ tonight? Go shopping? Out for ice cream? You name it, we’re there!” Beth said.
I sighed. “I wish I could, but I got a paper due in the morning.”
She echoed my sigh and said “Yeah, I have a test tomorrow and I haven’t done ANY of the reading yet.” She sat back down on her bed and wistfully flipped through the pages in her English textbook.
“How much do you have to read?”
“Oooh, only about a million pages.”
I shook my head and playfully wagged my finger at her. “I told you, that all your partying was gonna come back to bite yah in the butt.” I loved Beth, but she didn’t take her schooling very seriously. She loved going out and enjoying life, and if she had time to squeeze it in, she did school work or went to class.
“I know, I know.” She said. Then “You sure you don’t wanna go shopping?” She said with a sly smile on her face.
“Study!” I said, smiling.
“I heard Target is having a sale on summer wear.” She said in a sing song voice.
“Study!”
“I know you want a Banana Royale with chocolate ice creeaaam.”
“Study!” I said, laughing.
“Aw come on, you’re no fun!”
“Yeah? I’ll tell yah what’s NOT gonna be fun, is when you get kicked out of school and can’t come back in the fall.”
“I’m good with a flat 2.0 GPA, they ain’t gonna kick me out.”
I shook my head and rolled my eyes.
“Ok, Nerd! AFTER we work for a few hours, Then we can go for ice cream?” She asked.
I sighed. “Ok, ONLY if we get some good work done in the next couple of hours.” I said, as I pulled my laptop out of my bookbag and got it set up to get some serious work in.
“Oh goody!” she said with a cheesy smile and clapped her hands like a five year old.
I shook my head again at her silliness.
Then she looked at her watch “Oops, dinner!” And with that, she slammed her book shut, bounced off the bed and went out the door.
For about the hundredth time since I’d got back, I shook my head, and then I got down to work.

Chapter 1

"You are kidding me, right?!" I asked with disbelief.

"I'm sorry, Dicia, but I'm not. We've been together for a long time, now and I feel like this relationship is going nowhere. I guess I'm just sorta bored with it." Aaron, my boyfriend of the past 3 years tells me. He just told me he had found someone new and wanted to break it off! I still cannot believe I'm hearing this.

My stpomach feels like it's in my asophagus, so I can barely squeak out the words "Fine. I gotta go." and I hang up.

Hot tears are burning in my throat and just like that, my world has just been shattered. I put my cell phone into my purse and look around me. I live in Santa Barbara, where I am a junior at UCSB. I'm working on getting my Bachelor degree in Art History. I love this city! It is beautiful! Near the water, not a huge enough city to get lost in, but enough to keep you busy. The mountains are nearby too, so, no matter what you're in the mood for, it's all right there at your fingertips! Old Downtown for some shopping? The beach? Hiking in the Hills? It's pretty much a ten to twenty minute drive to any of those places! I am standing outside Starbucks on State Street, which is the main thoroughfare through of this city. You want shopping? State Street is where you wanna be!

It was 4:30, Wednesday evening and I had just got off work where I work part time at the Gap. I had gone down to Starbucks to get a Caramel Macchiatto to take back with me to the dorms. I had a 10 page paper due in my "Introduction to Architecture and Environment" class at 8 the next morning, and I wasn't even half finished with it yet.

It was coming up ont he end of spring semester, only three more weeks left. Aaron couldn't have picked a worse time to clobber me with this life altering news. It was crunch time! I had papers, finals, and projects galore due the next few weeks before we broke for the summer.

"Well," I thought, "That's his problem. I have things to do, I'll just throw myself into them, and forget him!"

I walked to my car and got in. Driving back to school, with the sun roof open and the stereo blaring, I left Aaron and his mess behind me on State Street!