Misunderstandings Read Online Free Page A

to justify my actions. My decisions were mine to live with, but that didn’t mean the burden was mine to carry alone.
    “It’s nice to see you’re still an asshole,” I said, watching the numbers above the door light up with each floor we passed. Only twenty floors left and I could get back on an elevator going down. I’d take a cab to Melissa’s and let her know what I thought of her fiancé’s interference.
    “And I’m not surprised you’re still a selfish bitch.”
    I tore my eyes away from the numbers to glare at him.
    “Some things never change,” he snarled just as the elevator came to a halt.
    Relieved that I could finally escape the oppressiveness of the enclosed box, I waited for the doors to slide open. When they didn’t open after a moment, I looked up at the numbers, confused that they were all lit up.
    “You have got to be kidding me,” Justin said, reaching for the telephone in the elevator’s call box.
    Dread filled me. “We’re stuck?” I asked as panic quickly made its appearance. “We’re stuck?” I repeated, since he had ignored me the first time.
    “Can I help you?” I heard through the receiver in Justin’s hand.
    “We stopped moving here. Is something wrong with the elevator?” Justin answered, holding the phone closer to his ear so I could no longer hear her response. Not that anything themysterious person had to say would have mattered at the moment. I was freaking out, making it hard to hear anything but my own shallow breaths.
    I frantically jabbed at the OPEN DOOR button over and over again to no avail. My breaths became short quick pants as I struggled to bring air into my lungs, which were refusing to cooperate. The elevator walls felt like they were closing in on me. I instinctively held out my arms to push them away. Black spots popped up in front of my eyes and I felt myself swaying slightly. I could hear Justin’s voice from far off as he hung up with the operator.
    “What’s the matter with you?” he asked, still sounding like he was talking from the other side of a tunnel.
    “I hate closed-in spaces,” I mumbled, realizing just as blackness pulled me under that this was another thing he didn’t know about me.
    Maybe we really never had known each other at all.

4.
    November 2010
    The crashing of our dorm room door against the wall woke me out of a sound sleep Halloween night. I sat up confused, rubbing my knuckles across my eyes so I could fully comprehend the sight in front of me.
    “What the hell happened to you?” I asked, taking in the sight of Melissa standing in the doorway with half-inflated balloons covering her from her neck to her ankles. She looked like a cluster of grapes that had been left on the vine too long and had started to shrivel up.
    “I met someone,” she squealed, bouncing up and down on my bed, not caring that she was crushing my legs.
    “Again?” I asked, tugging at my legs to dislodge them from under her bony butt.
    “This one’s not like the others. He’s different,” she said in a dreamy voice as she absently picked at the balloons that covered her body.
    “Right,” I answered, swinging my legs off the mattress. Glancing at the clock, I grimaced when I saw the time. “Gahhh, Melissa. It’s two freaking AM. I have a trig exam in the morning,” I complained, heading to the communal bathroom we shared with the room next door. Whoever came up with the brilliant idea that four girls could share a teeny-tiny bathroom must have been smoking crack.
    “Oops, sorry. I lost track of time. Rob and I spent hours talking. He’s so smart and funny. He’s some kind of business major, but he writes this poetry that makes your toes curl,” she gushed as she flopped backward on my mattress, popping the few remaining balloons on her back that still had air in them.
    “You don’t say,” I mumbled. I was used to her immediate fascination with something that was new and shiny. I closed the bathroom door behind me, but I could still