BAD KARMA
By Megan Hubbell

It’s been a long day. You slept through your alarm and missed the first half of your English class, which earned you a death glare from your teacher. You had to stop by the bookstore to sell back a textbook from last quarter which you’d saved but hadn’t needed; they informed you that it wasn’t needed for next quarter, but they would offer you thirteen dollars of the original $87 you spent on it. Discovering that bookstore employees never haggle, you grudgingly accepted the thirteen dollars and hurried on to grab a bite to eat. You stood in the lunch line in the sleeting rain for ten minutes before arriving in the middle of the crowded cafeteria to find that the chicken noodle soup was gluey, the salad brown, the fruit bruised, turkey undercooked, and pizza dry. You opted for the tofu stir fry and a few cookies despite the fact that you despise tofu. You had ten minutes to kill before your next class, so you stopped by the library to study, but got nothing done because somehow you got sidetracked and stopped by a computer to check your e-mail, Facebook, Myspace, Youtube, and—
Your Music Theory teacher was the second one of the day to shoot you a dirty look for being late to class. This is not an interesting class on the best of days, and the fact that you were up until four in the morning last night certainly didn’t help your ability to stay awake today. You were halfway to your dorm after theory class when you remembered that you had choir class right after theory. You started backtracking before deciding that it just wasn’t worth it, and continued on down the puddle-drenched brick path to your dorm, feeling slightly guilty for playing hooky on the one class you actually enjoy.
Now you’ve arrived back at your room, and your roommate proceeds to confront you about your terminally messy desk spilling over into her incredibly tidy space, as well as the garbage cans you have not taken out, your bedcovers falling over the top of the bunkbed onto her bunk, your moldy lasagna stinking up the mini-fridge, your hair all over the shower stall…
You stand there listening patiently to her, but it doesn’t really sink in until the lasagna part that she actually wants you to do something about it. She finally runs out of words and crosses her arms, daring you to react. You consider telling her that you’re skipping choir to hear her tirade, but you figure she’d somehow turn that against you, and she doesn’t need any more ammunition. Dropping your backpack on the floor, you pick up one of the trash cans and head out the door without a word. Trotting down the four flights of stairs to the dumpsters behind the residence hall, you empty the can and pause next to the massive metal box, wondering what your next move will be. You have a theory assignment due in two days, an eight-page essay due by Friday—it’s Tuesday—and piano practice to catch up on before your lesson tomorrow. Solace in music seems like an awfully good idea right now, especially considering your roommate’s state of mind. The fact that she just exploded without warning at you makes you wonder if she is secretly considering murder to rid herself of your clutter once and for all. You contemplate taking up residence in a practice room at the Performing Arts Center.
The trash can emptied, you return it to the room—your roommate has disappeared—and head back up to the austere red-brick Performing Arts Center. En route to the practice room, you pass your crush, who plays the same instrument as you do and even works with you in the music club you are helping to form. Unfortunately, he seems oblivious to your feelings toward him. His name is Thomas, like the tank engine and also your crabby great-uncle who never remembers your name, but he goes by Tom, a name which you never used to like because of Great-Uncle Thomas. Tom has made you rethink your opinion on the subject. You wave hello to him but he doesn’t seem to notice, too deep in conversation with—you realize with startled irritation—your best friend.
Your annoyance at the day’s events accumulating rapidly, you arrive at the practice rooms in a huff. They are all taken except for the one on the very end, which no one ever uses because the room is always cold and the piano sounds as though it could be used to torture prisoners of war. You walk in anyway, sit down to play, and realize belatedly that you have forgotten your music books. Feeling murderous at this point, you hammer out a few angry C minor chords before stripping off your jacket and leaving it on the bench as a way of reserving the room in the unlikely event someone else tries to use it in your absence. You trek downstairs to check your locker for the music and find in dismay that it is empty except for a few deteriorating 3-ring binders and the scarf you thought you lost. Your music is in your backpack… which is back in your dorm room. So much for avoiding your roommate. You bitterly slam the locker door shut and regard it for a moment, imagining that this is the point in movies where the protagonist slams his fist into the door, leaving a perfectly formed dent. Being a pianist, you value your hand too much to attempt that, so you turn away and trudge back down the hallway and out of the music building.
The January wind hits you hard and you hunch your shoulders against it, wishing you’d worn a sweater instead of a thin t-shirt under the coat that you left back at the practice room. Someone calls your name and you don’t look up at first, but then it happens again and you turn around to see Tom a short distance behind you on the sidewalk. He is standing at the side of his car and looks warm in the green jacket he always wears and a knitted scarf piled around his neck.
“Do you have a minute?” he calls. You suppose you do, so you walk over to him, hoping distantly that he will be gallant, notice the goosebumps rising in rigid formation on your arms, and offer you his coat. Or at least his scarf. He doesn’t, however, and you stand there for a long minute wondering if he just likes watching you shiver.
“I’ve been thinking,” he starts.
You resist the urge to wittily retort, “Oh, really?”
“And, uh,” he continues, “I’ve been talking to Jenny Addison about things…you know Jenny, right? The violinist?”
“Yeah,” you reply calmly, but your stomach turns inexplicably. “We’re friends.” Your irritation returns in a flash as you remember seeing him with Jenny just a short while ago. His unusual reluctance to get to the point is both annoying and unsettling: something’s not right.
“I wanted to wait until now to ask you this, because I wasn’t sure how well she knew you, and I’d hate to make things awkward for either of you, so… hey, are you cold?”
Are pianos heavy? Was Beethoven deaf? You nod frigidly and he unzips his jacket and offers it to you. He waits for you to slip it around your shoulders before going on.
“Anyway, I was talking to her earlier, and I thought that maybe you, uh…”
The gist of his stuttering finally dawns on you, and it’s not the realization you’d hoped for. You narrow your eyes at him as he pauses, glancing down as though gathering courage to say his next words. “I don’t believe this,” you cut him off, and at first you’re startled by your own words, but then you feel the anger that has been building all day gathering momentum. “You barely talk to me outside of club business, you ignore me every time I study in the music library while you’re there too, you never reply to my Facebook messages, you never pay attention to my makeup or nice clothes, and you don’t even wave to me in the hall!” You feel yourself turning into an uglier person with every word, but you’re too far gone to care: it’s a catharsis, and Tom is taking the blame for every person who has messed with you today.
He’s totally taken aback by your rant, reduced to stammering as you stand there seething. “Wait, Alyssa, what are you—“
“And then,” you interrupt him again, “you have the gall to ask me to—to ask out my best friend for you? Are you blind? What do you think I am, some kind of pushover idiot who’ll do anything for a guy? ‘Oh, sure, just ask Alyssa Hawkins to talk to Jenny! She’ll fix you up in no time!’ Don’t you care how I feel? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore, does it! You can just take your dates and stuff them!” Voice rising to a screech, you whip off the warm jacket and fling it on the wet pavement as he stares at you. Turning on your heel, you march off down the sidewalk to return to your dorm, feeling viciously triumphant.
Halfway down the road to your dorm, you start to regret your words, and three-quarters of the way, you realize with a jolt that maybe your conclusion was wrong—maybe he hadn’t meant to ask Jenny out after all, but you. Beginning to panic, you turn around (again) and race all the way back to within sight distance of where Tom’s car was parked.
The street is empty.