Breaking Up Backwards

1 | About Today

Listening to:

About Today - The National

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December 9th, 2018

TIM

          Tim was late.

          He took in his surroundings through -3.75 prescription glasses, which were past the bridge of his nose and threatening to slip off. His tongue, planted between parted lips and slightly crooked teeth, made it evident to every eye in the shop that he was busy.

          The ideas came and his fingers were fast, darting across the keyboard with a lightning speed that only a student who didn't write his paper in time could do. His coffee was getting colder by the minute, but he was so, so close to hitting the send button.

          He heard Greg stirring beside him, taking Tim out of his groove for a mere second. The aroma of coffee helped him concentrate usually, and even the sound of people talking in the background had its special purpose. It all came together and brought him a sense of comfort, sense of direction.

          For some reason, as if Greg couldn't take a hint, his elbow came up into Tim's side, causing a domino effect of damage to ensue.

          Tim's glasses gladly slipped off his nose and clattered onto his keyboard. To his absolute hellish luck, his document disappeared and, in its place, a little comment box reading 'Sent' replaced it.

          His mouth fell open, his eyes widening as far as they could go.

          "Oh..." Greg realised what he had done. He slowly looked at Tim with a sheepish grin.

          "Why..." He began, not even knowing where to start. "...Would you do that? God damn it, Greg!" He was out of his seat now. Full panic mode.

          A lady in a red cashmere sweater lifted her head from her paper, a large frown plastered her face as the two men interrupted her groove.

          Tim ran his hands through his curly brown hair, his fingers tightening at the roots. If it weren't for the audience that he had accumulated, he would have pulled his hair right out.

          "Could you not see how literally head first into this assignment I was?" He gestured frantically at the laptop, sort of expecting it to come alive and defend his honour.

          Greg surveyed the table area and grabbed Tim's glasses for him. "I mean, come on man. You really should have had it finished by now."

          Offended, he snatched his glasses. "You know I do my best work under pressure."

          Tim did do exceptionally well under pressure, and he took that as a sick joke the universe was playing on him.

          "Speaking of pressure," Greg said, his tone shifting from first gear to fourth, "look who just added me on Instagram."

          Tim could never play angry for too long, no matter how hard he tried. He found himself sitting next to his friend again. "This had better be good, Greg," he sighed heavily.

          Greg did, in fact, have a good reason as to why he elbowed Tim and aided in sending an incomplete assignment to the hardest grading professor at Northwestern University.

          Tim didn't know it yet, but his day was about to get a whole lot worse.

          He watched with sadness in his eyes as Greg shuffled through Josie McCall's Instagram page, his heart beat slowing and his stomach tying into a deathly knot. He swallowed the lump that formed in his throat as what he was afraid of the most, came to fruition.