Be Careful What You Wish For by Jade C. Jamison Page B

certain where his head was.  I could hope, but I wouldn’t know until I saw him again.
    If I saw him again.
    So I slept until noon because I also had to work closing shift that night, and I got in the shower, refusing to look at my phone.   I wasn’t ready.  I made my way into the kitchen, my body wrapped in my blue robe, my hair wrapped in a towel on my head.  Bless Steph.  She sometimes worked an opening shift at the mall on Saturday and Sunday mornings and, when she did, she always left the coffee on so I could have some when I got out of bed.  Lindsey, without fail, spent Friday and Saturday nights with her boyfriend, so I wouldn’t see her until Sunday afternoon sometime.  I often wondered how the girl kept the grades she did, but she studied hard during the week.  I guessed weekends were her time off, and as long as she could keep her focus Monday through Friday, she had it.
    Not me.  In fact, I did better in school when I was single.  I let men consume me, my thoughts, my heart, my everything…at first.  It was always like that at first.  After some time, though, the flame would wane and I could divide my attention again.
    I supposed it would be that way with Kage, too.  Right now, I was in the initial phase of what might be a relationship, the all-consuming part that would bury and drown me, absorb me to the exclusion of all else.  Oh, don’t get me wrong.  I’d still give school my all, but part of my brain would be off doing its own thing, unable to give much attention to composition theory and research in rhetoric.
    I realized, stirring cream into my coffee, that I was putting off checking my phone.  I knew I was worried that either there would be nothing from Kage (in which case I had the added burden of deciding if it would seem desperate if I took the initiative and texted him again) or there would be something I wouldn’t want to read.  But I had to grow a pair and get it over with.
    I he aded to my room, feeling chilly.  It wasn’t just my nerves, though.  My room tended to be cooler than the rest of the apartment.  I’d complained about it a couple of times but had finally given up.  You’d think being colder in the winter would translate to a cooler room in the summer (bonus!), but no such luck.  That room retained heat just like the rest of the apartment, and it was only thanks to the A/C that we felt any relief.  Fortunately, my room was tolerable in the summer.  In the winter, though, I used an extra blanket when I went to bed.  Now, with wet hair, it felt even colder.
    I got my phone and went back in the kitchen, though, so I could be warm when I read my texts.  I saw, swiping the screen, that I did have a message from Kage.  I’d forgotten that Fay had told me the day before when I’d added his info to my phone that his name was spelled with a K instead of a C , and that made it all the more hot.  I don’t know why I found his name sexy, but it was.
    I sat at the table so I could read his message.  I’d only entered his contact info as Kage along with his cell number.  And so I pulled up his text, and it was short and sweet, left over an hour earlier.  You around?
    Hmm.   Simple.  I hoped it was because he wanted to see me.  I was feeling insecure, so I kept mine basic as well.  Yes.   The longer the time went that I didn’t see him (after all, we’d only been together one time ever), the less sure I felt about everything.  I held my cards close to my chest, because I wanted to see his move first.
    I sipped at my coffee, staring obsessively at the phone’s black screen, waiting for it to light up with his text back.  It didn’t.  I looked up, across to the window staring out at the light blue sky.  I should have enjoyed that pale sky because the forecast predicted gray—snowstorms and bitter cold over the next few days.  But it was already feeling gray in my heart.
    I finished the cup of coffee and poured another, deciding to get ready for the