Fall Break
Kris was on break from school and there was nothing he loved more than a vacation. Even if it was fall break and only for two days. By Kris' logic it was two days off he didn't have before.
But that was the problem with school breaks. The kids got to be off, while the teachers had to work. That was when Kris felt lucky he was just a sub. He didn't want to have to spend two days stuck in meetings. There was no bigger waste of time to Kris' way of thinking.
College had been sucking the life out of him lately, and he couldn't wait to just take a few days to go visit Katy and just hang out with her, but his life and his classes just got in the way.
Why was it that every single time he was assigned some project, he got the most unmotivated people to work with? Or when he had a week where he had several things due, they were all due on the same exact day? It was cruel and unusual punishment. Kris just wanted one day where he could sit and not worry about what was coming. Get lost in video games and have his mom's cooking. But fall break wasn't going to be enough time for a trip home. It would be hard enough to squeeze in that visit to Katy, but Kris would do his best.
So, he got up early and got in the car, with his Mountain Dew and breakfast sandwich from McDonalds - the kind with bacon, not sausage - and got on the road, enjoying the fact that the weather was a little cooler in October, and he wasn't sweltering.
After hours in the car singing to the radio and stopping once at a gas station, Kris pulled into the lot of Katy's school. He loved surprising her.
Kris sneaked down the hall to the dorm where she lived with her roommate and tapped on the door, armed with a box of her favorite doughnuts and a smoothie from that shop on campus.
"Surprise..." he said, faltering as he took in the sight of his girlfriend wearing her glasses, with a pencil tucked in her hair.
"Kris. What are you doing here?" she said, startled.
"What are you doing?" he shot back. "It's fall break, you're not supposed to do homework."
"I'm really swamped with school, Kris, and I have to work today and tomorrow. I'm sorry, but I really don't have time right now, and you can't stay here."
Kris' mouth dropped open. "Well, what are you studying? I can help," he offered.
Katy shook her head. "No, you can't. It's for a test for my major, and it's like, secret and stuff. You can't know what'll be on it and I can't share the information with you. I'm sorry."
"Well, do you want to meet for lunch? Seriously, I have the next two days totally free."
Katy sighed. "And I'm totally booked. I'm sorry, Kris. You should just go."
"All right," he sighed, and turned to leave. But he stopped short, stepping inside and giving her a kiss. Then, he left the doughnuts and the smoothie with a little yellow flower he had picked on the way inside in a pile outside the door.
And then he walked away, leaving the stuff in a pile, and the girl he loved behind.