The Writer and the Medical Student

I know it's easter, but I'm nineteen years old, my kid sister gets an Easter egg, I really don't need one, quite apart from the fact that I don't actually like chocolate. I think my sister gets my parents to buy me one because she knows I don't like it, that way she gets two.

So, Easter came and went; on the Tuesday after, Mum and dad were out at work, my sister was out with her friends and I was in the house, on my own, reading Stephen King's book on writing when the doorbell rang.

I opened it and she was standing there, my least favourite medical student in the whole world.

"Diana," I said, trying to keep any hint of interest out of my voice.

"Dan," she said, "I owe you an apology."

"For spending most of a term reeling me in while you had a boyfriend at home, then spending the whole of the second term ignoring me, what makes you think you owe me an apology?"

"For exactly that," she said.

"Well, don't worry about it, I'm over whatever it was that made me upset over it."

"So what is this apology you owe me?"

"I could tell you that more easily inside than standing on the doorstep," she said.

My parents had, at least brought me up to be polite. I stood back and gestured for her to come in, then led her through to the living room.

"Have a seat," I said, indicating the sofa.

She sat and I made the obligatory offer of a drink.

She asked for a glass of water, I got it for her and a can of Pepsi Max for myself.

"So, you're here to apologise for something, or perhaps just to let me know you owe me one?" I said.

I sat down in an armchair opposite her.

"When we parted just before Christmas, I wasn't completely honest with you. I had a long term boyfriend at home."

"I know, I rang to make sure you'd got home safely and was told that you were out with your boyfriend. I take it from the fact that you're apologising meant that that was true."

"Yes, my idiot sister, knew that I was out with Peter, what she didn't know was the reason I was out with Peter. I was telling him that I'd met somebody at uni and that I could feel something between us. I finished with him."

"And yet you didn't ring me for nearly two weeks."

"And when I did, all you did was return my wish for a merry christmas and hang up on me. That was when my sister told me about your earlier call."

"So when you got back from finishing with your home boyfriend, because you'd found someone new at uni, I'm assuming that was me."

"It was," she said.

"Then you didn't think, I'll ring my new boyfriend and say, 'hey I've finished with my old boyfriend, how about we get together'? It would have been much simpler to say to me in the first place, 'I have a boyfriend back home,' and leave it at that."

"Then you'd have..."

"Then I'd have still been your friend and then if, at Christmas, you'd rung me and told me that you and the boyfriend were finished, maybe we would not be having this conversation right now. I'm sorry, Diana, first of all I don't believe your story and secondly I don't like attempts to manipulate people which is what you were trying to do. But instead, you encouraged me to start developing feelings for you, I presume in case your boyfriend had moved on when you got home. I don't play those sort of games, Diana. Maybe I'll see you around back at uni."

"I'm sorry Dan," she said, "I really did feel that we may have something before Christmas, I really did finish with my ex although I think he'd already decided to do it before I did and I just thought after Christmas you weren't interested, I'm sorry to have bothered you."

She stood and put her glass down on the coffee table.

"Can we at least say hi to each other if we pass on campus?" she asked.

"I'd actually like to get to know you better," I said, "but if you're going to be dating more than one of us, I need to know. Not the details, but what will ruin things is if I ask you out and you say no and give some excuse that's a lie. If you're going to date multiple guys I want to know that that's the situation not get turned down because you're washing your hair or something and then have someone tell me the next day they saw you out with someone else."

"So you've no objection to me going out with other guys?"

"So long as you're doing it openly and not behind my back and that as soon as you get serious with somebody, whether that somebody is me or someone else, you let everybody involved know and become exclusive with that someone. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Good, then I really am looking forward to getting to know you, really know you."

"And I you, there's one thing I don't understand though, you live less than an hour's drive from the uni. How come you're spending money on student accommodation, when you could live here with your parents?"

"Because if I lived here, I would miss a large part of the student experience."