Cheating Fate

Chapter 3: The First Love Fiasco

If High School was a lesson in corruption, University was supposed to be a lesson in reinvention.

I arrived at campus with a bruised ego but an intact spirit. I told myself that the "Adult World" would be different. Here, people were mature. Here, shallow popularity contests didn't exist. Here, intellect and kindness were the currencies of the realm.

I was, once again, deliriously wrong.

I majored in Business Administration, mostly because I wanted to understand how to legally rob people (also known as "Capitalism"), but my real major during Freshman year turned out to be Romantic Suffering.

Her name was Elena.

Elena was the kind of girl who carried around vintage French novels she couldn’t actually read. She drank herbal tea that smelled like wet socks. She wore oversized sweaters and spoke softly about "saving the whales" and "the energy of the universe."

To my nineteen-year-old brain, she wasn’t just a girl; she was a celestial being. She was the moon, the stars, and the entire galaxy wrapped in a thrift-store scarf.

I decided, with the strategic precision of a general going to war, that I would make her fall in love with me.

But I wouldn't do it like Chad or the jerks from high school. No. I was going to be the Gentleman. I was going to be the "Nice Guy" that every romantic comedy promised wins in the end.

I became her shadow.

When she complained that the library was too cold, I gave her my jacket and froze for three hours. When she said she was stressed about her Sociology paper, I didn't just help her; I basically wrote it for her (I got an A, by the way). When she needed someone to listen to her talk about her "inner demons" at 3:00 AM, I was awake, phone in hand, nodding sympathetically.

I was the perfect candidate. I was loyal, attentive, smart, and caring.

In any logical system, I should have been the winner.

But love isn't a logical system. Love is a chaotic casino where the house always wins, and the house is run by a guy named Jax.

Jax was my roommate. And Jax was the human equivalent of a dumpster fire.

He was a "musician," which meant he owned a guitar he rarely played and smelled permanently of cheap cigarettes and regret. He didn't go to class. He didn't do homework. He treated women with a casual indifference that bordered on rudeness. He would forget their names, ignore their texts for days, and when he finally replied, it would just be: "sup."

And yet... women flocked to him.

It drove me insane. I would watch him wake up at noon, scratch his stomach, and walk out the door looking like a homeless model, only to come back two hours later with a phone number written on his hand.

"How do you do it?" I asked him one night, while I was ironing a shirt for my 'date' (which was actually just a study session) with Elena.

Jax looked at me, confused. "Do what?"

"Get girls to like you. You don't even try!"

Jax shrugged, lighting a cigarette inside our non-smoking dorm room. "That's the point, man. If you chase a butterfly, it flies away. If you sit still and look like you don't give a damn, it lands on your shoulder."

I scoffed. "That's stupid poetic nonsense."

"Suit yourself," he said, exhaling smoke in my face. "You're trying too hard, Felix. You reek of desperation. It's like cologne, but sadder."

I ignored him. What did he know? He was just a bad boy. Elena was deep. Elena was soulful. She would appreciate my effort.

Valentine’s Day was approaching. This was my moment. The Grand Gesture.

I spent two weeks planning it. I didn't want to be cliché, so I avoided the standard chocolates and roses. Instead, I wrote a poem.

Now, I know what you're thinking. "A poem? Really, Felix?" Yes, really. But it wasn't a limerick. It was a sonnet. I poured my soul into those fourteen lines. I referenced her eyes, the stars, the whales she wanted to save, and the concept of eternal devotion.

I also bought a vintage first edition of The Great Gatsby, her favorite book. It cost me three months of savings from my part-time job at the campus cafeteria (where I washed dishes for minimum wage).

The plan was simple: We were going to the "Open Mic Night" at the campus coffee shop. I would read the poem on stage. I would give her the book. She would cry. We would kiss. The credits would roll.

The night arrived.

The coffee shop was dim and smelled of roasted beans and pretentiousness. Elena was sitting in the front row, looking beautiful and fragile. I sat next to her, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

"I'm so excited," she whispered, grabbing my hand. "I love art."

"Me too," I squeaked.

The performers were terrible. A guy played the bongos for ten minutes while screaming about the government. A girl read a story about her dead hamster. And then... it was my turn.

I walked up to the microphone. The spotlight blinded me. I unfolded my paper. My hands were shaking.

"This is for someone special," I said, my voice trembling. "Someone who taught me that the universe is vast, but not as vast as my feelings."

I started reading.

It was actually a good poem. The rhyme scheme was perfect. The metaphors were solid. I looked down at Elena. She was smiling. Her eyes were misty.

I was winning.

I finished the last line: "So let the stars collide and fall, for in your eyes, I have it all."

Polite applause rippled through the room. I walked off stage, feeling like a king. I sat down next to Elena. She hugged me.

"That was so sweet, Felix," she said. "You're such a... sweet friend."

Friend.

The word hit me like a sniper bullet. But I didn't have time to process it, because the host announced the next performer.

"Alright, give it up for... Jax!"

My blood froze. Jax wasn't supposed to be here.

Jax stumbled onto the stage. He was clearly drunk. He wasn't wearing a stage outfit; he was wearing the same dirty t-shirt he slept in. He didn't have a poem. He didn't have an instrument.

He grabbed the microphone stand, almost knocking it over.

"Uh... hey," Jax mumbled. He looked at the crowd with glassy eyes. "I didn't write anything. Writing is for nerds."

The crowd chuckled. Elena giggled. She giggled.

"I'm just gonna sing a song I made up right now," Jax slurped. "It's called... 'I Hate This Coffee Shop'."

And he did. He proceeded to mumble a chaotic, off-key, three-minute rant about how the coffee tasted like mud and how everyone in the room was a poser. It was insulting. It was crude. It was objectively terrible art.

And the crowd loved it.

They cheered. They clapped. They loved his "authenticity." They loved his "rawness."

Jax walked off the stage, winked at the crowd, and walked straight toward our table.

He didn't look at me. He looked at Elena.

"Hey," he said, his voice raspy. "You have cool eyes. Wanna get out of here? This place sucks."

I waited for Elena to be offended. I waited for her to tell him that he was rude, drunk, and had just insulted the very event she loved. I waited for her to turn to me, the guy who wrote her a sonnet and bought her a first edition book.

Elena stood up.

She looked at me, then at Jax.

"Sure," she said to Jax, a blush creeping up her cheeks. "It is getting kind of boring here."

She grabbed her bag. She didn't even look at the book I had placed on the table.

"Wait," I said, my voice barely a whisper. "Elena? What about... us?"

She paused and looked at me with a mixture of pity and annoyance. The look you give a puppy that peed on the carpet.

"Oh, Felix," she sighed. "You're great. Really. You're the nicest guy I know. But... you're just too safe. I need passion. I need fire. Jax is... real."

Safe.

She said it like it was a disease. Like being reliable and kind was a genetic defect.

She turned around and walked out the door with Jax. I watched through the window as they laughed under the streetlights. I saw Jax put his arm around her. I saw her lean into him.

I sat alone at the table. The first edition of The Great Gatsby sat in front of me, unopened. The poem I had spent two weeks writing was crumpled in my fist.

The waitress came over. "Can I get you anything else, hon?"

"Yeah," I said, staring at the empty door. "Do you have anything that kills hope?"

She poured me a black coffee.

That night, lying in my dorm room—alone, because Jax didn't come back—I stared at the ceiling. The Universe had delivered Lesson Number Three, and it was the most painful one yet.

Lesson 3: Nobody falls in love with the nice guy. They fall in love with the challenge.

I had treated her like a queen, so she treated me like a servant. Jax treated her like an option, so she treated him like a priority.

I got out of bed. I took the poem out of my pocket. I took the lighter I kept for emergencies.

I went to the balcony. I lit the corner of the paper. I watched my sonnet turn into ash and float away into the cold night air.

Something inside me snapped that night. It wasn't a loud snap. It was quiet. It was the sound of a door locking.

I was done being the poet. I was done being the safety net.

If the world wanted "dangerous," I would figure out how to be dangerous. If the world wanted "fake," I would learn to wear a mask.

I looked at the ashes on the railing.

"No more Mr. Nice Guy," I whispered to the dark.

But as usual, the Universe wasn't done with me yet. I thought hitting rock bottom in my love life was the end of the suffering. I didn't know that my academic life and my first attempt at a "real career" were about to implode in an even more spectacular fashion.

I was about to learn that in the adult world, stealing ideas isn't just common; it's a management strategy.

End of Chapter 3