Overall, Lewis’s freshman year had been a success so far. He knew his buddies were going through some stuff, but he was feeling good about the season and had pretty much locked down the second-base position. He had even been dating a sophomore girl, Scarlett, who was part of the campus emo scene. They didn’t know much about each other yet, and they fought every few days or so, but the sex was phenomenal. Things were looking up.

Scarlett was an RA and had a single room, so the two spent a lot of time there. One spring night, Lewis and Scarlett were working together on their resumes for summer internships when Scarlett had a question.

“What font do you think I should use?” she asked. “I think this one looks goofy.”

“Yeahh, I’d have to agree,” Lewis said. “The standard is Times New Roman size 12, so I’d go with that.”

“What, are you calling me stupid?” Scarlett was suddenly indignant.

“Uhh, no, I’m just literally agreeing with you. I think if you go with that font, you might as well be using Comic Sans. I’m just trying to help.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job!” Scarlett snapped. 

“But what’d I do?” Lewis was baffled. He had feelings for Scarlett, but this seemed to happen a lot.

“Comic Sans? Really?” She punched him in the arm, and not in a friendly way.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s not get violent here,” Lewis tried to reason. “I need you to calm down.” He instantly regretted this. It was like pouring fuel on the fire.

“CALM DOWN?!” Scarlett shrieked. “I can’t handle this. I need to get away.”  She got up, opened the door, and walked out of the room down the hallway. Lewis followed her.

“Scarlett, please, this is too much,” he said. “Can we please just try to work this out?”

“There’s nothing to work out,” Scarlett sighed as they walked outside into the night. “You need to give me time and space to process this.”

“But what’s there to process?” Lewis asked. “I just gave you the advice that you asked for.”

“But you did it in such a condescending way,” Scarlett said. “And now you’re trying to gaslight me and act like you just said it normally.”

“Oh come on, this is ridiculous,” Lewis moaned. “Are we really fighting over this? Can’t we just have peace?”

“DON’T. CALL. ME. RIDICULOUS.” Scarlett got up in his face. “And I’m gonna need you to stop following me around, or I’m gonna call campus security on you for harassment.”

“Uh, yeah. And we’re done. Really.” Scarlett was crying. “I … just can’t do this anymore. I tried to make it work, I really did.”

“Oh come on, you can’t be serious.” Lewis slapped his hand to his forehead. She had “broken up” with him multiple times before, so he had no idea whether this was real or not. 

“Serious as a heart attack. Go hang out with your other bitches. Bye.” She continued to sob and walked away. Lewis sighed as he began the walk back to his dorm room. This felt like the plot of every 2000s emo song. He knew it would probably be okay tomorrow, but this was getting exhausting.