EVAN

I reluctantly left late that night. With a twin sized bed and 3 roommates in a 2 bedroom apartment, it wouldn’t have felt comfortable to stay, though I longed to wake up next to him again the way we had over the summer.

Long kisses and embraces bought us minutes in that parking lot. His thumb ran across my cheeks, wiping away my tears shed from the pain of leaving and being apart again. Hints of this being the last good day in the back of our minds.

The three hour drive home was agonizingly long. Driving in the dark was so much worse than in the day. It’s a miracle I made it home with so little sleep. I was on a love high. That’s my only explanation.

I couldn’t tell you how long it was before I got the text. That’s right, THE text. He couldn’t even call me to break up. He took the cowards’ way out. My heart dropped into my stomach. Pain shot through my chest. I stopped breathing and my world went black except for a small message on a small phone screen. After 8 years, I can’t say exactly verbatim what the message said. I do remember him saying he wanted to experience college to the fullest without anything holding him back. I was holding him back, yet he agreed to talk in person only if I drove to him. I stupidly drove all the way out there. If he was going to do this, I was going to make him look me in the eyes and tell me.

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I immediately left. Three hours of nausea. Three hours of the pain in my chest that wouldn’t let up. Three hours of crying. I didn’t know how I had any tears left. I texted him when I got into town. He responded and surprised me by being out of class already. Turns out he didn’t go. I can’t remember his excuse, but I’d like to think he was sick thinking of not being with me, even though I know that’s not the case. Or we wouldn’t have broken up.

I knocked lightly on the door. He answered in just a pair of shorts. We were the only ones in the apartment. We sat in silence mostly. Eye contact was minimal as I worked through everything he was saying. It sounded like he was a million miles away. Ringing in my ears acting as a coping mechanism to protect my fragile self from hearing everything that would destroy me.

I was about to stand up from my position on the couch next to him and leave. I was obviously wasting both of our time and I was just making myself look crazy. That’s when he sprang forward with wet eyes and wrapped his arms around me, pulling me to him. He cupped my face and kissed me over and over, tasting salty with my tears. “I’m so sorry. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to break up,” he rumbled softly at me.

Foreheads pressed together, I looked into his blue eyes at close range. “You mean that?” I choked out through my sobs. He nodded, kissing me over and over. He pulled me away to the bedroom and he made it up to me in the best way he knew how.

Something didn’t sit right with me afterwards. He didn’t want to go to dinner. That boy could always eat. It was like he didn’t want to be seen with me. Red flag #1,567,525. Then he didn’t give me another shirt to sleep in….and refused to take my apartment key back. I know what you’re thinking: girl, you are blind and dumb. I was. Very much blind and dumb. I’d love to go back and smack some sense into 22 year old me. I was caught up in what I thought was love and I couldn’t see how horrible I was being treated. After all, he BEGGED to take me on a date and be his. Why would he hurt me if he begged to be with me to begin with?

The following week was the longest of my life. He ghosted me. Total. Silence. It broke me for a second time.