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“I don’t care. Throw it at him. Tell him it’s not mine to keep. Just tell him I couldn’t keep it, that it means too much to him and it shouldn’t be with someone else.”
She drew in a loud, dramatic breath. “He won’t like that, Jess.”
“I know. So you’ll do it, right?”
A wicked smile crept over her face. “Of course I’ll do
it.”
I smiled back at my little spitfire roommate, feeling more conflicted than ever as I finished packing.
She was right—Nick wouldn’t like it—but I couldn’t care about that right now. Right now I needed to finish packing and start my new life without Nick, without Rachel, without State.
A new life I never saw coming.
Leaving Home
Jess
Leaving Rachel had been hard. The day my dad came to help me move out of our apartment, I couldn’t stop crying. I knew it was a combination of leaving behind my best friend, a school I genuinely loved, and allowing the emotions of everything regarding Nick to finally bubble up to the surface. Transferring to Northern was the best thing for my future and I never questioned that decision, but it still hurt to say good-bye when I didn’t really want to leave.
“I’ll miss you so much. As soon as you get settled, I’m coming up,” Rachel said.
“You better,” I said fiercely.
“You can’t get rid of me that easily, chica. You’re my white girl,” she said with a smile before delivering a rapid-fire Spanish-filled rant she knew I wouldn’t be able to understand. When I rolled my eyes dramatically, she just talked faster, gesturing with her hands as she spoke.
“Stop!” I laughed through my tears. “You know I don’t know what the hell you’re saying.”
“I know. That’s why it’s so fun for me. I was just threatening anyone who tried to think that they could take my best friend from me.” She stuck out her tongue before wrapping me in a tight hug. “Text me every day.”
“Of course.”
I squeezed her hard before walking out of our apartment for the last time. Refusing to look back, I put one foot in front of the other and headed toward my dad’s truck, now full of all my belongings.
“You okay, sweetheart?” he asked when I buckled myself in.
I nodded as I swiped at my cheek. “I will be.”
“That’s my strong girl,” he said, then put the truck in gear and drove us back home for the summer, away from my old life.
The summer flew by. I found an apartment to share next semester with another student with the help of the Film Production department head at Northern. He had given me his personal e-mail address after my counselor at State had reached out to him, and had been helping me in every step of my transfer journey. I knew he didn’t have to be so kind, but I was beyond thankful for the way he went out of his way for me. My classes were scheduled, I had a new place to live come fall, and I hadn’t even visited the campus yet.
Feeling like my upcoming journey was pretty much settled, I started working with my parents at their deli to occupy my time. Any moments that weren’t crazy busy were the emotional death of me. I needed all the help I could get to keep my mind and thoughts occupied so I wouldn’t focus on Nick’s silence, but it didn’t usually work. He was a force to be reckoned with. His memory refused to be pushed aside, even though he had easily dismissed me.
The moments when I really started to miss him, I reminded myself that he had looked me in the eye at my old apartment and told me he couldn’t stay faithful. I also reminded myself that he hadn’t called or texted me the entire summer. I knew he was busy working with his dad, but no excuse truly lessened the sting. I felt rejected, cast aside, discarded.
I was so mad that he could go day in and day out without reaching out to me, showing me with every twenty-four hours that passed how little he truly cared. But then I was so happy he didn’t reach out to me, terrified of how my heart and mind would react to any attention from him.
I was nothing if not a woman of extremes and contradictions.
One second I was so pissed at him for not asking me to stay. The next, I was so thankful that he hadn’t. My heart ached when I thought about him not fighting for me, for us. Just as quickly, my heart beat in relief that he had let us go.
“If he would have asked you to stay, what would you have said?” Rachel asked one night over the phone.
I planted the heels of my feet against my wall as I leaned back onto my mattress.
“I would have stayed,” I said with a long sigh. “At least, I really would have wanted to.”
