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“And, everything is going well?” Rachel asks, her nervousness not lost on me.
I nod. “Yeah. I haven’t been drinking, I’ve been following all the little mental exercises she gives me.”
“That’s good. I’m glad to hear it.”
“I-we—” I clench my jaw. Is this really something we should be talking about now? All I want to do is enjoy Rachel, enjoy her touch, her smiles, her presence. We have at least four months to talk about the future. There’s nothing wrong with waiting. And besides, even if we do end up breaking up now, we still have to live together.
“Did you talk about the NFL?”
I nod. “Yeah, we did.”
“She must be excited for you.”
“Yeah, everyone is excited for me these days,” I say while rising, needing some distance for what I’m about to say.
Rachel is frowning at me. She looks worried as she looks me over. Of course, she’s worried. I’m acing weird. I’m being that Hunter again, the one who was so cruel to her, the one who refused her help and refused to speak with her.
God, I could really use a drink.
“Why don’t you seem excited?” She takes my hand. “Is everything okay, Hunter?”
Part of me wants to push her away, but I grip her hand. I can’t run away forever. We should at least speak about what we want out of this last semester together. I owe her at least that. “I’m worried,” I say, my voice hardly above a whisper. “About what will happen after this semester.”
Rachel nods. “I know. I’m worried, too.”
“You are?” I smile, feeling so relieved as I watch her nod.
“Of course, I am. You’ll be leaving soon, and then I will hardly ever get to see you.”
I pull her closer toward me. Rachel kicks her boots off, her feet moving to the couch. She sits on her knees in front of me, her green eyes glimmering up at me. All I want to do is kiss her now. She can see that we need to break up. She knows that we’ll hardly get to see each other. This is what makes sense. It will hurt. It will definitely hurt, but then maybe after she graduates school, if we’re both interested, we can try again.
Yes. That’s what makes the most sense.
“But we’ll still have video chat and we can text and call each other,” Rachel continues with a bright smile. “We can still make it work.”
My smile falters. No. We’re not on the same page at all. She still thinks we should date.
But can’t she see how that will ruin us?
“And then this semester we can just hang out as much as possible,” Rachel says while pulling me closer. “We can go on dates. I can try going to the gym with you.” She laughs. “Although, I won’t really be able to do anything.”
“Rachel,” I say while shaking my head.
Rachel frowns, tilting her head, her confused gaze making me feel even worse, but it needs to be said. She needs to know what’s going on inside my head. “What? Why are you acting so weird? What’s wrong?”
“We can’t,” I whisper.
“We can’t what?” Her eyes are glimmering with unshed tears. She knows what I’m going to say.
“We can’t be in a relationship after the semester ends,” I say, my voice cracking.
A tear slips from her eye, followed by another. “You can’t be serious,” she whispers.
“I am.”
She yanks her hands away from me, anger replacing sadness as she stares back at me. “Why?”
I flinch, my eyes slowly closing as I try to regain my sense of calm.
