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We’ve been in each other’s pockets since the summer. Simone even said we sounded married once. Maybe I got swept up in what we were doing. I was so worried about orchestrating the perfect first semester of college that it’s about to pass me by.
As much as it hurts to carry these feelings for Cooper without any hope of him feeling the same, it’s not like he’s gone from my life. We’re still friends. In time, I’ll get over this. After all the work he put in to help me put myself out there, he wouldn’t like it if I just shut myself away.
The thought of his exasperated smile makes a thick laugh escape me. No, what I need to do is live my life. To embrace whatever happens one day at a time instead of worrying about my next five steps. I swallow. To go with the flow.
“Thanks for letting me tell you guys. That really helped.” I sit up. “I think I could go for that milkshake now.”
Simone smiles. “You can have all the milkshakes you want, babe. Want to see a movie after?”
“Yeah, that sounds good.” Time hanging out with my friends is exactly what I need at the moment.
“We’ll support whatever you need to do,” Jenny says.
“We’re here for you,” Simone says. “Whether you want to go full dramatic and coordinate a flash mob in one of his classes to confess or keep it more low key. Or if you don’t want to have anything to do with him right now, that’s cool.”
I snort because that’s probably the last way I’d do it. “I love you. I think what I want to do is give us both some time to cool off after pretending for so long.” My heart pangs, but I know it’s what has to happen. I glance at my desk, no longer piled high with my notebook collection that got me into this mess. “Spend some time focusing on myself first before I do anything else.”
Simone nods. “Respect. We don’t need no man—”
“Or woman. Or non-binary partner,” Jenny says with a bright smile.
“Yes,” Simone and I say in unison. She hugs me as we get up. “There’s no right or wrong way to handle a breakup, fake or otherwise.”
I hug her back. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
“Suffer, obviously,” she intones dramatically.
All three of us laugh. It helps soothe some of the pain radiating in my chest.
I cast one more look at the empty desk on our way out. It’s time I let go of my need to regiment everything and just live.
FORTY
COOPER
I’ve played the morning after the concert in my head over and over every minute of the day for the last week in an effort to work out where the hell I went wrong. Telling Tatum the truth that this hasn’t been fake for me from the start crashed and burned. Then she launched into an agreement complete with sound Tatum Logic. She caught me off guard. Even though I wanted to tell her everything, I backed off and listened to her, taking her hasty acceptance of ending things as a sign she’s still not ready for the truth.
I won’t push her into anything she doesn’t want. Even if I can’t be with her the way I want to be, I’ll still put her needs first.
After half a semester of pretending to date her—with no actual pretending on my part—she still doesn’t see me as the guy she should be with. If she did, she wouldn’t have said she was done being my girl when I asked flat out if this is what she wanted. I failed my goal. Wiped out before I had a chance to tell her I’m in love with her.
There’s no one else for me. She let me go with encouragement to find another girl. I could date every girl on the SBC campus and none of them would compare to her.
Tatum Danvers is the only one I want. The only girl I’ve ever truly wanted, even when she was off-limits.
The thought of her doing the same with other guys is killing me. I’m distracted in every class, picturing another guy getting to know her laugh, the cute way she scrunches her nose, the fact she likes to have music on to hype herself when she’s working out her problems, the fucking sounds she makes when she’s about to fall apart.
It takes everything to keep a tight leash on myself, to stop from barging into her classes to keep every guy away from her. I could make it happen without her knowing, get every guy on campus to keep it strictly friendly with her. It’s only the look I easily imagine if she ever found out I pulled something like that making me kill the idea before it fully forms. She’d be disappointed in me for lying to her in the hotel room when we were talking this out, and I can’t stomach the thought of her disappointment.
That was my chance to say something and I didn’t take it because I didn’t want to pressure her.
My professors notice how distracted I am. When one of them mentions it to me at the end of today’s lecture, I tense. Tatum worked hard to help me figure out what I wanted. I can’t throw away what she’s helped me achieve by slacking off again. I decided I wouldn’t coast through my life anymore.
It’s why I’m venturing across the quad to her dorm building at the end of the day. My chest constricts the closer I get.
She usually gets ready to meet me for dinner around this time. I left my notes there last week, not realizing then we’d be over before the weekend was out. I need them for my economics class, and the notebook also has the business plan I’ve started working on for the surf school I want to open after finishing my degree.
The girls in her dorm side eye me hopefully as I make my way up to the third floor. Word’s spread across campus that we broke up. Some give me the look I’ve come to recognize as an open invitation to fuck around. I ignore them like I’ve been doing to anyone giving me that look. They have no chance of getting with me.
