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JADE
“You busy?” I ask as soon as my best friend, Hayley, answers her phone.
“Um, no. Declan’s at summer camp and Maisie just fell asleep. What’s up?”
I met Hayley my freshman year at CU Boulder. We were both in the education program and were partnered on a project. But while I kept going, Hayley stopped her degree when she got pregnant with her oldest, Declan. Now she is married with two kids. Even though she lives in Colorado Springs with her little family, it is often hard to break away to see each other. But it doesn’t mean she isn’t just a phone call away.
“I broke up with Brian,” I blurt out.
“To break up with someone, you have to be in a relationship with them. Could you really call Brian a relationship?”
Her question stings, but the truth always does.
“Technically, yes.”
“Uh-huh. So technically, how did it go?”
“Surprisingly, not that bad. He almost acted like he expected it.”
I liked Brian. We had a lot in common. Our relationship was easy. But if I am honest with myself, I don’t want easy. I want…more.
“That makes sense.”
“It does?”
“Mmm. I never pictured the two of you together. It was too…”
“Easy?”
“Friendly. The one time you guys came down for New Year’s, it just seemed like there wasn’t any heat. I didn’t sense any physical attraction between the two of you. There was no sexual tension.”
“Because there wasn’t.”
“But you had just started dating. You guys barely even kissed each other at midnight.”
We barely kissed at all. There were no physical displays of affection—public or otherwise. And I had been okay with that. There was more chemistry in my kiss in the bathroom with Shep than in the few kisses I had shared with Brian in the months that we had dated. It made breaking up with him significantly easier than it should have been.
“So what finally prompted you to break up?”
“Finally?”
She sighs. “Oh, Jade. I knew it was coming. You knew it was coming.”
“I…yeah,” I finally admit.
“So, what happened?”
“Shep kissed me.”
One night our freshman year, I’d told her all about Shep—my first love, my first kiss, first everything, including my first heartbreak.
“What? Way to make me wait for the good stuff! I need details, girl.”
“Well, technically, I kissed him.”
“Details. Now.”
“Remember how I texted you about the reunion?”
