I’ve managed to avoid Tristan for a whole week. I thought it would be hard, but it wasn’t. His work schedule has remained pretty much the same since our fight. He works late Monday through Wednesday, and has classes all day Thursday and Friday. A couple of days, he came home way after eleven and left before I was up.

On Thursday, in Victorian Literature, I space out for nearly the whole lecture thinking about him and Kathryn. Why does she have to be so hot? And so nice? I’ve never felt this way before. I never thought of myself as a particularly jealous person, but thinking about him and her working late at night at the office makes my skin crawl. I know we’re not together anymore. And worse yet, I’m married and he doesn’t even know it, but still. I don’t want him to be around her. But there’s nothing I can do about it.

I stay out late this evening. I know he won’t be home and I just don’t feel like sitting around my dorm room all day, staring at the walls. Or reading a million BuzzFeed articles and making extra boards to pin more curious but completely unimportant things on Pinterest.

I stop by the coffee shop that Tea and I frequent often and order a cup of green tea.

“Hey!” I hear a familiar voice.

“Hi Tristan,” I say, turning around and forcing myself to smile. What the hell is he doing here?

“What are you doing here?” he asks.

“Just getting some tea, and you?”

“My class got cancelled. So I thought I’d waste some time here,” he says with a shrug. “Oh man, I haven’t seen you in forever!”

Tristan puts his arms around me. His body feels warm and firm, comforting. And for a moment, I’m transported to another time. When we were still together, and in love. When everything in the world was right. And nothing could break us up.

“You smell so nice,” he whispers, giving me a chaste peck on the cheek.

He leans over to kiss my lips, but I turn my head away. I move away from him. My whole body tenses when he puts his arm on the small of my back and doesn’t remove it. Eventually, I just take a step to the side to get myself some space.

“Listen, I’m glad you’re here,” he says.

His face looks serious. Tristan furrows his brows and his eyes look earnest and under control. It’s as if he can stop them from twinkling just by willing them so.

“I can’t stay,” I say.

“Alice, please.” Tristan takes my hand. “I feel like we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot. I haven’t seen you much since…that happened. And I really need to talk.”

“No, I really can’t.” I shake my head and turn to leave.

“You don’t have any more classes today, Alice. You’re just avoiding me,” he says. The desperation in his voice makes me sick to my stomach. Against my better judgement, I turn around and sit down across from him.

“Thank you,” he says, picking up my hand and kissing the back of it. As if he’s some sort of servant. As if I’m some sort of princess.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask. My voice is distant and austere. I’m trying to make it as impersonal as possible. As if that can save me.

“Us,” he says. This time, his eyes twinkle. The light washes over my body as if it’s my conscience, making me feel even more horrible than I already do. I wait for him to continue. I’m afraid that I’m going to start crying if I utter even a word. My throat closes up from the pain, and my mouth runs dry.

“I’m so, so sorry about everything that happened, Alice,” Tristan says. He takes my hands in his and looks me straight in the eye. At first I try to resist, but I can’t avoid his eye contact no matter where I turn. He forces me to lock eyes with him.

“I was a real asshole,” Tristan continues. “I don’t want to excuse any of my behavior, but I was under a lot of stress. I had this intense Macroeconomics problem set due, which I couldn’t do at all. And I was swamped at work. And we had that fight. Oh, it was so stupid.”

I nod and try to look away. When he notices my gaze moving, he takes my chin with his hand and points my head back at him.

“What I’m trying to say, Alice, is that I love you. I’m not confused anymore. I know what I want.”

“And what’s that?” I ask. I can’t believe what he’s saying. It sounds like words. Familiar words. But they don’t make any sense in that order.

“I want to be with you, silly.” He smiles.

“Um,” I start to say. I don’t even know where to begin.

“Please, Alice.” Tristan’s eyes plead with mine. “I love you. And I know I hurt you again, but I want to make it up to you.”

“I don’t know,” I whisper.

“I know you love me too,” he says, kissing my fingertips. “I just know it. I can feel it now.”

Oh, if only it was this simple. Of course I love you, I want to say. But that’s not all that matters. There’s more to it. There’s all this complicated life stuff. All the things that make love so impossible and complex and difficult to handle.

“I love you, too,” I say. I don’t know what else to say. I want to tell him something true. For a second, I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to be a fraud. Every moment we’ve had together has felt like an un-truth ever since we got back from Atlantic City.

“That’s great,” Tristan’s eyes light up. But I shake my head. “What? What’s wrong?” he asks.

Tell him. Tell him now. Tell him that you accidentally married his roommate. He’ll forgive you. If you tell him now. I open my mouth to say it. But nothing comes out.

“I’m not sure that’s enough,” I say.

“Of course it is, Alice,” Tristan says. He moves over to my side of the table. There’s warmth pouring out of him, actual heat, and it wraps me in a warm blanket of love. He puts his arm around my shoulder lifting up my head. He presses his lips onto mine. I want to push him away. He doesn’t know what a horrible person I am and how wrong it is for him to love me. But I don’t. I can’t. I want to stay in this moment forever. I don’t know if it will come again.

“Love is all there is, Alice,” Tristan says through the kiss. I can feel a wide smile form on his lips. “Don’t you know that?”

“No, there are other things. Things that complicate love,” I say, pulling away from him. And if you knew what I did, you wouldn’t think that love is all there is, I say to him silently, in my own head.

“No.” He kisses me again, parting my lips with his and running his tongue over mine. “All you need is love. That’s all anyone needs.”

“That sounds nice,” I say with a smile.

“What’s wrong, Alice?” Tristan says. His face grows more serious. Concerned.

“Nothing.” I shrug. Just tell him. Open your mouth and say, so this is what happened that weekend we went to Atlantic City. We got really drunk, and I mean really drunk, and Dylan and I accidentally got married. But it was just an accident. We’re going to get an annulment. Everything’s going to be okay. Let’s just pretend that everything is the way it was. Like this never happened. I mean, all you need is love, right? And you love me and I love you. That’s all you have to say. Just start talking.

“Alice?” Tristan asks again.

“I don’t know Tristan,” I finally manage to say. “Everything is so complicated now. I don’t know if we can just go back to the way things were.”

“But why? I want to. And I can see that you want to, too,” he says with a hopeful look on his beautiful face. I inhale and breathe out slowly. So what if I did? What if I just moved on with this from this moment forward? Wouldn’t that be something? But, of course, I can’t. I wouldn’t. It would be too wrong.

“Okay.” I nod my head. “Okay. Let’s do it.”

“Okay?” Tristan asks. I can see that he can barely believe his ears. “Seriously? You want to get back together?”

“Yes.” I nod. “I love you. Very much. More than anything.”

“Oh my God, Alice.” Tristan wraps himself around me. I can feel him smelling the top of my head as he hugs me. And I feel his body shaking next to mine.

“I love you,” he whispers as he pulls away.

When I look up at him, I see a few tiny tears building up at the bottom of his eyelids. Tristan isn’t much of a crier – I’ve only seen him cry on two occasions, once when his grandmother died and another when his best friend got into an awful car wreck and we didn’t know if he would live or die.

“I’m so, so sorry about everything,” he mumbles.

“Me too,” I whisper. “I’m sorry about everything.”