I woke up a lot colder than I fell asleep. Sure, I had a blanket over me, like I was good and tucked in. The warmth I preferred though was conspicuously absent.

Glancing over at the clock, it was a little past noon. I was so caught up in the moment last night that I honestly had no idea what time I really fell asleep. Throwing my legs over, their ache also reminded me of everything that had happened, the bliss that had been pounding through me, and how it was now leaving me pleasantly sore. Bruce had managed to leave that effect on me before even without properly fucking me, but now that I allowed him to do that, I expected to enjoy this ache a bit more often than I did before.

"Bruce?" I called out, expecting to hear him respond, thinking that possibly I just woke up when he ran off to the bathroom to do less sexy things with his cock. "You already up?"

My obvious question didn't get any response. Pushing myself to my feet, I walked over to my bathroom to double check if he was there or not.

This was so unlike him. I'd spent many nights beside him, and he was always there when I woke up. I looked around for a note, found none. I went to my phone to see if he left a text behind or something similar. Nope. Nothing.

Phone still in hand, I nakedly walked through my house, bashfully avoiding windows. Maybe he was making breakfast for me? Nope, not in the kitchen. He needed some air? He wasn't in my backyard. I was soon certain that I was completely alone in my house. Where did Bruce go off to?

Taking up my phone, I found his contact page, decorated with little heart emojis. I hit the call button, hoping that my worry about his location wouldn't come off as possessive or desperate. It rang, and then rang some more. Soon, it forwarded to his voice mail. "Bruce? Where'd you run off to? Last night was wonderful, but it's not like you to take off like this."

I followed up with a text message in case he couldn't respond immediately.

Where are you?

Heading back up to my room doubt started to creep into my mind. Again, I talked to other girls. I wasn't totally naive. One friend of mine, Megan, told me of how her basketball star boyfriend dumped her after she gave him her virginity. It devastated her, made her feel used, like all she was was a notch on the bedpost to him. Really? She was. Teenaged boys, for the most part, are total assholes.

Bruce was different, I always told myself. He was there for me, he wanted me to happy, he'd go to war for me. That's why I loved him so much. In a time where so many girls cope with thinking if they can be loved, Bruce was there affirming me that yes, I was loved, I was beautiful, and I was wanted, needed even.

It would be absurd to think that Bruce was that patient for a notch on his bedpost. Four years. We were thick as family, if being that thick with family weren't icky.

The truly terrifying part was that the thought was creeping into my imagination. How he suddenly vanished on me, how even as time passed, I still wasn't getting a response to where he was.

I dressed myself, and decided that I needed to look around, ask some questions. One of our mutual friends may have seen him or know what was really going on. It was a Sunday, so most people who weren't cursed with the scourge of a part time job tended to just use the day to laze about. In particular, we favored a cafe downtown. All the friend groups on TV tended to keep hanging out at the same place, so we tended to do the same, until we realized it was kinda dumb to do that.

Still, they have some nice milkshakes and cookies, so a lot of us kept hanging out there anyway.

Someone who I knew would be there, and if Bruce wasn't picking up, it wasn't like I had a whole lot of leads.

I felt sort of stalkerish to be so bothered about finding him. It wasn't like we were attached at the hip. We both understood being our own person was important. After last night, though, I had to see him. Part of me had to be sure, and I was feeling so much like shit for even suspecting that he'd do anything like the asshole who Megan slept with did.

As I walked into the cafe, it was sort of busy. There were people all over, a cacophony of voices greeting me as the door closed behind me. Many of them I knew, but as I scanned the room, playing amateur detective wouldn't be necessary, as Bruce was right there.

He was sitting at a small table, a tall shake in front of him, likely a protein one, as he tended to do after a good workout or long game.

"There you are," I said, sitting down across from him. "I was wondering where you went off to."

Bruce looked at me, then down into his beverage. "Hey, Noelle." His words lacked any enthusiasm.

"What's up? You left me all alone when I woke up this morning." I shot him a seductive grin. "Maybe I wanted to wake you up in a special way to show my appreciation."

"I got a call. You were so beautiful sleeping that I didn't want to wake you up."

"What was the call?"

He was silent. He bought the pause further time by taking a drink from his shake. "It was a surprise to me. I had to respond. Noelle, we need to have a talk."

My eyebrow raised. "We're already talking."

"Privately."

"We're hidden in plain sight, Bruce. No one can hear us over everyone else."

"Okay, okay." He took a deep breath. "The talent scouts. You know, the ones that were working for UCLA?"

"They didn't want you. None of the schools that came by did. Granted, it was only like three schools showed any interest in this podunk little town."

"UCLA changed its mind."

"Huh?"

"They called me this morning. Wanted to see me. Ran me through some drills for a second look. I must have impressed them because they're offering me a full scholarship and are willing to cut through all the red tape that comes with changing schools this late."

Blood was draining from my face. My heart was pounding, and I didn't really know why. "Why, why would they go through all that?"

"They told me they had a rash of serious injuries. You know how these schools are, they build a team harder than the actual national leagues do sometimes. I was a back up. I impressed them the second time around."

UCLA. Los Angeles. All the way across the country. "Bruce, you were supposed to go to Tidewater with me. Stay local. We could still visit our parents on the weekends. We talked so much about it."

"Tidewater is a community college, Noelle. They don't even have any sports programs."

"You were going to study Criminal Justice. Find a job around here."

"That was always my fallback. You know I always wanted to play football professionally."

I would never see him if he went out that far. Even if our schedules lined up perfectly, it'd only be a few times a year. "I thought that was just a far flung dream, like how I said I wanted to be a movie star."

"You have the looks, Noelle," he said, bringing a smile to my face. "But not the acting talent."

The smile went away, as he made me remember my disastrous performance in the high school's production of Grease.

"I think I can be one of the best players in the world. I was the best player on our school's team easily. I can be more, Noelle. I want to try, I want to see if I can really make it. If I can be good enough to have the million dollar contracts. Enough to get me anything I ever wanted, to get those I loved anything they ever wanted."

"So, you've agreed to it already then?" I said, slowly coming to terms that I'd have to settle for a long term relationship with the man who I'd seen almost daily for four years.

"Yes. I can't pass up this opportunity. I'd be full on insane to do so."

"When will I see you again once you leave?"

He was silent. Eerily silent.

"They had to give you some information. Like a calendar and all that. We need to compare."

He wasn't even looking at me. "Noelle, I'm breaking up with you."

I was trembling as I heard those words. Those terrifying, vile words. There were few words I never wanted to hear more. "What? Why? No. What?"

"I'm breaking up with you. I'm ending our relationship."

"Bruce, what?" Tears were already welling up in my eyes. "No, Bruce, you can't, I love you."

Were there tears in his eyes too? "It's not fair for me to keep calling you mine when I'm three thousand miles away. I want nothing but the best for you, Noelle. The best for you isn't me, I know that much."

"We've been together for four years, Bruce. We've spent weeks apart before."

"Weeks, Noelle. Not months. Not seasons. Not years. You deserve someone who can be in your life, someone who can hold you and care for you. I can't, not anymore. Maybe, in the future, when we're done with this school thing, if the desire is still there, we can find one another again."

"I won't let you, Bruce. Don't go. Tell the UCLA people to go to hell. Please. For me."

"You can't force me to stay, Noelle. We're young. We're stupid. We probably weren't meant for one another anyway. We can't make decisions about our life based on teenaged hormones."

My heart was wanting to escape my chest. I slid off the chair. I was looking for words to say to him, anything to say through the tears. Something that would make it clear that my love was unconditional, and that I wanted to keep him. That I would do stupid stuff, that I would give up my own studies to follow him. "Please," I managed to say, without anything else.

"I'm sorry, Noelle. Be happy for me. Be happy for you."

I started to walk away, my thoughts trying to process what just happened. I was just dumped. By the man I loved, by the man I wanted to marry, by the man who I wanted to have kids by. By the man who I had given my virginity to, and even let him take me bareback as he did so.

I was still trembling. The reason for my trembling, started to change as I realized just what was happening. "You – you expect me to believe all that?" I turned to face Bruce.

"Believe what?"

"That you magically got an offer to flee across the country, the very morning after I gave myself up to you?"

"Noelle, no, I didn't know they would call. If I did, I wouldn't of..."

"You fucking liar," I said, softly yet violently at the same time. "You played the long con. You already go off and tell them about how you finally deflowered me? Probably calling me a frigid prude too for all these years."

"I have no idea what you're talking about Noelle." His eyes were wide.

"You're just as scummy as the rest of them, the rest of the teenaged morons who I didn't want to give myself to. I thought you were special, Bruce, I thought our love was real."

"It is real, Noelle."

"You don't throw something real away like this!" I yelled at him. "You're a disgusting slut of a man, Bruce! I hope you enjoyed your chase, because all I was to you was prey, wasn't i? You got some sick pleasure out of pretending to care, tricking me into actually think you loved me? To make me think that I loved you, just to show me that I loved a lie."

"Noelle, I..."

"Shut up!" I called out, pointing at him. My voice was loud enough to silence the rest of the people at the cafe. All eyes were on me. "Shut up, shut up, Shut up! You're a pig! You're a fucking pig! I hate you, Bruce, I never want to lay my eyes on you ever again!"

I turned from him, but out of the corner of my eye, I could see him sulk. For a moment, I felt pity. Shame that I had yelled at him like that, and I wanted to rush over to soothe him, apologize.

Some twisted part of me still loved him. It didn't make a damn bit of sense, since I now knew exactly what he was after, and that I had played so perfectly into his hands.

The entire cafe's eyes were on me as I stormed out of the building. I kept those angry steps the whole way home. As soon as the door was closed though...

I collapsed into a heap on the floor. Sobbing, lying face down on the floor, because I didn't feel much higher than that. I was an idiot, an absolute fool, who was expertly played by a player. I was nothing he told me I was. I wasn't beautiful, I wasn't sweet, I wasn't lovable. I was just a sap.

A worthless idiotic fool who fell in love with the wrong person.

Love was a lie.