I waited for Nick to say something.

Anything.

Just words. Syllables, even. Anything to fill up the silence that was now stretching between us and the sentence I’d said as a joke, the question I’d asked only because it was so ludicrous that it hadn’t bothered me to string those words together.

But Nick just stared at me, his eyes worried, his lips parted slightly, like he either didn’t know what to say, or he did know, and he just didn’t want to say it.

Neither of which was a good possibility.

Oh God, I wanted to throw up.

“Nick?” I said, feeling panic creep into my voice. “Nick, are you—you’re not—you’re not seriously—Nick, please tell me you’re not—”

I couldn’t even make myself say it, and when Nick closed his eyes for a moment, his face pained, tears sprang to mine.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. I could barely breathe. I felt like I’d been punched in the stomach. “Oh my God, are you breaking up with me?”

This could not be happening. He could not be serious. Five minutes ago he’d been blowing me, and now… this?

I want this to be a good memory.

“Oh Jesus Christ.” The words were out of my mouth before I realized I’d said them out loud. “Did you know you were going to do this? And you—you let me—”

“Please, Eli.” Nick reached out to touch me but I leaned back. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t want to tell you like this.”

“You’ve been planning this?” I asked, my voice pitched at a level only dogs should have been able to hear. “How long have you been waiting to tell me?”

My mind scrolled through the past few days, weeks—Jesus, had it been months? How long had Nick wanted to break up with me?

I swallowed hard.

“Please tell me this is some sort of mistake. Tell me I’m misunderstanding something and you’re not actually breaking up with me right now, two weeks before I go away to college.”

Nick didn’t say anything.

“Tell me you haven’t been planning this, Nick. Tell me this isn’t happening, and you’ve just been waiting for the right fucking time to ruin my life. Tell me you wouldn’t have waited until the day I left, or hell, till after I was already gone, if I hadn’t accidentally fucking asked you if you were trying to break up with me. If I hadn’t fucking broken up with myself.”

Nick flinched—but he still didn’t say anything.

“Jesus, are you serious? How long, Nick? How long have you been waiting?”

Nick closed his eyes again.

“Answer me, goddammit,” I spat. “Answer me. You have to fucking answer.”

I shoved him. Nick didn’t see it coming—his fucking eyes were still closed, like he was the one in pain here—and he fell back. I scrambled to my knees as he pushed himself up again.

“I didn’t want to do it this way,” Nick said slowly, shifting into a seated position. “I didn’t want to upset you.”

“Well it’s a little fucking late for that.”

“I know this is hard for you to understand,” he continued, “but things between us—”

“Things between us were fine,” I interrupted. “Unless this has all been fake and you really don’t want to be with me. Unless you telling me you loved me was a complete and total lie.”

I glared at him, but all I got was silence in return, as Nick looked down at the ground.

Oh fuck, I might actually puke. The ground felt like it was shifting beneath me. Nick loved me. He’d told me he loved me. He’d just fucking told me.

Had he just been pretending? Waiting until I fucking left for college so I wouldn’t make a scene?

I kept saying things I thought were impossible—so clearly far from the truth as to be unbelievable, and somehow each one turned out to be true, and with each one, I sank further down into quicksand.

“Say it,” I growled.

“Say what, Eli?” Nick said.

God, how did he have the nerve to sound tired, to sound like I was being unreasonable for wanting answers, when we were in the middle of a fight and he was the one breaking up with me!

“Say it was a lie. Say you don’t love me. Say you don’t want to be with me.”

“You don’t want to hear me say that,” Nick said heavily.

“Yes, I do. Because that’s the only thing that’s going to make me believe that any of this is true. That’s the only thing that’s going to convince me that this isn’t all just some fucked up attempt on your part to—”

“I don’t love you, Eli.”

And now I was the one who couldn’t say anything.

I’m not entirely sure what happened after that.

I have a vague memory of Nick trying to say something to me as I stood up and left the clearing, but whatever it was, he didn’t try very hard, because I just walked away and he didn’t follow me.

I remember thinking that somehow this was all a joke, a mistake, or a dream. That it would change soon. I’d wake up. I’d be curled up in Nick’s arms, the two of us still in bed in his apartment, and everything would be okay. That he’d stop me before I reached the van and tell me he hadn’t meant it, he’d just been trying to… well, to do something, something that would make all of this okay.

But he didn’t come after me and I didn’t wake up and somehow I got into the van and made it home and I must have told my mom I didn’t want any dinner, because it was 9 p.m. now and I was still lying on my bed in the fetal position, staring at the wall, wondering how my life had fallen apart.

Eventually my mom came in and asked me if I wanted anything to eat at all. I just kind of mumbled at her that I wanted to sleep, and—for the first time I could remember—she just let me be.

No further questions about how I was feeling. No wondering if I needed to see a doctor. No suggestions that maybe some kind of medication could help. She just told me she’d put the leftovers in the fridge if I wanted to get some later, kissed my forehead, and left.

I wondered if she thought I was dying.

How the hell had this happened?

I stared at the ceiling, completely unable to sleep, despite what I’d told my mom. I’d actually thought about bringing Nick by my house tonight after dinner. Pretending we’d just run into each other, and that he’d wanted to come say hi. I hadn’t told Nick earlier because I’d been afraid he’d say no. That seemed so fucking stupid now.

I don’t love you.

Part of me didn’t want to believe him. This was Nick we were talking about, right? This was the Nick who’d told me he’d loved me since the minute he met me. How the hell could he have become a completely different person overnight? There had to be some kind of explanation, right?

Except I couldn’t stop playing back all the times I’d talked about our future, and Nick had answered with vague promises, when he didn’t change the subject entirely. I’d talk about him visiting and he’d tell me he loved me. I’d talk about being with him forever, and he’d tell me he loved me. I’d ask how we were going to deal with being apart, and he’d tell me he loved me.

Maybe saying he loved me had been a lie—maybe it had become his go-to. It had probably gotten easier to lie each time he’d said it.

A stomach churning thought occurred to me.

Maybe Nick had gone along with dating me not because he wanted to at all, but because he was scared of what I could do to him. What if he thought that if he didn’t agree to be with me back in January, I’d tell everyone what had happened between us, expose all the lies that had built up during the fall?

Maybe saying ‘I love you’ had never felt that hard, not in comparison to all the secrets he needed to keep.

I rolled over and puked into the trashcan by the side of my bed. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, so there wasn’t much to come up, but the dry heaves continued for another hour as I lay there crying.

I loved him. I loved Nick so much I wasn’t sure I existed without him. How the hell could everything have been a lie? How could he not want to be with me?

And how was I supposed to go on living now?

The next two weeks were interminable.

You’d think, if there were any decency in the world, you wouldn’t have to go on going through the motions of living when your heart is broken. When you hurt so much you can barely stand up. But apparently the rest of the world keeps moving, even when you fall apart.

My mom came in to check on me the morning after, and her concerned look told me everything I needed to know. If I didn’t pull it together and at least try to look normal, her unexpected forbearance would disappear faster than you could say SSRI, and back onto medication and house-arrest I would go.

If I were being honest, there was a certain appeal to the idea of being so medicated I couldn’t feel anything. Only, I didn’t have the heart to explain what had happened. Not to her. Even after he broke my heart, I couldn’t bring myself to betray Nick. It wasn’t fair, but I knew it was true.

Aisling and Caden, though. Them, I could tell, and did, when they came over later that night.

“I just don’t understand what happened,” I gulped as they climbed onto my bed to join me. “It’s so out of nowhere that it feels like it has to be fake. But he hasn’t called, he hasn’t texted, he hasn’t tried to get in touch or anything. So the only thing I can think is that it’s real. He really doesn’t want to be with me.”

Aisling’s lips pressed into a thin line, but it was Caden who spoke.

“Well, then fuck that guy. You’re awesome and if he doesn’t realize it, he’s a fucking tool and he doesn’t deserve you.”

“But he’s not,” I protested. “That’s the thing that doesn’t make any sense. He’s so—he’s just so good. And nice. And what if this whole time he was just humoring me because he was just trying to let me down easy? What if he never even wanted to be with me in the first place?”

“Then he’s not a good guy,” Caden retorted. “Then he’s an asshole.”

“He’s an asshole who let us crash at his apartment when we missed the train home. He’s an asshole who was just trying to look out for me, for us. To keep us safe.” I took a deep breath and tried to keep it together as I confessed the conclusion I’d come to. “I’ve been trying to make sense of it, and I can’t help thinking that Nick never wanted things to go further. It was always me who pressed, always me who crossed boundaries and wouldn’t leave him alone. What if he thought I was too volatile to be trusted if he actually turned me down like he wished he could? What if he thought I’d blackmail him or something, and he felt like he had to date me, just to keep me from ruining his life?”

“Who cares what he thought,” Caden said. “He dumped you, Eli. I know it’s tempting to try to figure out why, but you’re going to drive yourself crazy.”

“It’s been like, 24 hours.”

“More than a long enough period of time for moping. The best thing to do is to try to forget him.” He gave me an encouraging smile. “I know. Let’s go into the city and see if we can find someone to take your mind off of things.”

“I thought you didn’t do that anymore.”

“Well, desperate times call for desperate measures. C’mon, I’m serious. Do you have anything to do tomorrow? Let’s just go in and—”

“I can’t, Caden. I know—I know you’re just trying to help, but it’s been literally a day and I haven’t slept, I haven’t eaten, and I can’t think of anything I’d rather do less than go into the city that my ex-boyfriend lives in and—”

“Fuck that guy,” Caden exploded. “Seriously, Eli. Fuck him. The guy clearly doesn’t give a shit about you. So why do you care about him?”

“No,” Aisling said, finally speaking. Her voice was quiet, but it cut through our conversation. I turned to look at her and found her frowning at a spot on the wall.

“What do you mean, no?” Caden asked. “Explain to me how this guy’s not an asshole.”

“I’m not saying he’s not an asshole.” Aisling’s eyes narrowed as she studied the wall. “But I don’t think he doesn’t give a shit about Eli. I think it’s the opposite.” Her eyes swung over to me. “You’re right that none of this makes any sense for the Nick we know—unless he thinks he’s trying to help you.”

“How would breaking up with me be helping me?”

“Think about it. You’re right. Nick is a good guy. Shut up, Caden,” she said as he opened his mouth. Caden frowned, but he didn’t say anything. “You know he is. And Eli, I know it’s tempting to beat yourself up over this and think that you somehow blackmailed him into dating you, but you didn’t. Nick wouldn’t have let you do that. He’d just have come clean to everyone about everything instead.”

“So then why—”

“Because he cares about you,” Aisling said. “And this is his fucked up way of trying to show you that. I’m not saying it doesn’t make him an asshole, but I’m saying that in his own world, he thinks he’s doing what’s best for you, I’m sure. He probably thinks he has to give you your space at college, or like you won’t study hard enough if you’re always thinking about him, or some bullshit like that.”

“But he said he didn’t love me.” I hated how broken my voice sounded

“Yeah, Aisling said, nodding slowly. “But I doubt he meant it. And if I know Nick at all, I bet you anything that before you leave for college, you’ll have heard from him. The guy loves you, Eli. Anyone who’s ever been in the same room with you two can see that. Even if this is some misguided attempt at helping you, there’s no way he’s going to be able to stay away.”

I didn’t want to believe her.

I mean, obviously I wanted to, because it was the only explanation that didn’t make me feel completely hopeless. But I also didn’t want to, because that meant pinning all my hopes to this one balloon. And if it burst, I’d have even less than before.

So I tried my best to not think about what Aisling had said. I tried my best to put my head down and get through the last two weeks of my life at home. To go to work, to pack up my entire life, to listen to my mom talk, and talk, and talk about what I’d need to buy once I got to college. To act like everything inside me wasn’t aching, like my life hadn’t been burned to the ground.

Every night, I told myself not to hope that I’d hear from Nick by the morning. And every morning, I woke up disappointed that the thing I’d tried not to hope for still hadn’t come true.

Aisling pointed out that I could get in contact with Nick, but what would I even have said? He knew how I felt. I wasn’t going to go and make myself look even more pathetic by hounding him, now that he’d finally gotten rid of me.

And soon enough, it was the night before I flew out to Minnesota. I was packed. All my clothes, toiletries, everything my mom had been able to buy before I left, sat waiting to get loaded into the van for the airport tomorrow morning. Everything was set to go. But I wasn’t ready.

How could I be? I’d always thought of going away to college as this time that I’d finally get to break free and start somewhere new. But now that I finally had it within my grasp, everything tasted like ashes.

Tomorrow was supposed to be the first day of my future. But all I wanted to do was climb into bed, pull the blankets over my head, and stay there until the clocks turned back and the days rewound and I could go back and find a way to never have met Nick, so I wouldn’t know everything I had lost.