I made my way back to the city. All the while, I tried not to think about Jesse waking up all by himself, or how good it might have felt to be there with him as he opened his eyes and smiled that magic smile at me. We could have begun the day together. I felt as though my heart was still lying there in that bed with him. Then with every mile I drove, the strings between me and it were tugged tighter and tighter, making me ache.

I arrived back in the city and drove straight to my parents’ apartment. It was the height of luxury with tall windows and Italian marble floors, but it didn’t feel like mine. No, I wanted a little studio. Small but cozy, and all mine. Something that would support me and my small life.

I knew I had to build from the ground up, and work hard to piece together everything that had fallen apart in the last week. Sitting on the big bed in the guest room, I couldn’t believe so much had changed in just a matter of a few days from the moment I had arrived in the apartment with a cake for Mark. It seemed crazy now to think that my entire life had been laid out before me, ready to go ‒ an appropriate marriage, a good job, and a traditional life ‒ that I would have been miserable in for the rest of my years.

But now that was over. I didn’t have my own place or a fiancé and my heart was back in my hometown with a guy I knew I could never have.

To my surprise, life moved on. At a snail’s pace, though. Every time the phone rang, my heart stopped. Then I would look at the screen and feel almost tearful with disappointment. I went to the apartment three days later while Mark was at work. The cake had left an oil stain on the carpet and it made me remember how I felt that day.

I knew I never wanted to feel that way again in my life. It also made me realize that no matter how painful it was short term, long term I had made the right decision to leave Jesse.

Quickly I gathered all my stuff, and put the key into the letter box.

The next day, I went back to work and was glad to fall back into the comfortable old routine. Mark called incessantly at my office until I told the receptionist not to put his calls through. He waited for me outside work so I coolly told him I had found someone else and if he harassed me anymore, I would take restraining order out on him.

His face! It was my tiny revenge.

He backed off after that and I focused on getting the pieces of my life to make sense once more. First of all, I needed my own place, so I let the task of rushing around and finding a new apartment distract me. In less than a week, I found a tiny place. It was cute, close to work and it made me feel I’d taken the first step toward my new life. I filled it with all my own stuff and it started to feel a bit like home, but the evenings were the worst. I began to go out with my old friends again, but even then, when they left to give me the space I insisted I needed, I would stare into space and invariably think about Jesse.

I guess I still couldn’t believe what happened between us.

I had gone into it being so sure that all I wanted was a little fun, a rebound with someone hot, smart, and renowned for being a great lover. I definitely hadn’t expected to have all these feelings stirred up, like sediment on the bottom of a lake. Something so deep and secret that I’d tried to hide it from everyone, even myself.

I still wanted him.

Hell, I needed him.

He filled out the parts of me I didn’t realize I had been missing, the parts that hated the shallow performance of the lifestyle my parents led. Clearly, he didn’t feel the same way about me. One night I got drunk and nearly drunk-dialed Jesse, but fortunately, I was so drunk I managed to delete his number instead of calling it.

Well, that was that.

Fate had taken care of that temptation for me. I cried a little then went to sleep. But when I woke up in the morning, I felt such sorrow and loss it was as if someone had died. I consoled myself with the knowledge that I could always call the garage if I really needed to speak to him. One day after I got over him, I would call him again. Maybe we could be friends. He was a nice guy at the end of the day. The little pep-talk didn’t cheer me up, but it allowed me to get out of bed and go to work.

My mother tried to reach out to me, but I ignored her, I wasn’t ready to talk to her yet. Julie called too, but I didn’t pick up. She left a message asking why I didn’t go to her wedding. I knew it was a jerk move, not turning up to her wedding, but I couldn’t face her, or any of them. I couldn’t face that town again, not after the emotional mess my last visit had left me in. Julie sent a few more crowing texts about her honeymoon, but I didn’t rise to the bait. But the funny thing about it all was she didn’t sound pissed at all that I didn’t come to her wedding or answer her. In fact, she sounded rather pleased. I guess it made her happy that I had broken up with Jesse and left town.

Nearly ten days had passed as I tried to build my life up once again, but I still found myself craving Jesse as strongly as I had the first day I drove back alone. If I were honest with myself, I yearned for everything about him. His body, his touch, his scent, the sound of his voice, his laugh.

I told myself over and over not to be so silly, that it was nothing more than a rebound, but it was clear to my heart that it’d been more than that. I had turned him down all those years ago in high school, but there had always been a depth of connection there. It had even scared me a little.

But he did not feel it. He had said it himself. Besides, if he had felt anything at all he would have called at least once to see if I was okay. He didn’t. So…that should have been the end of the affair. Until…I was coming home with groceries, and I found a familiar figure sitting on the stoop of my apartment building.

My heart jumped and I stopped dead in my tracks.

There was no way that he could actually be here. I must have magicked him up, an illusion created from my quiet desperation. He looked up, but I still found myself expecting him to blink right out of existence in front of me. I took a few steps close and he still didn’t.

“Jesse?” I spoke his name softly, as though he might vanish if I was too loud.