“Holy shit. Eli?”

I turned around from grabbing my coat off the rack to see Sarah sitting in a chair in my therapist’s waiting room.

“Sarah? Hey!”

I put a smile on my face—it was still an effort to do that, but I was getting a little better at making them look less pained these days.

Sarah smiled back. “What are you doing here?”

“Um… therapy?” I laughed, gesturing back towards the office door, and Sarah blushed. “My mom thought I should go and, weirdly enough, I actually agreed with her for once.”

“Oh, I mean, yeah. That’s why I’m here, too.” Sarah laughed. “I just meant like—aren’t you supposed to be at college?”

“I—yeah. Yeah. I guess I am. But actually I, uh, failed out. So here I am. I’ve been back for about a month now.”

I still felt embarrassed saying it, but one of the things my therapist was always talking about was finding ways to feel less shame. Being honest was supposedly a thing that helped.

“Shit. I didn’t know that.” Sarah looked down at the carpet, her voice quiet. “I haven’t, um, heard from you or Aisling or anyone else who graduated since you guys all left.”

“Oh.” My mouth fell open. “I’m sorry.”

“No, I mean, it’s okay,” Sarah said quickly. “I know you all like, have your lives to live and it’s not like we were ever that close. You don’t need to keep some random sophomore you barely know apprised of all your life updates.”

“Sarah, you’re not a random sophomore. I should have—”

“I really didn’t mean it like that.” She tumbled on, not letting me get a word in edgewise. “I just uh—well, one of the uh, things I’m supposed to be working on is like, self esteem? And saying how I feel? Instead of always worrying about whether I’m making people not like me?” She grimaced at my therapist’s door. “I’m still kinda working on that. But I really wasn’t trying to make you feel bad. Anyway, you’re leaving. I’ll shut up. It was good to see you, though, Eli.”

Sarah spoke so quickly that I was still processing what she’d said when she popped up from her seat and walked over to the office door, clearly trying to disappear.

“Sarah, wait.”

She turned, looking hesitant. “What?”

“You didn’t make me feel bad. Or, well, you kinda did, but in a good way. I didn’t realize you hadn’t heard from anyone. And I, uh, I know what it feels like to be left behind. With no explanation or communication.”

I shook my head ruefully. I knew that far too well. I’d been going to therapy for weeks, but all I’d managed to do was go from being sad all the time to being sad ninety-seven percent of the time and angry the other three percent.

“It’s really okay,” Sarah said.

“No.” I shook my head. “No, it’s really not. It actually really sucks, being abandoned.”

“You didn’t abandon me.”

“Well, I could have done better, still.” I gave her an apologetic look. “I’ve been kinda messed up lately. And I’m only just now realizing how much of myself I let get wrapped up in this one piece of me, this one part of my life, that got taken away. I’ve been pretty self-involved.”

“Eli, it’s really—”

“Do you wanna hang out sometime?”

I wasn’t sure who was more surprised by my words—Sarah, or me. I didn’t really want to hang out—with her or anyone. But I kinda thought I maybe should. And I wasn’t sure that using my want-o-meter was actually that useful, anyway. If I listened to it, I’d never do anything.

Besides, I’d been realizing a lot, recently, how little I’d considered other people’s perspectives. I hadn’t thought about what my mom’s life was like, from her point of view. I hadn’t stopped to think about what things felt like for Sarah, either. To be honest, I’d barely thought about Sarah at all, once I’d graduated. But I did know what it felt like to lose people.

“Are you sure?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah.” I made myself nod and smile again. “I could use a friend right now. I know I probably don’t seem very enthusiastic about it, but I promise my lack of affect is just because my head’s all fucked up, and not about you.”

“Okay.” A slow smile spread across Sarah’s face. “Um, yeah, then. That’d be great.”

“Cool.” I smiled again. What was that—three smiles in as many minutes? If I kept this up, my muscles might eventually remember how to make that motion without explicit instruction. “I’ll text you.”

“Thanks.” Sarah smiled, and hers, at least, seemed genuine. “I’ll see you, then.”

I thought about Sarah as I walked up the hill towards home, the evening shadows lengthening as the sun tucked itself behind the forest on the western edge of town. I thought about my mom, too. I thought about all of the people who I’d let Nick crowd out in my mind, this past year.

As much as I wanted to blame Nick for that, I knew that, at least, was my fault. I’d let him become my everything, so much so that when I lost him, I’d felt like I’d had nothing left. My friendships hadn’t mattered, my writing hadn’t mattered—nothing had mattered to me, because I’d let Nick become the very center of my existence.

That was fucked up.

In my defense, it wasn’t like I’d ever been in this situation before. I hadn’t had any idea how to not do that. I’d never been in love before, let alone as hopelessly, helplessly head over heels as I had been for Nick.

As I still was, much as I hated to admit it.

Maybe Nick had even been trying to warn me, in his way. He’d always been so hesitant to talk about his feelings. He’d always insisted we get work done when we were together. He’d kept his friends separate from me for a long, long time.

Maybe he’d been trying to show me that it was important for us to have lives outside of each other—to be separate people who happened to be in love, not two people who merged into one.

Except that was as far as I could go with that thought, because my stomach twisted at the memory of just how in love I’d been, and how much I’d thought he’d been in love with me.

Had he ever been? I still didn’t know.

I wanted to believe Nick had loved me. That I hadn’t been an idiot, that he hadn’t been lying to me the whole time. But part of me almost hoped it had all been a lie. It almost seemed easier to deal with Nick as an emotionless monster than Nick as a regular old human, just trying to do his best.

More and more, though, I was starting to think that it didn’t even matter. Whatever the reason, Nick had hurt me. And it had been months now, and I still hadn’t heard from him. So if he were trying to be a good guy, he was clearly fucking terrible at it.

I was sick of feeling sad all the time. Sick of trying to understand what had happened, sick of trying to make sense of something that was never going to make sense to me.

Nick was who he was. I couldn’t change that. And if he was determined to cut off all contact, determined to hurt me like this, then fuck him. He didn’t deserve me trying to figure him out.

It actually felt good to get mad at him. For the first time since August, I could feel something other than bone-deep sadness. It made me feel powerful in a way I hadn’t in a very long time.

Which is why, I guess, I reacted the way that I did, when I turned up the sidewalk to my house, and saw a shadow move out from behind a column on my porch. When the shadow stepped into the light, his hair was a burnished gold.

“Nick?” I said, my jaw dropping. “What the fuck are you doing here?”