by Nella Tyler
My eyes stung and I took a deep breath. It had to just be stress making her make this decision; I would give her some space, and she would realize she was going overboard in a couple of weeks, and then we could start talking about what was really going on in our relationship.
I know you can balance it, but right now I just can’t. I appreciate all the help you’ve given me, but I need to figure out how to do well on my own. Please, please, please understand where I’m coming from, Ty.
I closed my eyes and clenched my teeth. I did understand where she was coming from; I couldn’t even pretend like it was something terrible she was trying to do. She wanted some space to figure out how to navigate her classes, and I knew that she’d been stressing out at the end of last semester. I cared about her—I owed it to her to give her what she wanted, didn’t I? And if she did figure out that she was overcorrecting, I needed to leave things on good terms so she could feel comfortable coming back to me.
If that’s what you feel like you need to do right now, I replied, typing as fast as my fingers could go on the little keyboard, then I’m not going to try and make you feel bad for putting classes first. But just remember my door is open, okay? If you want to talk about anything. Let’s at least be friends while we give each other space.
I felt like I’d gone out on a limb, right where it started to go thin, far away from the trunk, and handed two hundred-pound weights.
I’ll try and keep you in the loop, Nicole wrote back. I do love you a lot, Ty. You know that, right? I smiled to myself sadly, trying to remember if either of us had actually worked up the gumption to tell the other one in person, to their face, that we loved them.
At least, I thought, it was good to know that she wasn’t trying to ditch me because she didn’t have feelings for me, or because she found someone else. I wrote to her that I loved her back, and that I would be around if she changed her mind or wanted to talk. It was all that I could do.
I told myself over and over again that it was just stress making her do it, and that as soon as she got into the rhythm of the semester, she would come back to me, shaking her head at her own silliness, and we would be back together.
I felt for her in a way that I’d never felt about Kelsey or any of the girls I’d dated in high school. I really and truly wanted to be with Nicole for—if not the rest of my life, then for as long as I could plan into the future. I wanted to know that when I graduated, I would still have her there.
I wanted to be able to keep seeing her even once I became a CPA, and to start working on a future for us together. I wanted to get a little apartment in my hometown, and have Nicole there with me during summer and winter break, at least for a little while. I wanted to have her in my bed with me every night.
All of those thoughts—all of the things I really wanted—I didn’t even really realize in a solid way until Nicole had sent me the texts asking for space. I had known that I cared about her, that when she was stressed out I ached for her, but I hadn’t really realized just how much I wanted her in my life, and how much I cared about her, until she cut things off between us.
I told myself before I went to bed that night, and every day that followed, that it was a temporary thing. A person couldn’t be that much in love with another person without there being something more to it than just random feelings. Nicole would catch on, she would feel the loss of me just as I felt the lack of her in my life, and then everything would be fine again.
But days stretched into a week, and I noticed that somehow I wasn’t running into her on campus the way that I used to. Somehow, no matter which of my normal paths I took to class, or when I ended up visiting the dining hall, I never encountered Nicole on the way. I never saw her anywhere; it was as if she had completely and totally disappeared, or withdrew from the school. I was tempted to even ask her friend Ashley—who had made very good friends with my roommate Alex—if she knew anything about it, if Nicole had gotten sick or had some kind of family emergency.
But I realized before I even asked around that it was a way simpler explanation than that: Nicole was avoiding me. I hated that she felt like she had to do that. It made me actually cry over her for the first time—and it was the first time I had cried over any woman since I’d forced myself to break things off with Kelsey, long before the actual breakup itself happened.
I did ask Ashley in passing if Nicole was okay; and she answered that Nicole was spending almost all of her time either in classes, in the dorms, or haunting the library. At least I had the relief of knowing that she’d told me the truth—that it wasn’t a cover story for something else. I had even started to suspect that she had found someone else, and was just too ashamed to admit it; but I believed Ashley.
As much as it hurt me, I knew that if I let myself dwell on the way things had fallen apart between Nicole and I, I was just going to end up screwing up my last semester—and why would I work so hard for three and a half years just to have to retake my last few classes? I decided to follow Nicole’s example and just bury myself in work, although I had to avoid going to the library too often—I would either see her, or it would look like I was trying to stalk her.
Instead, I spent a lot of time in the computer lab running through simulations on the CPA exam prep software there, and doing research that would help me to cross-train later on. If things weren’t going to work out magically between Nicole and me, I would just have to keep looking forward, and keep doing what I’d come to college to do. As heartbroken as I was, I had to just focus on becoming a CPA, passing my exams and getting the job my dad was trying to hold onto for me at the firm he worked at. It was what I had left, and I couldn’t let even heartbreak screw that up for me.
Chapter Seven
I made it to midterms holding my grades up much more easily than I had in the fall; at least there was that much for me to feel happy about, even if I was miserable otherwise. I felt terrible for the way I’d pushed Ty aside. As days turned into weeks, and weeks went over a month, and then two months, I hoped that I’d eventually get over the pain.
After all, I’d broken up with Dillon and managed to rebound. I hadn’t dated in between the breakup and meeting Ty, but that didn’t mean anything. I told myself again and again that it would get easier, that I would find someone new to date, or at the very least the pain would go away, but nothing changed at all.
I hated the fact that I was avoiding him; Ty had been so open, so pleasant about giving me space, and he had said at the time that I could come to him if I changed my mind, or if I wanted to talk about anything.
There were so many nights after that when I found myself alone in my dorm, missing Ty, that I wanted to text him and tell him that I had been an idiot, and that I wanted to get back together with him. But I managed to stop myself just short of sending them.
The reason I was actually managing to do halfway decently during the spring semester was because my preferred method of avoiding Ty was to spend as much time as possible in study groups and review groups for my classes; I was in the library, in my classes, or my dorm room almost all the time—I barely went into the dining hall to get food, and almost always took it to go.
I’d told Ashley about breaking up with Ty, and she’d told me, point blank, that I was an idiot. “He’s a gorgeous guy, smart as a whip, and sweet as hell—what is wrong with you?” I hadn’t been able to admit the real reason that I’d called things off between the two of us. I couldn’t tell anyone that I was insecure and worried that Ty would just write me off as soon as he graduated.
“I need to put my focus onto my studies,” I had told her instead. “I need to get my GPA up, and figure out what I want to study for my major.”
“Right, because it’s impossible to do that and have a relationship,” Ashley had countered. “Nobody ever manages to balance the two.” I had shrugged.
“I barely scraped by with passing grades last semester,” I had pointed out. “Obviously I need to put more of my energy—all of it—into getting my gr
ades in line. Maybe…maybe sometime once I’ve got everything in order, I can talk to him about it and we can see if there’s still something there.”
But I knew that there wasn’t really a chance for that to happen. Ty hadn’t tried to call me, hadn’t really tried to text me, ever since we’d agreed to give each other space. If he wasn’t going to put much effort into trying to get back together with me, I would just assume that he was letting me go, just like I was letting him go. I knew it wasn’t completely rational; I knew I was just justifying things. But I couldn’t let myself think that Ty might still have any feelings at all for me, or else I might give into my weakness and get back together with him.
Sometimes I wondered if the reasons—the real ones—behind why I’d broken up with him were even real. I had assumed that he wouldn’t want to commit to someone after such a long relationship as he’d had with Kelsey. The fact that he’d been so curt about explaining his relationship with her the night after I’d seen her grinding on him at the club seemed to be evidence that there was more going on between him and Kelsey than a failed relationship that he had put behind him.
I remembered the way that he had just stood there in the club, the fact that he hadn’t come after Ashley and me when we left. Had he gone home with her? I didn’t know, and the fact that I didn’t know for sure—and the fact that I was afraid to ask—made it impossible for me to want to try and make things right between us.
I kept my head up as much as I could, and kept away from Ty as much as possible. I talked to Ashley, Elise, Julie, and Magda about whatever was on my mind instead of talking to Ty; they couldn’t give me the kind of stress relief that Ty was so good at—that would also just flat-out be weird—but there were people I could talk to, there were people who would listen to me and give me ideas for how to deal with what was going on in my classes.
I was walking across campus one day, thinking about the English Literature After 1920 class that I had just left. I was actually enjoying it—of the classes I had taken so far, it was one of the few that seemed to really appeal to me.
We were discussing Jean Rhys in class, and I was thinking about what I could write my next essay on. I had been avoiding Ty for weeks, doing everything I could to avoid even seeing him. I thought that if I did, I wouldn’t be able to help myself; I’d end up running up to him, I’d end up acting like an idiot—the same way his drunken ex had acted the night at the club.
I looked up from my phone and spotted him, walking the other direction, totally oblivious to my existence. The sight of Ty, even at a distance, hit me like a ton of bricks, and all I could do was just stand there, frozen in place, watching him. He looked every bit as gorgeous as he had the first time I had ever seen him, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and a pair of sneakers.
It was basic—it was the college uniform—but somehow on Ty it looked like it was just perfect. He’d cut his hair during winter break, but he’d let it grow out a bit and it hung around his face and head in snarled, messy curls that my fingers itched to run through. As Ty moved away from me I found myself following him almost, walking far enough back to never catch up to him or quite end up in his line of sight, but so completely intrigued by just the sight of him after two months of avoiding seeing him altogether that I couldn’t just let him walk away or make myself turn around.
When Ty turned toward the dorms I stopped myself and found an empty table outside of the dining hall to sit down at. I shook my head, thinking what an idiot I had been; at any moment, Ty could have turned around and seen me following him, staring at him. It would have been humiliating.
I was so lost in my own thoughts that I didn’t even see Ashley approaching me until she appeared at the table, sitting down across from me. “Hey—what are you sitting out here for?” I blushed and shrugged.
“I just kind of ended up here,” I said, looking around. It was three in the afternoon; no one was really going to the dining hall for anything. Ashley must have spotted me before I’d even sat down.
“I saw you walking,” Ashley said, looking at me intently. “You looked like you were lost in a dream.” My blush deepened.
“Fine,” I said, closing my eyes and taking a quick, deep breath. “If you must know, I saw Ty for the first time in like…two months or something.” I swallowed and opened my eyes, meeting Ashley’s gaze. “I just kind of…got distracted by him.”
“Got distracted? Girl, you were stalking him, weren’t you?” I cringed, looking around to make sure that no one was eavesdropping on us.
“I wasn’t stalking,” I said, knowing I was being defensive and not entirely caring. “I just…it’s been a long time since I’ve seen him, and it was…” I shrugged. “It was weird. I just couldn’t let myself let him out of my sight for a minute.”
“Nic,” Ashley said, shaking her head. “I am ashamed of you. Ty hasn’t been seeing anyone since the two of you broke up for whatever reason it was you gave him. He’s single. If you want to see him, you can just see him!”
“It’s going to be awkward though,” I said, shaking my head to dismiss the idea. “I mean, it would be super weird to go from avoiding him all the time to like, just walking up to him and striking up a conversation, you know?”
“Why, because you know you were bullshitting everyone when you told him you just didn’t have time for both him and your classes?” Ashley raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know the real reason that you decided to cut things off with him, but I’d bet Ty would like to know.”
“He just kind of…let it drop,” I said, shrugging again. “He said that if I ever wanted to talk to him about anything, the door was open, but it’s not like he really put any effort into trying to get me to tell him what was going on, or to like—I don’t know—see if I was having second thoughts about it.”
“So what you’re telling me is that you set a boundary with him, and he obeyed that boundary and didn’t push you for more than you were comfortable with, and that’s why you don’t want to at least have a talk with him and figure out of there might still be something there?” Ashley stared at me for a long moment and shook her head. “You need to take some more psych classes, sweetie.”
“He’s a senior,” I pointed out. “Even if I did decide to try and talk to him, it’s not like it’s all that likely he’ll decide to keep things up after he graduates.”
That was—in fact—the real reason I was so hesitant, the real reason that I had pushed him away. How could a guy go from a three-year relationship and straight into another serious commitment? Obviously—at least to me—I had been just something to fill his time and someone to be comfortable and sexual with until it came time to go home after graduation.
“Well all I can say is that if you’re going to go around stalking him because the sight of him distracts you, I think it’s probably better for him to at least know why you’re staring at him from the bushes,” Ashley said, grinning a little.
“You are such a bitch sometimes,” I said, shaking my head. “I am not staring at him from the bushes or watching his dorm room or anything like that. I’ve been avoiding him for two months!”
“And then the minute you saw him you just couldn’t help following him across campus staring,” Ashley countered. “Talk to the guy. See what’s going on. Hell, that way you at least get an up-close sighting of his face.”
She stood and gathered up her stuff again. I laughed and shook my head, but in spite of the fact that I knew that I would never put her advice into practice, what Ashley had said reawakened the hunger I hadn’t even realized I’d been feeling—on top of the pain and guilt and remorse that had been in the back of my mind all the time. I couldn’t do anything about it though; I told myself that once graduation came and went, and there was no chance of me seeing Ty again, everything would be all right.
Chapter Eight
It seemed like the semester had dragged on and on, and like it had all happened in the blink of an eye, all at the same time. Before I knew it I’d gotten through midt
erms, and Nicole and I had been separated—with her even going so far as to avoid me—for almost the whole semester. I’d had my degree audit and I knew that all I had in front of me were finals and graduation—and the CPA exam.
I had actually scheduled to take it before the semester ended; it was the first window of the year, at the end of the testing window before the “break” month. I figured that way, if I didn’t get a high enough score the first time, I would have plenty of time left in the year to re-take the exam portions.
Dad had helped me through the application process, including fronting my fees for me—I definitely didn’t want to have to retake any part of the exam, but it was going to be a grueling process to get through the exam the first time even if I did as well as I had on the first practice test. I’d managed to get away with not yet having my degree, since I’d passed the 150 credit hours requirement, and since I was confirmed to be getting my degree in the meantime.
But as I got closer and closer to graduation, instead of thinking about Nicole less, I found myself thinking about her more. I thought about her when I showered, I thought about her while I was filling out my applications, I thought about her when I studied. It was just impossible—I wasn’t going to be able to move forward until I’d figured out what happened between us. I had to know. I had to figure out how to either make things right, or to put it to rest because there was no way to make it right.
I’d caught just the shortest glimpse of Nicole, as I was coming out of the Admin building, fresh from my degree audit. She’d cut her hair—and god, it looked amazing on her, framing her face, making her eyes look huge and sweet. I hadn’t said anything, I didn’t call out to her; I just watched her walk, looking just as beautiful as she ever had in a light, knee-length skirt and a local band’s t-shirt. I had wanted more than anything to run up to her and wrap my arms around her, but I knew better.