That’s how long it’s been since I told you I’m in love with you. Since we kissed. Since you chose someone else over me.
I still sit behind you in class. I still know the way you tuck your hair behind your ear when you’re thinking really hard about something. I still catch myself waiting for you to turn around and smile at me like none of this ever happened.
But you don’t. You never do.
It all feels like a really horrible fucking nightmare that I can’t wake up from.
Every fucking day, I want to call you, text you, talk to you, share something stupid about my day with you. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve even reached for my phone before I remember this shitty reality where we’re not talking at all.
Hell, I talk to your mom more than you. I still get her nearly daily check-in text messages. And now I have to respond with some vague shit because I don’t know what you’ve told your mom and we’re basically strangers, even though our families havebeen best friends for our entire fucking lives. I’ve even talked to Evie more than I’ve talked to you. Yes, fucking Evie texts me more than you. I helped her arrange some lawsuit over Kline’s dick pics. My dad and your dad are friends again. The Crocky rift has been officially laid to rest, you know, just in time for our friendship to fucking implode into smithereens.
But you laugh with Drew now. You kiss him goodbye in front of our building like I’m not standing twenty feet away pretending to talk to Blake or Finn on the phone so I don’t have to look like a complete idiot.
And maybe I am an idiot.
Because despite all of it, I still check my phone like you might text. Like maybe you’ll remember how we used to talk about anything and everything and spend hours doing absolutely nothing together and still call it the best part of our day.
We were best fucking friends, Lia.
BEST FUCKING FRIENDS. OUR WHOLE LIVES.
Fuck, the silence is so loud.
And I guess I get it. I mean, I crossed a line, right? I broke the rules.
I fell in love with you.
I just wish I knew if there was ever a second, just one fucking second, when you felt the same way.
This is the tenth email I’ve written you this week. I’ve yet to send one of these fuckers to you and I probably won’t send this one either.
-Ace
Unsent. Saved to drafts.
Friday, October 25th
Julia
“You want anything?” Drew asks, stretching as he stands and nodding toward the vending machines. “They’ve got those weird sour gummy worms you like.”
“Uh…” I pause, my distracted mind needing a minute to catch up with his words. “Only if they’re neon,” I murmur, still staring at my laptop screen.
“A woman of taste.” There’s a smile in his voice, but I don’t look up to see it. “Be right back.”
For the past hour, we’ve been camped out in one of the quieter corners of McKinley Library—laptops open and notebooks scattered between us. Drew’s been helping me study for our upcoming calc exam, and I’ve been pretending I’m not distracted. That my thoughts haven’t been drifting. That I haven’t checked Ace’s Instagram three times today.
It’s not who I am, and it’s embarrassing. Calculus is something that comes easy to me. All last year, in Calc 1, I didn’t have to study for a single exam. But this year, I don’t know, my focus is that of a squirrel trying to fight its way out of a tube sock.
But once Drew is gone, I glance up from my laptop and move my eyes toward the large window by our table that looks out over the quad. And out of all the people I spot moving across the sidewalk, I don’t expect to see Ace. It’s like the universe is playing tricks on me.
He’s walking fast across campus in his favorite black hoodie with his headphones on.
He’s heading somewhere.
Or maybe he’s heading to someone?
The thought slips in before I can stop it.Is it going to be a meet-up with her? The glitter girl from the Instagram photo?
