I make a skeptical face but he goes on.
“I wanted to find out who you were, so I sat down next to you and bothered you until you talked to me. And when you did talk to me, I got you so worked up and angry by taking your book and...I don’t know, I just couldn’t stop looking at you.”
“I’m sorry but that makes no sense.”
“You were beautiful, Sullivan. You still are.”
I don’t take compliments well, so I ignore him completely. “I was so bratty to you that day.”
“I deserved it. I was a jerk.”
“True,” I agree. “When you sat with me again in the next class, I was stunned.”
Ryan catches my gaze and keeps it. “I think I was already in love with you by then. I just had to wait for you to catch up with me.”
His words comfort and crush me. We both look forward.
“You didn’t have to wait very long,” I say.
Ryan’s gaze falls to the pavement, a cloud seeming to come over him. “When we broke up, when you cut me off like that...I was messed up for a long time.” Seconds go by until he speaks again. “You really broke my heart, you know?”
We stop walking as we arrive outside my building and I say the first thing that flashes through my mind. “You broke mine first.”
Ryan takes in my words. Part of me wishes I didn’t say them, but they’re the truth. Maybe he needed to hear them as much as I needed to say them.
“It’s surprising that we’re still able to be friends now,” he says, “considering what we did to each other.”
“I’m sure a fair amount of former couples are able to stay friends.”
“And you think they’re the same as you and me? That they had what we had?”
I roll his question over in my head, hoping to find an answer that’s honest but vague.
“I don’t know,” I decide to say. “Did you ever feel what we did with someone else?”
I can see his chest pitch up and down. I’ve probably overstepped but it’s too late to take it back now.
“I haven’t.” His tone is sure and final, not at all in the quiet voice that would have come from me. “I never really wanted to feel that way again. That’s why...”
Before he can finish, a car comes to a screeching halt at the corner. I gasp at the jarring sound as Ryan grabs my arm and pulls me behind him. Two cars are now stopped and are aggressively honking at each other when Ryan turns back to me, letting go of my arm.
I clear my throat and plaster on a smile. “Okay, I think that’s a sign that we should go inside. We’ve both had a lot to drink so let’s head on up and eat this pizza.” Without waiting for a response, I walk into the entrance with Ryan falling in step behind me. Pizza makes everything better. Hopefully.
Once we’re inside, I kick off my shoes and flop down onto the couch, finding Duke asleep under my desk. I’m toasty drunk so the freezing apartment doesn’t give me immediate pneumonia. Ryan puts the pizza box on the kitchen counter and sits down in the reading chair across from me. He nudges his sneakers off as I close my eyes and sink back into the unbelievably comfortable cushions.
“Can I ask you something?”
I open my eyes to look at him. “Sure.”
He hesitates before going on. “The last time I called you, when you finally picked up...did you mean what you said or was it a lie?”
I think back to the call and a heavy weight starts to press inside me. I told him I used to laugh at him—that I was happier without him—that he was a waste of time. I wonder now if my words from that day stayed with him as much as his words put down roots in me.
“Of course it was a lie,” I admit. “After we broke up, all I thought about was going back to you.”
“I wish you would have. Or I should have come back for you.”
His statement almost knocks the wind out of me but I don’t show it.
