"I need space." Those were the words Jacky said to Ryan the night before they both left for separate colleges. Now, each of them will try to learn who they are without the other. Will their paths lead them back together?
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My new roommates are all lesbians. Pete is outnumbered 4-1.
Jacky frowned down at his phone. He had forced himself to wait until he was actually in line at Dunkins to read Ryan's message, which he'd sent as a chat and not as a video message. Had Ryan meant to send this message to someone else?
His mind tried to connect the dots. Does Ryan use SnapChat with someone else? How long has this been going on?
Then he saw that he had sent Ryan a message to prompt this. A video message. The screen was nearly dark and Jacky was absolutely not going to play that out loud. He had sent Ryan a message last night after he blacked out. A drunk text, basically, but worse. A drunk video. What had he said? He looked up at the ceiling and groaned out loud.
"That bad, huh?" came a voice behind him.
Jacky turned to find Braedyn, looking not hungover at all. Nope, Braedyn had perfectly tousled hair and a crisp white shirt unbuttoned enough to look like he could be heading off to the beach. Jacky averted his eyes. "Drunk-texted my ex," he mumbled.
He wondered if Braedyn remembered Jacky's drunk coming out statement, but only for a moment before Braedyn said, "Oof, that sucks. Is your ex a total douchebag?"
"No," Jacky said with a laugh, because in no universe would Ryan ever be described as a douchebag. "He's... great, actually." I'm the douchebag, he thought darkly. I dumped him the night before he left for college.
"Oh." Braedyn's voice had gone high. "Why'd you guys break up then?"
Jacky shrugged, inching forward in a line that seemed to be how fast coffee lines moved in his own personal hell. "You know, the usual... breaking up before college thing."
"Wow, you sure he's not a douche?" Braedyn said. "I mean, you guys could have at least tried long distance."
"It was mutual," Jacky lied.
Ryan's eyes, shining in the porch light that night: Are you saying you want to break up with me? The way Ryan couldn't even seem to have imagined this was a possibility.
Braedyn squinted his eyes and nodded in an unreadable way. "Hey, are you going to the..."
But Jacky's mind was so far down the black hole of self-loathing that he wasn't listening. He had blindsided Ryan, when they could have had a conversation about it at any point over the summer. Instead Jacky had just assumed Ryan would be better off without him and slammed the door. Ryan didn't deserve that. Jacky deserved to be alone and miserable.
It wasn't until Braedyn nudged him with an elbow to his back that he realized that the cashier was waiting to take his order and probably had been for quite some time.
"Sorry," he said, and then his mind went blank.
"So what can I get you?" the cashier asked, more than a hint of annoyance in her voice.
