Zach and Abby

37. - Edited

Abby - Edited

Locked out, key in dorm. When will u be home?

I read the message once, shoving it back in my pocket a moment later. A million thoughts went racing through my head in less than a second and while maybe only thirty seconds had gone by, it seemed like thirty years.

Here he was, after more than a month had gone by without seeing his face. As a reflex, I wanted to ask if he was okay. I made it a point, fighting against nearly every bone in my body not to turn and look at him in either of our morning classes. I filled up ten pages in my history notebook not with notes but with swirls and doodles just to keep my mind preoccupied. In Spanish, I conjugated every verb I could think of in every tense I knew.

But he wasn’t stupid, he caught on soon enough.

He’d never let his beard grow out this much; it wasn’t just a handsome dark stubble anymore. His shoulders caved in around himself, standing here talking to me he looked scared more than anything.

The thing is that I was just as scared.

He asked about the necklace almost immediately. I knew he would, he probably knew I’d be wearing it. I had yet to even take it off, no one had ever given me something as meaningful as this. And then for some reason I felt like a bitch for not getting him a Christmas gift.

He chased me down, having suffered through a month of silence, willing to fight for our relationship and all I could do was run away. I wasn’t mad anymore, I wasn’t worried or afraid of Mia anymore. I’d forgiven him a while ago too; I knew he loved me.

But yeah, I had heard about the draft. I watched the news splash our story every other day, blame his declined entry on my family problems. They said he could have possibly made the biggest mistake of his career and it was unknown if he’d get the same opportunities next year.

I didn’t want to be a regret. In ten years, when he’s working some everyday job, living an ordinary life, I don’t want him to look at me and see the person who ruined his possible future. It’s natural for us to blame someone else when something goes wrong. For this, it wasn’t even a question – he did it all for me and one day he’d regret it.

And with all the added attention on him, especially with his injury and loss in the championship, I was not the person he needed to be leaning on. Mom could go at any moment and when she did, everything would only get ten times worse.

So I kept up the blank wall, taking off like Bridget’s message was life or death. I didn’t even look back at him, I chose to save myself that hurt.

I found her sitting on the step outside our door, eyes closed like she fell asleep. She must have heard my pounding footsteps, raising an eyebrow in question as to why I’d been running like something was chasing me.

I ignored her, opening the door and heading straight back to my room. She’d made a big deal out of today being the first day of classes, the first day I’d be forced to see him. Faking sick wasn’t going to work on her. She came marching in twenty minutes to nine, not buying the crumpled tissues and pathetic cough.