Stolen First Times

20. My First Breakup

*Edited*

School drew to a close for the summer after a few quick months. Today was Uriah's graduation party and he had said he wanted to talk to me about something. When I had asked about it, he would look the other way without meeting my eyes and make up some excuse as to why he couldn't just tell me.

So here I was with my parents walking over to our neighbor's house. I had to hold back a few eye rolls when I saw Bianca and Christi, as well as their popular crowd, surrounding the food table in the backyard. I separated from my parents when Uriah found me and gave me a hesitant smile. As he pulled me to the far end of his spacious backyard, I made eye contact with Elijah who was sitting with his arm around Mae on a seat swing.

She smiled cutely at me as she snuggled closer to Elijah. I faked a smile at the two of them as I followed Uriah. He sat me down on a bench seated at the edge of the yard in front of a small garden that I was surprised to see. Uriah sat down beside me and nervously wrung his hands together.

"Listen, Veronica. I know how Elijah told you I was adopted, so I'll just get straight to the point. My biological father has been in contact with me for some time now and he seems like a different man."

"Aw, that's so great. I'm happy for you, Uriah," I said, genuinely. I didn't understand why this was so important that he couldn't have told me earlier.

But then he sighed and continued, "I've been accepted into Bryant University and I would be stupid not to go there."

"Oh...congratulations."

He turned to face me with a look of sorrow. "My father works at the college and he wants me to move in his apartment as soon as possible."

Sudden realization dawned on me. Uriah would be moving out of state for an unidentified amount of time. My eyes flew to his and I asked, already regretting the answer, "When are you leaving?"

"Tomorrow."

"What! But summer just started! You can't go-"

Uriah clasped both of my hands tightly in one of his. With his other hand, he placed two fingers under my chin to tilt my face up. "I've been thinking about it for a long time and I've already made my decision. That was the easy part about this whole thing, I guess. The hard part is leaving you."

"W-When are you coming b-back?" I stuttered, feeling my heart pound in my chest.

"Veronica, I won't be coming back."

The finality of his words made me gasp and I couldn't concentrate. These past few months had been amazing with him. We had hung out everyday after school without any interruptions from Elijah who had been too busy with Mae to care. I had also come to actually love Uriah.

"So what does this mean for us?" I asked with tears in my eyes. He rubbed his thumbs under my eyes as he answered, "You don't understand how much I don't want this to happen, but I think it would be the best if we were just friends. Then you could focus in getting into a college and I could focus on my studies."

I took a few moments to process everything he just said. "So this is it?"

He shook his head, tightening his hand around mine. "No. I don't want to lose you. We can still keep in contact while I'm away."

"Okay...I'm sorry, but I need some time to...think about this," I said, standing up. Uriah nodded and stood up with me.

"I understand. I'm so sorry about all of this. If there was any other way..."

I smiled at him through my tears and I said, "It's alright, I'll be okay. I'm just glad to see you're going to be living with your father and going to the university he works at."