Three Years Later | ✓

01 | A New Beginning

THREE FREAKING YEARS.

It's been three years since the last time I had seen or even heard from Milo.

The next day after that intense night from three years ago when I had broken up with him, I called Milo, too dejected and ashamed to meet him in person. After talking on the phone for an hour, we mutually agreed that we would cut off all ties with each other. Social media, emailing, texting, you name it, as a way of letting each other go and trying to move on from one another.

In order to get Milo to agree to these terms though, he made me promise to him that if we still felt something for each other by the time I got to college, which I highly doubted, then we would pick things back up from where we left off.

"Hadley, you're doing it again," said Ava, waving her hands in my face.

"Hmm?" I responded, completely oblivious to what Ava said moments ago.

"You blanked on me again for like the fifth time since we got here. What's going on?" Her expression shifted from an exasperated one to a knowing look, eyebrows raised with the corner of her mouth quirking up into a smirk. "Are you thinking about—"

"Don't say it," I grumbled, shooting her a glare. I walked towards the entrance of the quad, and to the parking lot.

"Don't say what?" Ava shrugged innocently, trailing behind me. "I was just going to ask if you were thinking about..." she paused and looked around, "that guy over there. He's cute."

Ava pointed to a guy across the quad reading a book underneath a tree on the luscious green lawn. He was scrawny and had a checkered vest on with khaki pants. I gave Ava an incredulous look and she slumped down in defeat.

"Okay, fine. What I meant to ask was," a smirk returned to Ava's face as she perked up and began speaking at a louder volume, "were you thinking about—"

"Shh!" I reached up and covered Ava's mouth with my hands, the last part of her sentence muffled. A few students looked up from their conversations and directed their attention to us. While giving them an apologetic smile, Ava bit my palm and I yelped in pain, removing my hand from her mouth.

"Come on, Hads. I know, no, we both know that you still like him." She teased, fully aware that her words were annoying me.

"Yeah right. It's been three years, Ava. What makes you think that I still like him?" I said defensively.

"Gee, I don't know. Maybe it's because we're attending the same college as him?" Ava said sarcastically. "Think about it, Hadley. Why would we be attending UC Berkeley when you could've chosen to go to any other college besides this one? We could've just stayed back home and attended UH Manoa, but you decided to come here to Berkeley instead."

"I didn't come to Berkeley for him. I came here because I heard that they had a great Dance and Performing Arts program," I insisted.

I swiveled around, about to walk away from Ava again, when my body became rigid.

Out of everyone, my eyes landed on him, the sight of him knocking all of the air out of my lungs. He was wearing a fitted t-shirt that was navy blue at the top but slowly faded to white at the bottom with denim jeans and was leaning nonchalantly against a slightly used black truck, smiling and chatting with a bunch of guys that were surrounding him.

Taking a deep breath, I gave myself a small pep talk. I can do this.

I stepped down from the concrete path and felt the loose gravel underneath my sneakers. I casually strolled up to him and his friends that were across the parking lot, leaving Ava behind.