“No, it came out right.” I scoot away from him a bit. “After everything you did to me, you wanted to go to college together?”
“I wanted us to make up.” He stands up as if he can’t bear being close to me anymore. “I thought a summer apart was enough time for us to forget everything that happened—”
“I will never forget what happened.” I cut him off. “But I must have been just as naïve as you back then, because you’re the only reason I went to Harvard. I honestly thought you’d be there.”
“You weren’t planning to apologize?”
“Me?” I notice that he’s glaring at me now and stepping closer and closer to the door. “Apologize to you? Is your memory that distorted? Is your mind that fucked up?”
“No,” he says, twisting the doorknob and opening the door. “Just my heart.”
Chapter 25
MIA
There’s a popular saying about the past, something about it being best to leave all of the hurt and pain there, to move on and grow from it, but I’ve never thought that was fair.
It’s actually very, very un-fucking fair.
How can you possibly move on from the one person who infiltrates your dreams, no matter how many times you try to place him into your nightmares? How can you expect to grow without knowing the exact reason you fell apart, and as far as leaving hurt and pain behind?
I’m certain that’s impossible. There’s no stop-clock for heart-ache, and time only numbs it, bit by bit. It never heals it completely.”
I write all of those words down onto a sheet of white paper and cut them out one by one. I glue them to a board in no particular order or fashion, until my board looks like word vomit.
I cannot believe that Dean had the audacity to blame me for anything that happened between us, that he really thought I was the one who needed to apologize.
I’ve been up typing for six hours straight since, running off pure anger and confusion.
When my last word is stuck to the board, I start typing up more thoughts, so I can add more scrambled words to whatever the hell this piece will turn out to be. Then I hear a knock at my door and it slowly opens.
Dean.
“What?” I ask.
He opens the door and looks at me. “Can we do another temporary truce?”
“Are you about to get drunk? Do you need me to help you this time?” I shake my head. “I won’t be able to carry you or help you into bed, so if that’s what you’re about to propose, you should ask someone else.”
“That’s not it...” He says, a slight smile on his lips. “I was going to propose trying to start over, with you.”
“What?” I raise my eyebrow. “What are you talking about?”
“Bullshit aside, I know you still care about me, Mia.”
“My heart is an idiot.”
“I still have feelings for you, too.” He steps inside and shuts the door, leaning against the wall. “And I think we can try to be friends at least.”
“Friends who have sex or friends who don’t have sex?”
“The sex is definitely still happening.” He briefly glances at my collage and looks back at me. “That’s not the point, though. I would like for us to get along, to try and move past what happened, if we can.”
I don’t say anything. I just stare at him with the cut-out word “hate” literally hanging off my fingertips.
“Are you going to say something?” he asks. “Do you think we could at least try to talk to each other outside of the sex?”
“We could try...”
“Good.” He walks over to my dresser and picks up the boxes of protein bars I stole long ago. “Do you mind if I take these back now?”
“No.” I place “hate” onto my desk. “How do we start over as friends?”
He shrugs and opens the door. “Shouldn’t be that hard. It’s not like I don’t already know you.”
“Believe it or not, ten years can change a person quite a bit.”
“I’m sure it can.” He smiles, looking me over. “However, you clearly still have a thing for wearing red bras every day and purposely color coordinating them with whatever color I mention the day before. I’m sure there’s plenty of other things that are still the very same.” He shuts the door as I blush, not giving me enough time to come up with a good excuse.
Chapter 26
MIA
“What’s this?” Eric walks into the condo days later. Much earlier than normal, almost too early. “The two of you sitting on a couch together, both alive and not arguing?” He tosses his scarf onto the coat rack. “Is this really happening?”