“So was it as brutal as you imagined?” Sammy asked.
Gael slowed down as they approached the post office, where he used to hang out in what seemed like a whole other world. “I have to say, it was actually kind of good.”
Sammy punched him on the shoulder. “See? I told you! Wasn’t the dialogue great?” Her hand drifted back to her side. “And how about the camera work? I bet you weren’t expecting that.”
Gael shook his head. “I can absolutely guarantee you I wasn’t.”
A group of ultra-pierced pseudo-punks holding Frappuccino cups walked past them, and Sammy turned toward UNC’s North Campus. Gael followed her gaze toward the tall, mostly leafless trees, and the diagonal brick sidewalks, and the planetarium where he and Anika had kissed, and Linda’s, a bar that Gael’s parents used to go to sometimes. This town held so much history. It reminded him of how quickly everything could change.
She looked back to him. “I guess I should head back to my dorm,” she said.
Gael paused, and I gave him just the tiniest idea.
“You should definitely get back. You wouldn’t want John thinking this was a date or anything.” He smiled.
But Sammy didn’t smile back. Her face instantly fell flat.
“Sorry,” he said. “Stupid dad joke. Apologies.”
But Sammy was shaking her head. She looked down at her scuffed black boots and then back up at him. “It’s not your fault. It’s just that I haven’t been totally honest with you.”
Gael felt a weight descend in his stomach. Maybe she was lying yesterday, when she said she didn’t think his dad would cheat. Maybe she even knew something that he didn’t . . .
His eyes drifted to Linda’s again, and he wondered if his dad had taken that girl there, too. “Just tell me,” he said finally.
She narrowed her eyes at him. “It’s not anything bad. I mean, it is, but it’s not anything bad for you. It’s just that . . . well . . .”
“What?” Gael asked.
She bit her lip. “I feel so stupid saying this and I honestly don’t know why it’s so hard. Okay.” She took a deep breath. “It’s just that John and I broke up a month and a half ago.”
Gael whipped his head back. “Whoa,” he said. “I was not expecting that.”
She shrugged. “I know. I should have said something sooner.”
A crowd of students walked past them, and Gael stepped to the side. She followed him. “Why didn’t you?”
Sammy glanced around before answering, as if looking for an out. “I don’t know. You and your mom still seemed pretty shook up from what happened with your parents, and it just seemed not very important in comparison. And then I was going to say something—I even tried to mention it that night at your birthday—but you had so much else on your mind.” She paused for breath. “And then it had just been so long, and of course you guys just assumed that we were still together, and I don’t know, it just felt weirder and weirder to say something out of the blue.”
“Geez,” he said. “What happened?”
Sammy looked away. “He basically said that he needed to ‘find’ himself in his new school.” Sammy made the appropriate air quotes. “Which I’m pretty sure is just code for hook up with other people. I should have seen it coming. I should have realized that we’d be like everyone else, that there was no way we’d make it through college long distance.”
Gael frowned.
(So did I. Sure, Sammy might like rom-coms, which she felt were about as believable as her other favorite, horror movies, but when it came to real life, she was a Cynic5 through and through. The whole time she’d been dating John she’d just been waiting for something to go wrong. I hated that, in the end, it had. It wasn’t always going to be that way, of course—there was lots of good in store for her—but Cynics are always hard to convince.)
“I promise I’m not one of those like weird stalkers who refuses to accept their breakup,” Sammy said nervously.
Gael laughed out loud at that. “I wouldn’t think that,” he said. “I just feel like such a dick. I was going on and on about how you couldn’t possibly understand and, god, yesterday when I said you were my relationship inspiration. You knew exactly what I was going through.”
He felt like an idiot. He should have seen the truth. Even if Sammy hadn’t said it outright, he should have known somehow.
Sammy shook her head. “Don’t worry. It was my fault. But to answer your question, no, John won’t be jealous. And now I really should go.”
And before he could say another word, she turned on her heel and sauntered across the crosswalk, just making it before the green light turned red. Gael watched her walk down the path into the campus until he couldn’t see her anymore.
And then he turned up Henderson, heading toward home, and for some reason, his steps were just the tiniest bit lighter.
* * *