“What’s going on?” She asked, wrapping her arms around me and letting me sob into her neck. I didn’t realize how much I needed a shoulder to cry on until I felt her comforting hand on my back.

“She cheated on me,” Kyla stiffened before relaxing against me again, continuing her rubbing on my back as I cried. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Did you break up with her?”

“Not really,” I said, making Kyla sigh pityingly. “I can’t be without her but I can’t be with her.” Kyla tried to stifle a giggle and I smiled, knowing that I sounded ridiculous.

“How about I come and spend the night and we’ll watch bad romance movies and talk bad about boy – er girls?” She proposed, making me chuckle but pull away.

“Isn’t it you and Aiden’s three year anniversary or something?”

“Yeah but I can blow him off, he’ll understand.” She offered, shrugging.

“No, go be with Aiden, I’ll be okay.” 

“Really?”

“No, but I want you to be happy.” Kyla smiled and coaxed me into letting her drive me home in the Jeep that Ashley had left her. It nearly killed me to be in it again but I didn’t say anything, breathing in the imagined smell of Ashley.

Ashley went home the next day without calling me and I laid next to the phone for most of the day, hoping for the call that I knew would never come. I asked for time and Ashley would give it to me. I waited for two weeks, crying pretty much every night and begging God to send me Ashley before I finally just caved in and called her. It was nearly four in the morning so it somewhere around midnight her time so I wasn’t surprised when it took her a while to answer.

“Hello?” She asked, sounding sleepy. It was a Tuesday, so I knew that she had class and that she needed sleep but I needed to hear her voice again. It was killing me, even though it was me that had initiated the break. I didn’t say anything, ready to cry already and I guess that Ashley figured it out because I could hear her breathing pick up. “Spence?”