Uncharted Territory

Reagan

I stood outside the door and gave myself a pep talk before I knocked. I was leaving for Massachusetts in a week and had begun to wrap everything up in Arizona. Originally I was going to wait until after the wedding to head out east but after my blow-up at Grace a week and a half ago I realized I just needed to get away. I had apologized to her and we were fine but I couldn’t sit there and watch her plan her wedding, especially when I knew she was questioning it. I had decided I would go out east and then would come back in a month to be in Grace’s wedding. After the wedding I’d head back east for good.

I finally got up the nerve to knock on the door and held my breath as I waited for him to answer it.

“Hey Rae,” Joel’s smile lit up his face but then he suddenly looked worried. “Did I forget that we have a date today or something?”

I chuckled as I reassured him that he wasn’t forgetting anything important. “No, I just needed to stop by and talk to you…if that’s alright. I mean if you’re busy or something I can just come back later.”

“You’re fine, Rae. Come in. I was just messing with my guitar. So what’s up?”

“Well…I’m…umm…I’m moving back out to Massachusetts.”

Joel stared at me in shock for a few moments for before he finally spoke. “Ok…why?”

“Harvard offered me full tuition to come back next year and I’ve decided to take it.”

“That’s great, Reagan,” Joel said as he hugged me. “So when are you leaving?”

“Next week.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s soon.”

“I know,” I sighed. “That’s why I wanted to come talk to you. I didn’t want to leave without you knowing or for you to hear it from someone else.”

“I’m also guessing you came here to talk about what this means for us and our relationship?”

I sighed as I nodded.

Joel ran his hands through his hair. “I…I don’t know. I mean…it’s Massachusetts but…”

“I think we should break-up. Wow, that sounded so harsh. It’s just that our relationship is great but being long distance is pretty serious and I don’t know if I’m ready for that,” I meekly said, worried about how Joel was going to take it.

“I agree. I mean I hate to end our relationship because I really like you but you’re right. We’re both young and you’re going to be busy with school while I’m busy with the band so I just don’t think it’s going to work.”

“Thanks for understanding,” I mumbled as the tears started.

“Please don’t cry, Reagan,” Joel said as he wrapped his arms around me.

“I’m sorry. It was just a lot harder than I thought it’d be.”

Joel gave me a sad smile and led me over to the couch where we spent the rest of the afternoon watching movies and talking. Even though I didn’t love Joel as much as I loved John I still had strong feelings for him and the breakup was difficult.

As soon as I got back home from Joel’s I went up to my room and started organizing some of my things into boxes. Even though I still had a week to pack I knew I need to get started and I wanted something to get my mind off of the breakup.

“Hey Rae, what are you doing?” Kennedy asked as he entered my room.

“Oh, just getting started on packing,” I said as I quickly wiped my eyes and hoped he wouldn’t notice I had just been crying.

“Rae, what’s wrong?”

I considered lying and telling Kennedy that everything was fine but knew he’d see right through me. “I’m starting to question if I made the right decision. I knew it was going to be hard to leave but I didn’t think it’d be this hard.”

Kennedy nodded in understanding and sank down to the floor to sit by me. He put his arms around me and said, “You still have time to change your mind.”

“No, this is for the best,” I shook my head.

“I just want to make sure you’re not running from your problems.”

“If you had the chance to get out of Arizona for a little while to forget about Grace would you?”

“Yeah, I would,” Kennedy sighed.

I gave him a sad smile and we sat in silence for a little while until he asked, “So, what made you so upset? I know you’re second guessing your decision but I’m assuming something happened to make you second guess.”

“I went and told Joel I was moving back out east…and we broke up.”

“I’m sorry, Rae.”

“It had to be done. I needed to tell him and wanted him to hear it from me. I’m going to start telling everyone else tomorrow.”

“Are you going to tell John?”

“I don’t know.” I sighed as I leaned my head on Kennedy’s shoulder and wished he could fix my problems for me like he used to do when we were younger. There were some things though that even my brother couldn’t fix for me.