Reunion

I was staring at the whiteboard after I heard the news from one of my somewhat friends, Kaitlyn.

‘Kaitlyn Morgan, how’d she know?’ I mused as I ignored whatever my teacher was writing, my eyes continuing to glaze over.

She had whispered it to me in the hallway before this class, just a quick message that was completely screwing up my world.

Cole Woods was moving back here, to Maysville.

He was moving back here. We’d gone through so much together I didn’t know what to feel. He’d only been gone a few months, leaving at the end of summer and it had only just reached December. It just felt so much longer most days. So much had changed in these past few months. I had changed in these past few months.

The past summer had been some of my best memories, but of course as always when I thought of Cole, they also contained my worst.

I remember the time his truck broke down out about thirty minutes from town. It was early April and I’d heard so many stories of him running out of gas I wasn’t even surprised when he called me. Well, that’s a lie.

I wasn’t surprised he had broken down. I was just surprised he had called me.

It was around ten o’clock and I was settling in for the night, already in my pajamas and watching a late night movie to get sleepy.

When I got there I figured it would be a quick fill and fly, he’d tell me thanks and the next time I’d see him was at school. Instead we stayed in the back of his truck until two am staring up at the stars and wishing the clouds would move out of the way. He grabbed my hand to point to one specific star. He didn’t let go for awhile.

We weren’t even dating then.

But days like that also bring up memories of all those times he never answered my calls. Those times I needed him to be there, or just hear his voice, and he didn’t respond. Like that time I saw him across the mall when I was with my family, and I sent him a text. He glanced down at his phone and read it, then didn’t answer. He never answered.

We had been dating then.

I always remember that first date. When we went out to dinner, then you walked me to my door and kissed me.

I don’t know if he knew then, but that was my first kiss. First of many, those small pecks shared when out with friends and the much longer ones at his house hiding out from his parents. Or out in his truck again, staring out at the stars guessing constellations.

But then I remember those arguments right before he left. All those tears and yelling and days we avoided one another, even if he and I never admitted that’s what we were doing.

I’ll always remember the day he told me he was moving, and I didn’t know what to feel. I started crying, and then he told me we were breaking up.

I kept crying.

He told me how we both knew it was coming. ‘A lie, it has to be a lie.’

And how of course we would have to; he was moving so far away it would never work. ‘He would have made it work before.’

How he never liked me. That one really hurt.

The last few months after that were hard, dealing with friend’s reactions and my own feelings. But, I eventually got over it. Or at least, I stopped thinking about it so much.

What made it worst were those feelings of missing him. Of wanting someone to grab my hand and point out the stars in the middle of the night. Of him wanting to come back and say he would make this work and he really did like me. I want him to stop lying to me.

I don’t even know how I felt about him now, and he was moving back here. Coming back after only being gone not even four months. Back to all this shit he left when he disappeared. Back to me.

I didn’t know what to do.