The Part At the End of August

We're driving home. It's been a long day – hiking, laughing, spending time with old friends. All of us are crammed into the huge car, Wine is driving. Your head is in my lap. Like everyone else in the car, you're fast asleep. I play with your hair, running my fingers through your brown curls. I trace your face. Eyes, nose. Lips.

You're perfect.

The song on the radio is from Wine's dressing room mix. I know it so well (but I like the live version better). But as I look down at you, cuddled up to me, it means so much more. You're there, in my lap. And you're not going anywhere. Nothing is going to happen to us.

We're together forever.

Someone Like You - Adele

I didn't know what to do with myself. She wasn't my girlfriend anymore, so I wasn't allowed to text her when I saw something that I thought she might like or when I thought of something I needed to tell her. I wasn't allowed to think about her, really. I needed to move on.

My parents didn't know that I had just ended a relationship. They hadn't been able to share the giddiness of our first kiss, the joy of the day we got together...and they couldn't be there to comfort me when my heart broke. They thought that I was acting so weird and upset because I was sad to leave my friends behind. Only partially true.

The drive to Utah was the most miserable twenty-six hours of my life. I texted everyone but her. Because I couldn't text her. But I didn't want to talk to everyone. I wanted to talk to her.

I wanted her to be happy. I knew that we had done the right thing.

Doricha and I had been dating for eight months when we started college. When we started dating we agreed that what would be best for both of us would be to break up when we started school. A clean break. So that there wouldn't be any cheating or lies or heartbreak or hurt. We would break up while we still loved each other so we would only have happy memories. And if we really missed each other that much maybe we would look at getting back together after a year.

But we were going to live the college life.

She was going to live the college life.

We talked about me finding a nice boy, settling down, raising a family. I guess I sort of believed it. I knew that it was best to just bury this part of myself. And someday I would meet someone who cared about me just as much as Doricha did. Who sacrificed as much of himself as she did for me, who did the little things that she did, who got that smile on his face. Like she did. That smile.

And I would be able to trust him as much as I had trusted her. I would be able to trust him enough to tell him about her. And he would hold me while I cried because I missed her so much. Because I never wanted to leave her, but I was trying to do what was best for everybody. For me. I was trying to do what was right. I was trying to be good. I was trying to be who I was supposed to be.

I was going to be the daughter my parents raised me to be. It wasn't going to be overnight. But someday there would be someone. And he would be able to be like her. He would be what she was to me. He would maybe start to fill to place she left.

And we would be happy for each other. She would be my maid of honor at my wedding. And I would just ignore it when we shared that look. That look that we shared so often. That look that meant "I wonder what you would do if I kissed you right now." Because that part of my life was over. Was supposed to be over.

Would never be over.

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