"I need space." Those were the words Jacky said to Ryan the night before they both left for separate colleges. Now, each of them will try to learn who they are without the other. Will their paths lead them back together?
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Jacky
Jacky had texted Ryan two whole hours ago and had gotten nothing. It had taken him three whole days to come up with the exact wording, and he'd had to work with Billy, of all people. Three days of stalking Ryan on social media to find any tidbit on what exactly was the nature of his new relationship and was there any little part of him that might be able to forgive Jacky for being a complete and total dumbass.
("This is just a rebound," Billy had said, waving his hand at the photo of Ryan and Charlie, and for some reason Jacky had believed him.)
All of that was just as well, because things with Braedyn had been weird as fuck. Even on the mornings Braedyn had gone with him to breakfast, there was zero eye contact. Jacky wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and say, "Just come out of the closet already!"
At least when Ryan hadn't been out, he'd still been honest with himself.
The text should have been perfect:
I know you may not want to hear from me, but I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you
"The key," Billy had said, waving a hand through the air, "is that you don't say you miss him. You don't say you want to get back together. You just let him know you're here and you don't hate him. I'm assuming you said some harsh things when you broke up?"
Jacky was slightly offended, but he knew it was true. He had known Ryan's worst fear was feeling like a burden and that was exactly where he'd fired his shot.
"So think of this text as a feeler. You don't want him to feel pressured. You want him to come back to you."
The part Jacky hadn't considered was the waiting. If Ryan was going to run back to him, he had to sit here and wait. And wait and wait and wait. Now it was almost midnight and he'd sent the text a little before ten, thinking Ryan might be heading to bed at ten on a weeknight and would see it before he plugged his phone in to charge, like he'd done every single time he'd slept over. While Jacky often forgot to charge his phone and needed to have a spare charger in his backpack because half the time he was running on five percent battery, Ryan charged his phone every night and had never, to Jacky's knowledge, gone below 50 percent. It seemed like college may have changed Ryan's habits.
What else had college changed about Ryan?
Billy had given up waiting after about ten minutes. "I'm gonna hit up Lucas. See you in the morning!"
The hours dragged by in the dark. Jacky could hear the guys across the hall playing video games, and he wondered if anyone other than Braedyn noticed his absence.
He shouldn't have taken advice from Billy. What did Billy know about relationships that Jacky didn't? All Billy had were numbers. Many boyfriends, many hookups. But Billy had never been in love, not the way Jacky and Ryan had been in love. If Jacky knew one thing about Ryan, it was that Ryan was straightforward. Ryan did not play games. Suddenly it seemed like what Jacky was doing with this text was playing a game.
