Away With Him

20 - Thought It Was Over

"You're just fine with him leaving you," Ellie asked, distracting me from my work yet again.

"Jesus Christ Ellie," I groaned, "He's going to college in this country. This is the best thing that could have happened."

"Yeah but... he's still going to be moving away from you."

"And we're going to make a long distance relationship work. It's not even that far. It's like a thousand miles."

"Okay..." Ellie hummed sounding unconvinced but she resumed her work before Mrs. Hannigan glared at us from the top of the classroom. I lowered my head quickly and continued working.

Up until then I hadn't had any doubts or worries about the future of my relationship with Max. Him staying in the country was all I wanted and with him going to Notre Dame, it seemed like everything was finally working out, for once. Boy did I get a reality check from Ellie. She was right. Max was going to be moving far far away. And I wouldn't be able to see him for at least a couple of months at a time.

But that didn't matter right now. That was months away. We still had the whole summer to be together.

"So you're probably going to go to Notre Dame as well," Ellie whispered.

"Umm... to be honest college has never crossed my mind." I didn't know what I was going to be eating for dinner in a few hours, never mind what I'm going to be doing in two years! "Maybe, but I don't want to seem to clingy either. And I don't want my career prospects to be decided by where my boyfriend is going to college."

"Good point. I mean, what if you guys broke up. That would be really awkward having to see each other on campus and knowing that you moved to be with him."

"Thank you Ellie, you can stop talking now," I interrupted. I did not want to hear about any sort of future where I wasn't with Max.

"Sorry."

My leg was shaking involuntarily under the table as I wracked my brain. It's not like Max is going to leave me. I mean we've been through so much together. I rescued him. I helped him flourish into a fantastic, amazing, brilliant human that isn't afraid of anything anymore. Well, except spiders. But I am too so I forgive him.

"I'll visit him on some weekends and he'll visit me other weekends. It'll only be a few weeks apart from each other when you include the breaks for Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Years, Easter. We'll barely be apart from each other." The words just flooded out of my mouth without me thinking about them much.

"Wow," Ellie gaped, "I thought you didn't want to talk about it." She twisted her hair between her fingers and pursed her lips while she stared at me. I just rolled my eyes and turned my attention back to the teacher.

Mrs. Hannigan had been droning on about our final class projects for history but nobody was really listening to her. Most of my classmates were staring off into space, obviously daydreaming about summer vacation which was only a week away. Finn and Gavin, who were sitting behind me, were taking it in turns kicking my foot. I think they were trying to knock my shoe off. I don't really know what goes on inside the mind of a straight boy.

"Your final project will be a presentation on any significant historical event in America during the 20th century. You will do the project in pairs and I expect you all to choose appropriate topics." Mrs. Hannigan's eyes bore holes into everyone sitting in the back row of the classroom. and for once they actually fell silent. But it didn't last long as the rest of the class resumed their chatter.

"So what event are we going to choose for the project," Ellie asked, pushing aside the notebook that I was doodling in. She smirked when she saw the page scattered with love hearts filler with the letters R+M.