“Did you…did you kiss him back?” I asked, my voice cracking a little now. Nolan just kept her back to me for a few seconds, and I saw what was happening reflected in the shame on Gavin’s face. “Nolan?”

Her shoulders started shaking, and she brought her hands up to cover her mouth. She turned to face me so slowly it killed me. By the time we were eye-to-eye, her face was wet, and her eyes were red with guilt. I slid off balance a little, bracing myself on the edge of her desk, my fingers digging into the wood. I wouldn’t let her gaze go. I just kept it. Taking in a deep breath, I asked her one more time. “Nolan, did you kiss him back?” I asked.

Even though I already knew, when she nodded yes, and closed her eyes, it was like someone had stabbed me in the heart. My entire life just whirled by me at once. My dad, my future, my grandmother’s goddamn ring…everything was f**king ruined! Unable to take being in this room another second, I pushed from the desk and stormed out her door, throwing it closed behind me with such force that it bounded back open and the sound reverberated down the hall.

I got to the stairwell and flung that door open, too, and was sliding down the stairs several at a time; my feet couldn’t get me from this f**king building fast enough. Then I heard her voice—her pathetic-sounding pleas. And it all just broke me again.

“Reed! Please, don’t leave. You have to understand, you have to let me explain!” she was chasing me down the stairs, and I knew she was going to fall if she kept up that speed. I just stopped when I was one floor away from my freedom and turned to wait for her. When she saw me, she stopped at the top of the steps, again putting a hand over her mouth while she cried and shook.

“Nolan, when I said never…I f**king meant it,” I said, solemnly while I shook my head and looked down at the steps between us. “What…what the hell happened?”

She looked up and took in a deep breath, wrapping her arms around her stomach again like she was forcing herself not to be sick. When she looked back down at me, she just shrugged. “I don’t really know. It just sort of happened…” she was soft, full of shame.

I turned to look away from her for a bit, just to reset my thoughts, and put my hands on my head. “Nolan, how does something like that just sort of happen? Was it…a small kiss?” I was turning to look at her again with hope that it was something innocent, but when her body started convulsing again, I knew there was nothing innocent about what had happened between her and Gavin.

Shaking my head, I started backing away from her slowly. “Noles, I don’t think I want to hear anymore. I…I just can’t,” I was cold now. I didn’t want her following me, but I didn’t want to be mean. And I knew if I heard anything else she had to say, I was going to be. I was at the main floor and was reaching to pull the door to leave when she caught up to me one last time, her hand on my shoulder just breaking me all over again.

“Reed, please!” she pleaded.

I turned to look at her, so damn close to me. Not thinking, I just reached up to grab both sides of her face and kissed her hard, willing myself to erase the pain. But the more I kissed her, the more her body shook, and the more I thought about her lips on Gavin’s, and how she actually wanted them there. I pulled away quickly and pushed her back gently. I scrunched my brow a bit, thinking, and finally found the courage to ask.

“Are you…into him?” I was afraid of her response. And when she didn’t give me one immediately, I stumbled off balance a bit again, hit in the face with an entirely new devastating fact.

“No, I’m not…I just…I don’t know how it all got to this…oh god,” she was covering her mouth again and squeezing her eyes shut.

I just reached for her wrists to take them in my hands and pull them to my lips so I could kiss them softly. “I have to go,” I said, my heart broken as I turned away from her.

“What do you mean? Are you coming back? Are we…okay?” she was blubbering now.

I just shrugged my shoulders a bit at her words. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” I said as I let the door fall shut behind me.

Reed

I don’t know how I got home. I don’t remember a thing about the drive. I know I thought about stopping at my pop’s house, talking it out with him. But honestly the thought of telling my dad about what Nolan did just ripped through me almost as much as the act itself, so I kept driving.

Somehow, I had made it back to my dorm room. It was early still, the sun barely setting. Normally, I’d be bringing Noles home from dinner, distracting her from homework, wrapping strands of her hair around my fingers and blowing on her neck while she tried to read or concentrate. But instead, I was laying flat on my back, staring up at my dorm room ceiling, miserable and alone.