Fireworks

53

He blinks, face unmoving. I try to figure out what he's thinking, but all I get is a slight squinting of his eyes. He cocks his head. "What?" he asks, clearly uncomprehending.

"I came here to break up with you," I repeat, nerves only heightening.

He sits back in his chair, staring at me. His brow furrows. "I don't understand anything that's happening right now. You're joking, right?"

I sigh and run a hand down my face. This isn't going well. "No. I'm serious."

He still seems disbelieving. "Okay... You're sending mixed signals right now." He says warily.

"I'm sorry, I wasn't supposed to tell you that I - well, it's not important. Just hear me out for a second." I plead. "When we agreed to give this a chance, we said that we were just going to get to know each other until the end of the summer."

He opens his mouth to argue but I hold up a hand. "Hold on," I beg. "You can't deny that that's what we agreed to." I press, and he reluctantly nods. "Yeah, and at least for me, things have been going insanely well, too well. Spending time with you has been the highlight of my summer."

He nods slowly. "And being with you has been the highlight of mine as well. You're my favorite person."

Aw. He's never said that before.

No, focus. "Thanks. So obviously things are good, but I realized that I'm probably taking this a bit more seriously than I should be. Clearly, since I'm... I'm in love with you." I stammer over admitting it again. He's about to say something, but I frantically shake my head. "Please don't say anything back, you don't have to, and even if you want to you shouldn't. Because this isn't going to work out."

"But-"

"No, listen, I'm not done explaining yet." I charge on, confident now. "You're moving so soon, and being tied down to a high school girl is going to be the worst thing for you when you get to campus. You should focus on meeting new people and making new memories and learning. I'd feel terrible holding you back. Not to mention the fact that even if you did want to keep things going, we'd both be miserable. You're going have a new life and new responsibilities and you'll be experiencing things I can't relate to. I'll be busy with college applications and whatever drama my parents conjure up between now and then, and being far apart will only make me feel more isolated." I admit. "And even after that, if we last the year, who knows where I'll go to college. We could be even farther apart than we already were, which is just depressing."

He suddenly grabs my hand, almost as if desperate to make sure I'm still there. "Yes," he agrees, "All of that is true, but you're making big decisions based on rash assumption. Yes, I'll be far away, but how do you know that being in a relationship with you would be bad for me? I'll be on a huge campus with no familiar faces and no one to talk to. Knowing you're there with me through that all would be comforting. It wouldn't hold me back at all. And you can't forget that we can see each other on holiday breaks and during summers."

So he wants us to stay together.

We hadn't talked about the possibility ever since the first day we'd decided to get together, so this was news to me. It's painful to hear him fight so desperately to defend our future when I know I shouldn't be with him.

"I agree and hear you," I say softly, squeezing his hand back. "But we both started this relationship knowing that there was a large possibility that it would have to end when you leave. It's clear to me that the longer I put this off, the more it will hurt when you go."

"So, what, you figured this would just be a summer fling, then?" he asks a bit harshly.

I take a breath. "Of course not, that's never what this was to me. But I didn't exactly plan on falling in love with you and start rearranging my entire future in my head so that I could be with you as soon as possible."