Jourdan Mathews has a secret, and she knows she needs to take this one to the grave.
* * *
Her life was never complicated: a college student with a close family, good friends, and a plan for her future as a doctor. Had that night had never happened...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
I'd always know the kind-of physical pain that you feel because you miss someone. After my mom died when I was young, I didn't have words for it, but I knew the feeling. I just don't think I ever expected to feel this way over a girl, a woman who I'd been intimate with. It sounds fucked up and makes me feel like the asshole that everyone, including Jourdan, always said I was, but it's the truth.
I never pictured myself in a relationship.
And after talking with my father during break I think now I see that's a product of how I grew up and the influences around me. But even still, that didn't change the fact that I'd entered a relationship with Jourdan more than willingly. That in some ways, a lot of ways, I'd wanted to be close to her since I'd met her.
She has always been magnetizing to me. Sure, I was physically attracted to her, but it was also something else. Her mind, her wit, her strength. And these were all things I missed terribly.
I missed her so much it hurt, and I wasn't sure if that had more to do with being apart or being apart because we were no longer in a relationship. But either way, the feeling in my chest only worsened when I got back to Boulder and stood in the doorway to my room. Remembering every moment we'd spent together there and regretting my own irrational choices.
It killed me to hear her crying over the phone when we talked. To hear the pain and sadness in her voice. To know that it was my fault she was crying then. But that conversation also gave me hope because she said she wanted to move forward together. And whatever that meant, I would be there for, because all I want right now is to get her back.
I had decided to stay in California a week after Christmas, for once enjoying the time with my father most of all because we finally seemed to understand one another. Jourdan and I had been texting, but she said she needed time and I am trying to respect that.
So, even though I am in Boulder now, with the new year only days away, I still wasn't sure if I should call her and ask to meet. Or if it would be better to wait for her to reach out to me. Tristan, Andrew, and Lars all sympathized with me. They still gave me shit for it, but they weren't being as cold and passive aggressive as Justin was.
The night I got back the five of us went out to grab food and catch up on everything that'd happened after the break, and Justin wouldn't speak to me, let alone look at me.
"Come on, dude." Tristan had finally said after Justin blatantly ignore my asking how he and Brady are doing. "They're trying to work it out, you're not helping anything by being a dick."
"I—" Justin had looked at me finally, something like regret in his expression. "I'm just frustrated because this is why I asked you to keep your hands to yourself."
"But it's not that simple," I had explained to him. "Seriously. I don't think it ever was simple with Jourdan."
"I agree," Lars chimed in. "He's liked her since he first set eyes on her."
