Keep My Blood Cool

Chapter Twenty-Two

Weeks passed, but Savannah felt almost as close to Romeo as ever. Their text message arrangement was going just like she had planned as Romeo became a lot more participative and sent her a photograph each time he felt like he had achieved something. This included: getting good grades on his school papers and exams; learning a new piece on the piano; going to the cemetery to visit his mother's grave; hanging out with his father outside the house; playing the piano in what Savannah assumed was a part-time job in a fancy restaurant and getting tons of tips for it; and, her personal favorite, making friends with one of his colleagues at work.

She almost screamed in joy when she received the selfie Romeo had taken with a young man dressed like a waiter. Romeo had made a new friend. That was one of the things she wanted the most for him and it made her so happy. Savannah had Johanna, Michael, Penelope and Daniel, but it felt like Romeo really only had her. It felt great to see him broadening his horizons and meeting and befriending new people. That was one of the points of the whole break situation. She just hoped that by now Romeo realized that and didn't feel as hurt as he obviously did when they first separated.

Of course, Savannah sent him tons of texts as well. Not only because she felt like she had done a lot in a quite small window of time, but also because the last thing she wanted was to fall out of touch with Romeo. Since they couldn't even write any messages, all they had to connect them was pictures with no caption, so she embraced that to its fullest. Sometimes she ended up sending him pictures of things that weren't even that big of an achievement, just because she felt like she hadn't sent him anything in a while and didn't want him to think she forgot about him.

Despite all her optimism and the fact that Romeo was finally participating in the arrangement, it was still hard to be apart from her beloved boyfriend. She missed his greenish-blue eyes, his minty smell and his cocky smile a lot. She missed his slender hands that fit so perfectly in hers and the feeling of his lips on hers. It was really hard, being apart from the person you love, especially when they're not even far away. There were many times when Savannah almost gave up on her own plan and simply showed up at his house to get back to the way things used to be. But she didn't. She stuck to her guns. There was still a lot for both of them to figure out, especially now that Romeo seemed to be more on the same page as her than ever.

And it was true that she felt like she had grown a lot already. More importantly, grown outside her relationship with Romeo. Because she had felt like even though she did grow a lot as a person since she came to the city, it always felt like it was somehow related to Romeo. So it was nice to finally have something she could call hers and hers only. She wanted him to have that too. Something his and only his.

Between attending classes, studying, keeping in touch with friends and family at home, hanging out with her friends at college, working on her music, exploring the city and going through the list of places and things her mother had visited and done, Savannah was as busy as a bee and she loved that. If there was something Savannah loved, was having a lot of different things to do. It took her back to the farm, where she barely had time to breathe, especially during school time where she had to juggle classes, studying, the farm, church and the community. It was a lot of work, but Savannah loved feeling busy. She despised those days where time didn't seem to pass because she didn't know what to do.

She had been able to cross a few more of the things on her list, but her favorite had to be the bar Daniel had discovered for her after he saw how disappointed she was she never got to see the karaoke place her mother used to go to. Not only because it showed how great of a friend the boy was for going through the trouble of finding a replacement that would make her happy, but because it felt like she had found "her" place, like the closed karaoke place was her mother's.