Best Exes

AFTER: We talked for the first time

On a Wednesday, about a month into senior year, I was halfway through the thought of dropping out.

Who knew this much stress and anxiety existed?

I read a study saying that the anxiety of high school students today was the equivalent level of anxiety of a mental patient back in the 1800's. That must count for some warnings, right?

Wrong. Nobody cares if you're struggling to get good grades, and have a social life, and balance your chores while at the same time deciding your plans for the future.

You're a teenager, you can't be stressed. They say.

Well I say, fuck you!

"What's up grumpy face?" Reid's voice snaps me out of my ranting thoughts.

I just dropped Mona off to her class. She probably knew better than to ask me what I was being grumpy about this particular morning.

Reid slides his arms behind me, and before I knew it, I was being pushed into a room.

A janitor's closet, more specifically.

Before I could even ask what the fuck I was doing in a janitor's closet with him, he closes the distance between us -which wasn't much- and started kissing me.

It wasn't long until I forgot about my sour mood and wrapped my arms around his neck to bring him closer to me.

I could feel his smile through our kiss as one of his hands held my cheek and the other was firm on my back, rubbing circles that felt relaxing and erotic at the same time.

I pull away, afraid that someone might open the door.

"What was that for?" I ask.

He shrugs, "I love kissing you,"

When I don't respond, his demeanor shifts, "Did you not like it?"

"No, no, Reid, I liked it," I say, "I loved it. I'm just afraid we might get caught, and-"

He hugs me, cutting my sentence off, "I'm sorry, I just really wanted to kiss you and lift your sour mood,"

"It's okay, Reid, mission accomplished," I giggle.

"I love you," He says.

"I love you too," I murmur.

He pecks a kiss on my lips one last time before pulling me out of the closet. There weren't any students in the hallway, thank God.

Reid leads the way to my class. I was always an early bird, so an empty classroom in the morning was not new to me.

I find my seat and Reid settles beside me.

I sit Indian style on my chair as Reid fills me in on his stories and students start filling up the room.

He heads to his class 10 minutes before the bell rings.

"She's an absolute terror!" Lydia tells Margot in lunch as she asks us about our economics teacher.

"But she's good," I finish off. "She's a terror but she's good,"

"That, I will not deny," Lydia chuckles.

"And Finn?" Margot asks. She's in the same class as Reid which meant we differ from schedules and some teachers, hence the question about our econ teacher.

In the past month, no one asked me about my reaction to Finn coming back; not that it mattered, though. But I guess I knew at some point they would, though people respected my relationship with Reid. People just have an ache to spark potential High School dramas.

I was ignorant of Finn's presence, to be honest; staying away from the people involved with him as much as possible, which was hard because:

One, we had the same group of friends. Two, we were in the same class. Three, he's hard to ignore.

"What about him?" I ask, shrugging.

Margot opens her mouth and closes it as Finn comes over to tackle her in a hug.

I stand still, my heart beating loudly against my chest that I could feel it thudding in my ears.

Margot and Finn became as tight as siblings when they found out they lived literally next to each other in 9th grade.

"Finn!" Margot protests, trying to get his heavy weight off her.

I smiled at the scene before me. It felt as though going back to when times were simpler.

"Hey Finn," Lydia greets.

"Hey Lyd," He grins, sitting down on the empty seat beside Margot, directly in front of me.

I say nothing as I tried to look busy.

"Regan," he says, as a greeting, I suppose. My name sounded foreign; no one calls me by my full name anymore since Reid started calling me Ree.

"Finnegan," I say, grinning, like the past two years hadn't happened. Like everything was okay. Like he never left. And like I never broke up with him.

He cringes at his name. I don't look at his eyes, and I try to look anywhere but at him without looking like I don't want to talk to him because I do want to talk to him. I feel so guilty.

"How's it going?" He asks. And at first, I thought the question was directed to Lydia or Margot.

"Good," I say, after realizing that he was looking at me and waiting for an answer.

He chuckles, "that's good to know,"

He doesn't seem bothered at all, by the fact that he and I are breathing the same air and actually talking like nothing had happened between us.

So I guess I shouldn't be bothered either.