“Are these lectures a joke to you?” my professor asks me, his face lined with wrinkles only one could get with age. I shake my head, too ashamed to answer him vocally. “I had seen your previous essays and expected more from you Miss Renai. I know you can do better than what you’ve shown me. I'm willing to offer you until next lecture to rewrite that essay.” he says, my heart races with the promise of a second chance, With a wave of his freckled, tanned hand, he dismisses me.

I make sure to apologize again before leaving the lecture hall, heart in hand. 

The professor was going easy one me, he could have easily dropped me from the class, but he hadn’t. It was my own fault, I should have stayed up a couple more hours to write my paper, but I didn’t. And now is not the time to think about why I hadn’t.

I tell myself, ‘Not now Renai, not ever. You need to get over it. That was years ago.’

The breakup had happened two years ago, yet it still seemed to be as fresh as the snow this morning. If I was tired enough, I could still feel the ghost of her touch on my forearm. I could still hear her giggles, her loud and happy voice, her snores. The breakup had happened years ago, but I could still feel her.

“Renai, you’re beautiful. You know that?”

I smiled behind my hand, diverting my gaze onto the gym floor, water bottle in hand. “Where did this come from? I’m not more than average, in my opinion, your blonde hair is much prettier than mine.”

It was three in the morning when I had gotten the call. I was five pages into the essay when a familiar call ID shone on my phone. I still hadn’t deleted the contact, even after so long, but whenever I found my finger hovering over ‘delete contact’, I remember the way she used to look at me and couldn’t bring myself to do it.

After seeing who was trying to reach me, I found myself immediately awake with newfound anticipation. I take my time answering the phone, “Hello?” I asked, trying to sound normal, rested, ‘moved-on’. There was no answer for the first few seconds, then a gruff voice, who was not hers, answered.

“Hello, I’m sorry for contacting you so late in the night however this number was the emergency contact registered on this phone...”

“Renai, I really like you.” Her tanned skin was flushed on her cheekbones, the blush seemed to disappear into her hairline. I gripped my shirt where it met my chest, heart hammering. I was speechless and pleased but more than anything, I was so in love with her.

I opened the door into the now closed bar, about two hours away from my dorm on campus. I quickly smiled apologetically to the cross bartender and froze once I scanned the booth to the right. In the seat was-

“Vinnie.”

She didn’t seem to register her name being called at first, drink in hand and head on the table. When I called her name again, the feeling of it foreign on my tongue, she finally raised her head, not looking in my direction.

 “What are you doing here?” Her voice was not how I remembered it sounding. It was cold, sad, and if alcohol had anything to do with it, she was slurring.

“The bartender called me, he said it was closing time. He asked me to come pick you up.” I tried to sound strong, tried to ignore the familiar hammering in my heart, tried to ignore the happiness and dread in my body after seeing her for the first time since the breakup. She looked older now. Still had the young little girl in her, but Vinnie was softer now, more beautiful than she was in high school. She kept that same haircut she had all those years ago.

Finally, Vinnie turned her head from the table to face me. She was frowning, upset to have seen me. I looked at the bottle in her hand and took it away, chugging what was last of it, having a feeling I would need it. 

“Why you?” She finally asks me.

“Because I’m still your emergency contact on your phone.”

“Oh, fuck. I forgot.” Finally, Vinnie stands and moves out of the booth, clattering the bottles spread out around the table, nearly making them fall to the ground and shatter. “You can leave now, don’t you have school or something? Thought that was important to you.”

Vinnie was right, it was important to me, it still is. And yet I’m here, two hours away from school, at a closed bar at five in the morning when I should be at my desk, proving to my professor that I wasn’t an idiot

.

“I don’t know… why I came.” 

Vinnie scowls, an expression I hadn’t seen before. A part of me breaks at seeing it in person. I’m sure that was also the face she made through the phone that day. “Well hurray, I’m up and awake and not dead. Thanks for checking up on me after all these years. Go home. I’ll be fine.” Vinnie makes a move to push me out of the way but she stumbles, I react fast and grab  hold of her waist in what felt to be a hug. I feel my face heat up and my skin burn where our skin touch. 

“What do you mean?”

“It means what it means. I want to break up.” There’s a silent pause until the line picks up the sound of rustling bed sheets, then Vinnie.

“Why?” Is all she says. Not a ‘no’, not a refusal, just a demand for a reason and I can’t help the disappointment that corrodes within my chest.

“You know why. We’re graduating. I’m… going to New York.” The silence continues again but not for too long.

“Was it all a joke to you? Did it not mean anything to you? Not enough for you to want to try?”

I taste iron and I realize I’d bitten into my lower lip. How could she ask such a thing? Isn’t it obvious? My stinging eyes finally slip tears and I'm hiccuping before I can stop it. The calculus homework in front of me is ruined, my throat has dried up, and I wait too long to say something back because she suddenly wishes me good luck and ends the call.

Senior year ends in the next few days. I see Vinnie for a while, but I don’t talk to her, she doesn’t talk to me. I don’t feel her, she doesn’t touch me. She doesn’t look at me. I move two hours away, I try to forget about her, but when I’m really tired, I ignore my essays and try to remember when she touched me; when she made me laugh.

Vinnie moves almost immediately out of my arms, nearly shoving me to the floor with a mumbled, “Sorry. Please go home now, I’m fine.” Without another word or look from her, she leaves out the front door of the bar. The bartender was still in the room, watching the theatrics from the sideline, his trench coat on and bag in-hand. I leave out the door as well. Except I don’t chase after her.

I should just respect her wishes, if she doesn’t want me around then I should go home and forget just like her. So I head North. To the North where there were more bars, more drunk people, and then expensive hotels I can’t afford as a broke college student. I’ll spend half of this month’s rent to get a hotel I can stay in for a couple of hours before the first bus arrives at the station. Then I’ll continue to go north until I’m at my prestigious university in New York. I’ll keep going until I’m home, get ready for class at ten, and hopefully, this time, I’ll forget about Vinnie.

But somewhere in the plan, there’s something amiss... I don’t want to go down a dangerous street. I don’t want to waste a month’s savings on a hotel room. I don’t want to go to school later.

”I don’t want to forget about Vinnie…”

There’s a rush of adrenaline and fury that floods my veins, both of which came from nowhere and deep within. I remember a quick pivot before I realize my feet are racing back towards the bar which I had just left.

“Renai.”

“Renny.”

“Ren, I love you. No matter what you do, when you get stuck in a slump, when you’re stressed, just remember, you’ll get through it. You’re my smart girl.”

‘You don’t get it, Vinnie. You don’t understand what our relationship meant to me, what you meant to me.’

I run past the bartender who was now outside the bar, locking up for what remained of the night. I run through empty abandoned streets. I don’t know where I’m going, I don’t know what I’m doing, but somehow, I know, I'll find my way.

Finally, a few blocks down, I see the retreating figure of a blonde, a longing for her arises. She was unknowing of the conflicts within me, unknowing of the words I wanted to say that day. I sped up even more, unsure how my out-of-shape body was capable of such coordination. All that ran through my mind was the thought of losing her, for real this time. 

Suddenly, Vinnie is right in front of me. I crash into her and we fall into the concrete, her back cushioning me as she falls face first into the ground. As if I couldn’t be embarrassed enough, I’m shaking and crying.

“Ow, what the fu-?” Vinnie freezes once turning her head to look behind. I’m clutching onto her coat and making a mess of it with my salty tears. She stutters, “Renai? Didn’t you- Hold on, get up first.” 

Pitifully, I got off of her, sitting back on my heels, making sure not to let go of the fabric that was Vinnie’s coat. I can feel her panicking and waving her arms around like she didn’t know what to do, I can feel it in her voice when she asks, “weren’t you leaving?”

It’s not a demand to leave but an honest question, maybe something hopeful? I nod and then an awful whimper leaves my lips. It’s terrible and the most horrible sound to leave my mouth, but I finally have the courage to speak again.

“Vinnie, you are so stupid.” The fury erupts inside of me, taking over the adrenaline, and finally, I can say all the pent-up words I wanted to say all those years ago. “How could you say that to me? You don’t even know what our relationship means to me. You can’t just ask me if it had all been a JOKE. You can’t do that to me! You know it’s not a joke! It will never be a joke!” I was yelling now, withheld rage finally allowed to make an appearance after all this time, “It’s not nothing to me! I’m here because you needed me! I’m here because-!” My voice breaks in the ugliest way and I almost run away, but a cold, slim hand is placed on my cheek and Vinnie has a sincere expression on her face that looks as if to be saying, ‘keep going,’ and so I do. “I’m! I’m here because I still love you! You stupid, stupid!” When I can finally catch my breath, I realize we were outside, at five in the morning, interrupting all who were sleeping in their apartments. A flare of heat passes over my face, “I-! I’m going home!”

The shame caught up to me and I stood quickly to run away. To never come back here, to go home and die because I cried in front of her. Like some kind of crazy person.

The hand from before caught my wrist before I could dash away like Cinderella when the clock hit midnight. It pulled me toward the building we were in front of and up its stairs. I remember being pulled up a flight of stairs and then suddenly we were inside of a dark apartment. When I had finally caught wind of the situation, I was already pinned to the front door, Vinnie looking down at me with conflicted fondness. Hesitantly, with the utmost care as if she was afriad that I would run away, she said, “I missed you, my sweet little Ren.”

Like a shattered glass, my resistance gives in, and I give in. I sob and hold her and let her keep me in her arms. The last straw being my nickname she would fondly call me when she used to love me. “I missed you so much.”