PART TWO: THE BAD BOY'S GOODBYE

                                    

                                              






THE BAD BOY'S GOODBYE 






                          
Prologue
                          
What started out as the story of an insecure girl who was desperate for the love and affection of a clueless boy turned into a love story for the ages huh? Who would've thought that pining in my room for Jason Stone would lead me here, to this point? 

                          
Somewhere the clock chimes and as if in sync with it, my heartbeat speeds up. Something's coming, I can tell from the look in his eyes. But Cole, the one person I know without a doubt I am destined to be with, has an unreadable expression on his face. He's been doing that a lot lately though, making me guess. I used to think that with me Cole was an open book and that I could always tell whatever it was that was going through his head. I won't lie, for the past couple of months things have been...off. You could say distance does that to you, where we'd once lived in each other's pockets in college now it's hard to make the time when we're so busy building the rest of our lives.
                          
But the fact that long distance sucks is old news.
                          
What's new is how he's looking at me, what's new is how evasive he's been since my return and my stomach sinks as he stares at that clock. It's the same feeling I get when I'm nearing a deadline knowing that there's no way I'm going to meet it. A feeling I do not like, something like premonition claws at me and I fight the urge to get up and run. How bizarre would I look if I just got up in the middle of our meal and left him, no raced through the restaurant, got in a cab and locked myself in my apartment? But no, that would be on top of the list of the very bad ideas I've had tonight. Cole has very painstakingly taken a few days off from the summer internship he's doing at a law firm and flew in to surprise me for my first week back at my regular job. It's the sweetest gesture so even if there's this weird gulf between us, I'm determined to bridge it. We've had a lot of space and time to think, long nights spent talking on the phone, just talking and not letting something physical get in the way of communication. 
                          
Watch me win at life and adulting. 
                          
I've lived in London for half of the year with a less than amicable roommate who liked hogging every possible storage space in our minuscule two bedroom flat. I've dealt with Leila after her all night ragers and in the mornings after when she's threatened to great bodily harm if I dared step in the bathroom to shower before she was done throwing up the contents of her stomach. I feel like my living with Leila was more of a crash course in become a fully functioning adult that anything I was put through in college.
                          
I shouldn't be scared really, but I am. 
                          
Because I can't read Cole. 
                          
He looks impeccably handsome in his well fitted jeans and black button down, smelling so delicious that I found it incredibly hard to not just drag him into that apartment and ravish him for the rest of his four day weekend with me. But I persevered because the man had gotten us reservations at one of the most exclusive eateries in the city and I wasn't turning down a great meal, even if my boyfriend could very well rival said meal. 
                          
"Tessie you look nervous," his voice his raspy and does all sorts of things to my body. I shiver but it has nothing to do with the air-con in the building. When I'd first gotten back from London and found Cole waiting at the airport for me, I'd jumped straight into his arms and had been so glad to know that despite the time apart there was zero awkwardness between us. We could go back being who we were, perhaps even better for the amount of time we'd had to just talk and listen and grow stronger. 
                          
But that had been a couple of weeks ago and since then Cole and I had been going through the motions of settling back into our respective routines, boring as that sounds. He'd had to go back to his coveted internship and I needed to gradually get back into the swing of things at home, living blissfully without Leila.