Finally, I cut off communication. Every once in a while I’d respond, write down any mean, hurtful thing I could think of. But I’d delete it before I’d send it. I had to forget about him.
A facebook chat popped up later that week from my friend Brady. We had a *thing* back in college. It wasn’t dating because we didn’t go on dates. But it wasn’t just hooking up, either, because I can count the number of times we had sleepovers on one hand. I met him at a party. He was tall with brown hair and green eyes, and I could tell by the way his shirt tightened across his chest that he had a rock-solid body under there. He kissed me that night. I was drunk and thrilled.
Turns out we had a class together. Ballroom dancing of all classes. We waltzed, tangoed, foxtrotted, and cha-cha’ed together the rest of the semester. He’d come over on Monday nights to watch Laguna Beach. It was his guilty pleasure. He’d kiss me when he left, and sometimes he’d put his hand on my leg while we watched TV. But nothing ever came of us. He was switching schools after that semester, moving to Texas to attend chiropractic school, so he wasn’t interested in a serious relationship of any kind. That, and I’m pretty sure I was more interested in him than he was in me. Anyway, he moved that December and we kept in touch every now and then. He started dating a girl named Rae when he moved to Texas, fell in love, and had been with her ever since. Lucky bitch.
That was four years ago, so the random Facebook chat caught my attention.
B: Are you busy?
W: Not really, what’s up?
B: Things aren’t good with Rae.
W: Aww, I’m sorry. What’s going on?
B: I messed up.
W: Uh-oh, this doesn’t sound good.
B: We broke up. Well, she broke up with me.
W: OK, I’ll ask the obvious. Why?
B: Her mom and I kissed, and she found out.
W: WHAT???
B: We were really, really drunk. She kissed me. I didn’t pull away in time. Her cousin saw it and told Rae.
W: Holy shit. That poor girl.
B: I know, I really, really messed this up.
W: Well, I don’t really have sympathy for you right now, because that’s pretty fucked up. So, being that I’m not full of words of wisdom for you, is there anything else I can do for you?
B: Yes. I can’t stop thinking about her. I just want to call her, but she doesn’t want me. So, can I call you instead? You know, so I don’t call her?
Well, wasn’t that convenient? I needed someone to take my mind off Cayden, and he needed someone to take his mind off Rae. I knew I had to be careful though, because we were both vulnerable, and I was about to move back to Texas, where we’d be living in the same city. Sounded like a perfect set up for some really bad ideas down the road.
W: Of course, call me whenever you’d like.
My phone rang.
----
My roommates threw me the best going away party I could have asked for. We all dressed up and went out to a fancy restaurant none of us could afford. Then we threw a huge bash on our roof. Everyone came. That night, we had the most beautiful sunset I had ever seen in my time in NYC. Hell, it was the prettiest sunset I’d seen in my life. It symbolized a beautiful ending. An ending to my time in NYC. An ending to me and Cayden.
After the party, I wanted nothing more than to email Cayden to tell him all about it.
So I called Brady.
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