Writing a thesis was no easy feat. All right, it was something all uni students had to get through on the way to their degree, so it wasn't as if it was an insurmountable obstacle. Still, for people who didn't enjoy writing, it could be a real chore.

I was one of those people.

The weekend after Ansel and I had made up, I found myself sitting on my bed with the laptop propped up against my thighs as I stared blankly at the screen. My fingers would tap out a few words before seeking out the backspace key again. I had my research books stacked up beside me, but I was feeling a strong sense of inertia to picking up even one and flipping through the pages for the umpteenth time.

I was all written out for now.

Heaving a sigh and shoving my laptop away from me, where it landed with an unceremonious thump on my bed, I scrambled up to reach for my phone. Then I hesitated. Who would I call? Ansel had gone out 'for coffee' with one of the girls who had been showing obvious interest for a couple weeks – I made a mental note to avoid dropping by unannounced, because I knew him well enough to guess what that Casanova could accomplish, even on the first date. And Valentine and I rarely met up outside of uni.

I didn't have any other friends – not really. I had Ansel to hang out with outside of uni, and I liked my own company. Besides, I'd had enough of clique friendships. It wasn't like I needed the illusion of feeling like I belonged with a group of people. Chances were, they all had their own secret loyalties and would drop you the minute something went wrong.

Even so, I allowed myself a soft moment of sentimentality. How nice would it be, to be able to pick up my phone when I was bored and be able to find somewhere to direct my attention towards? To be able to know that my messages would always find a response?

Maybe I was sick of being alone. Maybe a new group of friends wouldn't be so bad.

Then I scoffed at myself.

Whatever. I slid the phone into the back pocket of my jeans and clambered off the bed. I was going out.

***

Everyone who has been single for a prolonged period of time – frequently not by choice – knows the importance of learning to enjoy your own company. Or at least, that's what the self-help advice always harps on – knowing to value your own worth, so that when the 'right person' comes along, their presence complements you, instead of filling a void that only serves to make you all too dependent on them.

Trite as it all sounded sometimes, they weren't wrong. The more dependent you were on someone, the more it hurt when they left.

After things with Nik had been destroyed, I'd had to rebuild myself – and my self-worth – straight up from rock bottom. And I'd had to learn a few hard lessons on the way. I'd had to learn how to be alone – and, more important, how to enjoy it.

As I walked along the street, I let myself really feel the soft tendrils of the breeze trailing across my cheeks. The chatter from the other passers-by faded into the background as I focused on the soft thudding of my footsteps. I let my head fall back, taking in the sight of the streaks of colour across the sky.

The sun was setting soon. In an hour or so, it would start to get cold.

It was that time of the year when it was supposed to be spring, but still felt like winter. We had a saying for the month of April – April does what it wants. But who could blame it? So the weather was selfish. How different was that from human nature?

Just like April, we all did what we wanted to. The only difference was that whereas we always found ways to justify our actions, the weather was truer to itself. It just was.

While I let my mind wander, my feet had been moving on auto-pilot. I wasn't thinking about where I was going, nor did I particularly care. It was something I did often – check out mentally and let my body take me someplace random. Or, if you believed what Freud spouted, somewhere my subconsciousness wanted me to go.

I didn't usually believe in Freudian theories, but when I found myself headed for the Castle Square, I had to wonder if there was any truth in it.

My steps slowly petered out as the iconic fountain came into view.

It was strange. I passed by the square frequently – it was hard not to, when you lived in this city. It was right smack in the middle of the city centre and the go-to spot for hang-outs with friends and family. It would be ridiculous – not to mention impossible – to try to avoid it.

And yet... Over the past three years, after things with Nik had gone south and I had lost everyone but Ansel, I had learnt to stop associating the fountain with Nik. With that first night, the beginning of it all, when he had scattered rose petals into the water and looked at me like I'd held his future in my hands.

It had been such a long time ago.

When we'd broken up, it was like I had locked everything into a dusty box and buried it at the bottom of all the clutter residing in my mind. When I looked at the fountain, I saw only a fountain –  the important landmark of our city, the monument tourists flocked to see, the 'meeting point' for gangs of friends coming from different directions.

Until now.

Until Nik had returned, until that stupid outing of his, when we had sat by the fountain and I had remembered, and my heart started craving what had so long ago belonged to it. And I remembered, all over again, the reason I had wanted to forget in the first place.

I remembered the peal of laughter that would escape my throat when he pretended to push me into the fountain; the way he would grasp my hand as we walked along the square or the gleam in his eyes as he looked back to smile at me.

Come on, slowpoke, he would say sometimes, tugging me to him as we walked. Then he would sling his arm around my shoulders, lean over to place a kiss on my forehead, and say, in the softest of breaths: My little slowpoke.

Now, I looked up at the fountain and saw everything about him. The stone was cold beneath my hands – the lingering hint of a winter that has long outstayed its welcome. I dipped a finger into the cold water.

Nik had once stood here with stars in his eyes, offering me what had seemed like the world. And I, blinded into believing, had laid my hand in his.

By now, the tears were pricking my eyes. My arm had moved without my noticing – half-raised, it hung in the air, reenacting my very own historic moment. My hand crumples into a fist as I lower it back to my side.

I blinked hard, once, as if to chastise my emotions for misbehaving, and wheeled on my heel in the opposite direction.

***

Staying away from Nik was the smart thing to do. I knew that. Not because Lux or Wolf were right, but because Ansel was. Getting close to Nik would only hurt me again. But even as the thought settled in my mind, I found that an unscratchable itch had blossomed in the pit of my stomach.

I was probably just hungry. I stabbed a roasted baby potato off my plate and pushed it into my mouth.

The loud clatter of plastic slamming against plastic jarred me out of my thoughts. I looked up and saw Valentine glowering at me, eyes narrowed.

"What?" I tightened my grip on the fork that had been hanging limply from my fingers and stabbed the tonks into another piece of potato on my plate. Lifting it up to my mouth, I placed it against my lips and nibbled on it.

Valentine rolled her eyes in an uncharacteristic example of exasperation. "What, she asks," she muttered to herself – a little too loud for my liking, considering I could still hear her perfectly well. She cleared her throat and turned her volume back to a conversational range, "Okay, I won't even ask what's wrong with you, because I already know. But could you please eat a little faster? Class starts in ten minutes and you know how anal Steiner is about punctuality."

"Yes, ma'am."

I made a big production of shoving the remaining bit of potato that was on my fork into my mouth and chewed noisily, just to bug her. Then I laughed when she, true to form, wrinkled up her nose at my antics. The remnants of a smile were still hanging on my lips as I looked back down at my food and proceeded to eat more normally – albeit faster, because Valentine was right: Steiner was unbelievably strict when it came to being punctual for his seminars. Anyone who had the gall to tiptoe in even a single second after he had begun talking had to endure an irate explosion and subsequent lecture on the importance of time.

Ironic, really, that some professors loved to waste time on the topic of time-wasting.

I was so preoccupied with chewing, I almost missed it when Valentine started speaking again. Then again, it might have been better had I missed her soft words.

"Listen," she said, which usually was an ominous start to any statement. Whenever someone tells you to listen, you know you're not going to like what follows. I was trapped, though – stuck at a small table in the middle of a crowded cafeteria and held hostage by my unfinished food. I had no choice but to stay put and listen.

"I think, despite everything that happened between you two, there is still some part of you that–"

She stopped, not of her own will, but because I was making a noise of strangled disagreement over my mouthful of meat. I couldn't swallow fast enough to use words to rebut her, but my meaning was clear. Forcing the food down so that my mouth could be free for words only succeeded in giving me a coughing fit.

"Oh shit, are you okay? Drink some water." But even as she handed me the glass, I could see a smug smile lingering at the corner of her lips. She thought my reaction meant that she was right.

I held up a hand, as if to ward off the mere thought of it, while I tried to bring my coughing under control. When I was finally done, through teary eyes, I glared at her and gasped out, "No!"

She smiled angelically at me. "No, what? I haven't even finished my sentence."

I rolled my eyes and tried to laugh, even though the tears from the coughing fit were still in my eyes. "That's because I already know what you're going to say." When all she did was raise an eyebrow, I mirrored her expression. "I wasn't born yesterday, you know. I know you well enough."

"And I know you well enough. That's why I'm telling you–"

I spoke over her, not wanting to rehash the topic. Or the coughing fit. "Look, it's been years. We don't even know each other anymore."

"Yes, but that doesn't mean you can't still feel that way about him."

"I don't feel anything about anyone," I say, over-loud to even my own ears. "Except maybe complete disdain for Lux. And Nadine. And the rest of them."

Valentine narrowed her eyes at me, scanning my face for signs of – what, I wasn't sure. I stared back as levelly as I could.

"You know," she said, "being so hung up about all of this is a sign that you haven't moved on as much as you said you have. Don't get me wrong – that's okay. Maybe what you need is closure."

I shook my head. "You're overthinking this," I said, letting the words pile atop one another like bricks in a wall. "I've gotten over it. I don't care about Nik. I don't care about any of them. Why should I, when we've only just met again after years of complete silence? People don't just snap back to caring about each other."

Valentine was looking at me with an almost pitying expression. "They do," she said – so softly that I could pretend not to hear. "If they never stopped."

***

Valentine's words kept replaying in my head throughout the rest of the day – and the next. And the day after that.

But they weren't true, at least not in Nik's and my case. We hadn't seen each other in years, not to mention all the drama that had gone on back then. Besides, all I felt when I saw him now was an overwhelming desire to flee. That couldn't be healthy.

Besides, I wasn't one of those losers who kept pining years and years over the same guy who had squeezed their heart into a painful, bloody pulp. There – Valentine would be proud of me. I had admitted to something about my feelings that related to Nik, even if it was something that was ancient history. And something that, I suspected, everyone already knew, despite my never having put it into words.

I sighed, dropping my pen and listening to the clatter as it hit the tabletop and spun half a round. It was all Valentine's fault. She was trying to put ideas in my head, when the only ideas I needed right now were ideas for the thesis paper I needed to complete to graduate. Anything else Nik-related was just plain distraction.

Growling to myself, I grabbed my phone and slammed out a text: Help!

I managed to still my thumb before I, out of habit, hit the 'send' button. Then I tapped the backspace button instead.

If I sent this cry for help to Ansel, he would want to know what had happened. But nothing had, not really – it was all just in my head. I hadn't seen Nik since the time I had cried in his arms, and I was in no hurry to tell Ansel about that. And if I told him about what Valentine had said, he would want to know why it was bothering me so much if it wasn't true.

Ansel knew me way too well.

I stared at my phone for a moment, then placed my fingers back on the screen.

Dinner tonight?

I hit send.

There. That sounded much more normal.

I sat staring at the screen, unmoving until it automatically dimmed. Then I grimaced and set it back onto the table. The watched phone never rings, as they say. I really needed to focus on my thesis – it wasn't coming together as quickly as I had expected it to. I had been ahead in deciding on my topic; I had started writing even before some of my coursemates had even begun to realise they still needed to finish a thesis in order to graduate, but now I seemed to be lagging behind.

Of course, it was partly my fault for not dedicating as much time to writing as I should have. But the other part of the fault lay solely with Nik.

Nik, Nik, Nik.

I growled out loud, gritting my teeth and expelling a breath from deep within my throat. I had to stop letting everything come back to Nik. The world did not revolve around him; my life did not revolve around him, especially not the way it once had. I would never put myself in that situation again. And not just for him – I would never again let myself get to the point of losing my own identity just to make someone love me.

Anyway, in the end, he still hadn't loved me. At least not enough.

The prickly sensation behind my eyelids was back, so I scrunched up my face and turned determinedly back to my laptop. Forcibly, I made my fingers move in a tedious rhythm on the keyboard. Tap. Tap, tap, tap.

Just write, I told myself. Just write.

I didn't know how long I would have been able to pretend to concentrate on the words onscreen, if my phone hadn't chirped with Ansel's reply. I grabbed at my phone so hard, it spun out of my grip and landed with a clatter on the floor from the backlash.

"Shit," I muttered, grimacing to myself before bending down to retrieve the phone. I flipped it over – thank goodness, the screen hadn't cracked, even though there was a slight chip to the tempered glass screen protector I had put on – and punched the button to read Ansel's message.

Ok. Done with work, come over anytime.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Here was a way to get out of my head.

I'm coming over now.

The bubble encasing the blinking ellipses appeared as soon as I pressed 'send', but I shut off the screen without waiting to see what he was typing. Bundling my laptop, bag, and jacket into the crook of my elbow, I headed for the door.

***

Ansel was sprawled out on the couch, watching me type away on my laptop in bemusement.

"Okay," he said, "I thought you came over for dinner."

It took me a moment to remember that a reply was necessary when one was being spoken to, so it took me a moment to respond. "I did." There was a silence as I sat, frowning at the screen as my mind drifted back to the topic of my thesis. I was on a roll, having achieved the concentration at Ansel's that I hadn't been able to in my own apartment, with my own company.

"And...?" Ansel's voice jerked me out of my workflow, and I peered over my screen to glare at him. He was glaring back.

"What?" I snapped.

Instead of answering my – mostly rhetorical, I had to admit – question, Ansel let his head fall back onto the arm of the couch and let out a long exhale of breath.

"That sigh lasted six seconds," I informed him, when he had finally stopped.

He muttered something under his breath.

"What?" I asked again, but this time I couldn't stop a corner of my mouth from curling up.

He sat up and glared at me.

"Giving me the silent treatment now?" I was full-out grinning at him now. He looked so disgruntled. When he still sat unmovingly, hands crossed over chest, I put my laptop aside – but not before pausing to hit the 'save' button. "Oh, come on."

Slowly standing up to stretch my legs, I stalked over to him and threw myself down onto the couch behind him. He would have felt the seat bounce beneath him, but he sat still as a stone, acting as if I didn't exist. I sat beside him for a moment, playing his game, before reaching over and poking him hard on the arm.

He barely even blinked.

I shifted so that I was facing him. He was staring straight ahead, not meeting my gaze, not even when I pulled a silly face at him.

"Fine." Picking up a cushion on the couch, I clambered over to him and smacked it right onto his face, making as if to smother him with it. He held out for a moment more, before his hands came up to push the cushion away as he sputtered,

"What the hell!"

I laughed, and then all of a sudden he was over me, tickling my midsection with one hand while he held me in place with another. I grabbed at his fingers, laughing uncontrollably.

"Fuck! Stop! Stop! Ansel, I swear..."

He let me push him away after a while. I sat up, gasping for breath as he smirked at me from the other end of the couch.

We sat for a while, neither of us feeling the need to break the silence. Eventually, I scooted myself over, jabbing an elbow into his side. "Come on. Don't sulk. I'm hungry."

He grunted. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know. You pick."

"Hm." Ansel was quiet for a moment, before he snapped his fingers. "I know. Let's go to the Golden Lamb. It's been a while since I've had lamb. I miss their food."

"Yeah, there's a reason for that," I said. "It's too far. It's on the other side of the city! I don't want to go all the way there. It takes too long and I'm hungry."

"It's literally four tram stops away." Ansel's tone is flat, unamused. "What about pizza, then? There's one right down the street."

"What?" I wrinkled my nose. "Why? I don't want to eat pizza."

"Then you pick!" Ansel sounded exasperated. "Every time you tell me to pick, you veto all my suggestions."

I sighed. But I couldn't counter his words, because there was just a bit of truth in them. "Fine, fine," I muttered. "We can have pizza."

The bright smile Ansel throws my way would've been perfectly framed had he had a wagging tail to finish off the picture. He could be so cute sometimes – once you looked past the annoying, playboy part of his personality.

Feeling a sudden rush of tenderness, I threw my arms around him and leaned forward to deliver a quick peck on his cheek. "You really are my best friend, you know."

"What's wrong with you?" Ansel groused, but he gave me a quick, hard squeeze back.

"Say it," I demanded, sitting back on my haunches. The balls of my feet dug into the seat of his couch, but I didn't move from the uncomfortable position.

"Say what?"

"Say I'm your best friend, too."

He rolled his eyes. "Of course you are."

I rolled my eyes back at him. Guys. A girl would have understood what I wanted. Ansel never gave me the nice, flowery words that girls tended to shower on each other. Sometimes I missed having a best friend who was a girl.

Then I frowned. Because the last time I had had a best friend who was a girl, it had been...

Ansel was watching me shrewdly, with a line to his lips that looked as if he might have figured out what I was thinking.

I gave a sharp shake of my head – whether it was at myself, at him or at the direction my thoughts were headed, I didn't know – and leapt to my feet. "Come on," I said, bouncing on the heels of my feet, motioning him to get up, to stop being so lazy. "Let's go."

"Where are we going?"

"What, have you forgotten already?"I rolled my eyes to proclaim my exasperation. "We're getting you your pizza."

"Why do we have to go out for that?" Ansel protested. I could practically hear the creak of his bones as he rolled off the sofa with a groan. "Can't we just order in?"

I planted my hands on my hips and gave him what I hoped was a flinty glare. "Don't be so lazy. It's been forever since we've gone somewhere. Come on, it'll be fun!"

Grumbling, Ansel trudged across the room to get his shoes.

***