Although I didn't dare jinxing it by admitting it often, recently things with Gemma had been going... Honestly, pretty well. Our relationship--or whatever she wanted to call it--was doing better than it had in a very long time and I was damn near giddy to say the least.

For the first time since freshmen year, neither of us had anything to complain about, which made me think that she'd been right: removing a label from what we had somehow made us work. Still, I didn't hide the fact that I would've preferred to be her boyfriend in name and in practice, though she continually rejected my attempts to make things any more serious. She kept saying that she didn't want to deal with any drama and I couldn't find a good way to argue with that. No matter how many times I promised her that things would be different if she gave me another shot, she would simply shake her head and tell me not to go there.

As great as things were in general, it would've been a lie to say that our arrangement wasn't confusing at times, especially when Gemma rested her head on my chest while we lay in bed and told me that she loved me. She refused to let me say it back, though, which I accepted even if I didn't fully understand her reasoning. Our arrangement came with a lot of rules like that--rules that Gemma said we needed to follow if I wanted to continue hooking up with her. Sometimes I wondered if she'd really end it if I ignored her instructions but, frankly, I was too scared to find out.

Oddly enough, the person I turned to most about my uncertainty and relationship concerns was, of all people, Melanie. I'd fallen into a routine of always walking her home after we met for tutoring and in that twenty minute journey, we never failed to find a way to talk about everything under the sun. We'd become fast friends--much faster than I'd ever expected--and I truly enjoyed the time we spent together, even if most of it was inside of a library. Being around her somehow put me at ease and occasionally I caught myself confiding stories that I hadn't meant to share, things that I would've been embarrassed to tell anyone else. I couldn't figure out how she did it but if Melanie had asked me to tell her my deepest, darkest secrets, I probably would've spilled them all without a moment of hesitation.

Of course, I didn't notice it at the time but if I'd been a little less selfish, I would've realized that our conversations were painfully one-sided. By the first week of October, Melanie knew most of my life story, whereas I hadn't even made it through the prologue of hers. 

Nevertheless, as the days went by, the temperature slowly began to drop from the sweltering triple-digit days that had sapped the life from the city in August. Over the years, I'd come to learn that fall evenings in California required a jacket regardless of how warm it had been during the day, and I slowly began remembering to stuff a sweater into my backpack whenever I left the house. When it wasn't too brisk, Melanie and I would sometimes stand outside of her apartment for over an hour while she listened to me babble, nodding and sighing at all of the appropriate moments. She never offered for me to come inside and I never asked. Instead, I was happy to sit on the steps that led to her front door while she gave me advice.

"It almost sounds like she wants you to completely start over," Melanie said one day. As I turned to look at her, the floodlight that illuminated the concrete stairs flickered, giving her face an unnatural glow.

"What do you mean?" I asked, tugging at the laces on my sneakers. I watched the toes of Melanie's floral-patterned combat boots tap together. She pulled her black leather jacket closed and folded her arms across her chest.

"From everything you've told me, it seems like she wants to date you but not until you've worked out all of your old problems." When I didn't say anything, Melanie went on, "Maybe you should try doing something to really show her that you're ready to give her what she needs in a relationship."

"I don't even think she knows what that is," I said, tilting my head so that my ear rested against my shoulder.

"I'm sure that if you sit down and think about it, you'll realize that she's given you a few clues," she replied softly, and I felt a childish urge to reach over and tug on the end of her braid. As if reading my mind, she pulled out the elastic that bound her strands and ran her fingers through her hair, leaving behind sheets of well-formed waves. She shifted slightly so that our shoulders touched and I didn't move to pull away.

"If she has, I've missed them."

"I have a hunch that she's made everything's a lot more obvious than you think." Melanie's lips took on a slight pout as she frowned, the effect making her mouth look fuller than usual. "What do you usually disagree about?"

"That's a long list," I answered wryly, but she didn't smile in return.

"You guys have been together for four years--"

"Sort of."

"--I don't believe that you can't remember a common theme in why you've fought."

I closed my eyes for a moment, recalling all of the blowout arguments that had ended in Gemma and I calling it quits. Melanie was right; there was a definite theme, and the theme was that it was somehow always my fault.

"Maybe you should ask her on a date," Melanie said after a while and I blinked before looking at her.

"Seriously?"

"Why not?"

"It'd be kind of weird," I said, but Melanie shook her head.

"I think she'd appreciate it. Anyway, it would give you a chance to talk in a different setting."

We sat there for a few more minutes before Melanie pulled out her phone and said that she needed to call her parents before it got too late. "Let me know how it goes, okay?"

In one smooth movement, she got to her feet and I awkwardly followed suit. My right leg had fallen asleep and I gave it a shake. "What makes you think I'm going to ask her?"

Smiling as she rummaged through her tote bag for her keys, Melanie shrugged. "Because you are."

Although I walked away telling myself that Melanie had missed the mark this time, as usual, her advice ended up being spot on. Gemma came over a few hours later and as soon as she walked through the door, I asked if she'd go to dinner with me on Saturday. A real dinner, I said, not just the drive-through of some fast food place.

Her reaction was about what I'd expected it would be: a polite refusal followed by mild panic. "You promised not to make things awkward," Gemma scolded, but still emboldened by Melanie's pep talk, I decided not to back down.

"You're the one who's making things awkward," I countered. "All I did was ask you to dinner."

We argued back and forth about the boundaries that we'd set until Gemma sat down on my bed and wrung her hands together. She seemed conflicted, yet I thought I could also see a flicker of hopefulness in her expression. "If I say yes, you aren't going to start acting like we're together again, are you?"

When I promised that I wouldn't, Gemma nodded slowly. "Okay, then," she said reluctantly, and I knew that she didn't believe my string of half-hearted assurances. To be fair, I didn't fully believe them either. "If you really want to do this... Pick me up at seven."

------------------------------------------

I spent the next two days alternating between breaking out in cold sweats and wanting to skip down the sidewalk while singing showtunes. The logical, sensible part of me kept piping up with reminders that there was no reason for me to be so excited about going on a date with someone I'd been seeing for years. It wasn't as if Gemma and I had never been out together before but it was the first time since the spring that I felt like I had to get the evening absolutely right.

Usually when I saw Gemma, I didn't really care what I looked like so long as I remembered to brush my teeth and put on deodorant at some point during the day. On Saturday morning, however, I went into grooming overdrive. I shaved, got my haircut, and even made the effort to find matching socks. As I pocketed my keys and checked the mirror one last time before jogging down to my car, I couldn't help but think that I looked and felt good for the first time in a long while.

Dressed in navy and a killer pair of heels, Gemma looked downright amazing, though the eagerness that she'd shown when I handed her a bouquet of flowers on her doorstep didn't last long. I could sense that something was bothering her, though I couldn't place exactly what it was. Her answers to my questions came in one or two word replies, her tone growing increasingly short with each additional attempt on my part at making conversation.

The forty minute drive to the restaurant felt stifling and in the dim lighting of the seating area, the worry wrinkles between Gemma's brows seemed almost comically pronounced. She hadn't smiled once since I picked her up from her apartment, and although I was used to her mood swings, that didn't mean her disinterest hurt any less.

After scouring reviews online, I'd booked a reservation at a seafood restaurant nestled on the Malibu cliffs. It was the kind of place that guys had to wear a jacket to get into and I'd thought that even Gemma would be impressed by the view of the Pacific's inky water below. I reached into the bread basket in the center of the table and grabbed a roll, trying not to let her see my disappointment. As I buttered my bread, Gemma stared resolutely at the tablecloth, her frown deepening. Although I desperately wanted to play it cool, when I glanced at the nearly untouched bottle of champagne chilling in an ice bucket beside our table, I snapped.

"You know," I said, forcing my voice to remain level, "if you really didn't want to go out tonight, you should have said so."

Gemma looked up, the surliness in her expression giving way to genuine surprise. Her hand fluttered to the string of pearls around her neck as she shook her head. "What are you talking about?"

"You don't exactly seem like you're excited to be here." I took a long drink from my water glass and Gemma's eyes filled with confusion.

"Scott, this place is amazing. Of course I'm excited to be here. I don't understand--"

"Could've fooled me," I muttered, and Gemma's shoulders sagged slightly. She looked down at her lap and sighed.

"I'm sorry, I..." She licked her bottom lip before biting down on it. "Did you watch the news today?"

"I never watch the news," I replied honestly, noting the way that Gemma stiffened in response. Rather than scolding me, however, she straightened in her seat and studied me calmly.

"Well, you should start." She paused before clasping her hands together so that her fingers formed a steeple. "The president authorized the deployment of one hundred thousand troops to the Middle East by the end of the year."

"Oh." I swallowed, knowing that Gemma was waiting for me to say more--to share in her horror. Despite my best efforts to muster up some sort of emotion about the topic, I couldn't. "That's a lot," I said eventually, wishing that I'd been able to come up with something that sounded halfway intelligent. Gemma leaned forward as she nodded, the candle on the table giving her tan skin a faint orange glow. The reflection of the flame danced in her eyes.

"I know," she said, laying her palms flat on the table. "And that's just the figure for this year."

I stared at her, trying to feel her passion for changing the world. "Tell me more about it," I said, taking her hand in mine, but Gemma laughed mirthlessly.

"Shut up, I know you don't care."

"Yes, I do," I protested gently. She looked at me, her brown eyes softening. I felt my heart skip a beat when she gave my fingers a squeeze. "It's important to you so it's important to me."

Lips slightly parted, she studied me as if she was seeing me properly for the first time that night. With a sigh, she reached for a bread roll and began tearing it into pieces. "I feel like everything I'm doing is pointless. Everything with S.P.L., I mean."

I shook my head but waited for her to continue. When she spoke again, she sounded defeated. "Now that I'm a senior, I've finally realized that I haven't actually accomplished anything. Not like I wanted to, anyway." Her lip quivered. "The people at school still don't care about things that matter and in seven months, I'll be gone. I don't even know if S.P.L. will survive without the current exec board so I'm basically just waiting for the organization I've poured four years of my life into to die."

"It won't die," I said, but Gemma looked doubtful. "Seriously, it won't. Look at how many people came out to your last rally."

"But..."

"I mean, okay, you're right. If you polled the campus, most students probably don't care as much as you do, but they do care." I swallowed. "If it weren't for you, people like me wouldn't even know where places like Nimrud and Burundi are on a map."

With that, Gemma's face broke into the first real smile that she'd given me in ages and I could've died happily right then and there. "Who are you?" she asked, studying me with bemusement. "Seriously, I feel like I don't even know you right now."

I cleared my throat, worried that I'd said the wrong thing, but Gemma seemed pleased with my response even as she tugged her hand away. "You know," she said, reaching for her champagne flute, "I wish you'd done things like this when we were actually dating."

Furrowing my eyebrows, I once again dipped my knife in the pot of butter and dragged it across a piece of bread. "I took you out to dinner all the time."

"That's not what I meant." Gemma brushed back a carefully straightened strand of hair and repositioned a bobby pin so that it stayed tucked behind her ear.

"What do you mean?"

"You've been different lately." She smiled again and I thought my chest might explode. "You're acting more like my boyfriend now than you did when we were together."

"How so?"

"I'm not sure," Gemma admitted, sipping at the pale golden liquid in her glass. I watched the bubbles surge towards the surface. "I guess it's nice that you've actually been listening to me--listening and responding, not just nodding and changing the subject."

"I've always listened to you," I began to grumble but Gemma rolled her eyes. I held up my hands. "Alright, fine. I usually listened to you."

"Usually?"

"Sometimes. I sometimes listened." She laughed again. "But I'm trying to be better."

"I'll give you that," Gemma said, clinking her champagne flute against mine. "That's all I wanted, you know. For you to listen. I just wanted to be able to tell you about my day and feel like you really cared."

"You know I cared. I know you know that."

Head tilted to the side, Gemma studied me for a long beat and then dabbed at her mouth with the corner of her napkin. "Yeah, maybe."

I dropped Gemma off at half-past midnight, only slightly disappointed when she told me that she couldn't invite me in because her roommate was home. Truthfully, I was tired enough that I probably would've fallen asleep before anything could happen anyway, so I left her with a kiss and she promised that we'd go out again soon.

As I drove the rest of the way home, I couldn't stop a tiny fleck of optimism from snowballing into genuine hope that Gemma would wake up and realize that she wanted to be with me as badly as I wanted to be with her--to really be with me, not just once or twice a week when she got lonely or bored.

Despite being relatively lost in thought, I noticed two familiar figures sitting on the low wall in front of the fraternity as I pulled into my parking space. Not bothering to straighten out after I cruised in at an angle, I jogged back to where they sat, catching the tail end of their conversation before they noticed me approach.

"Honestly, I don't know what to say, but if you're uncomfortable, maybe you should pull back a bit," Parker said to Melanie as he scraped a plastic spoon around the bottom of his empty frozen yogurt cup. "Dropping hints won't help. He's even more hopeless than me."

"Oh, great." Melanie poked at the strawberries that covered her dessert. "You know, for the record or whatever, I don't think he's a bad guy just because he doesn't get it."

"I didn't say anything about him being a 'bad guy,'" Parker replied without missing a beat. "All I meant is that he's clueless about things that are right in front of him. Chances are that he has no idea what's going on, which makes it a lose-lose situation for you right now."

A flash of concern crossed Melanie's face as she looked up and saw me reaching out to grab Parker's shoulders from behind. He let out a startled cry as soon as my hands made contact, and when he realized that I was his attacker, he jumped to his feet to give me a friendly shove. "Go to hell," he said while I chuckled.

"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, sitting down next to Melanie. She and Parker exchanged a look.

"Nothing," they said in unison, and although I could tell that they were lying, I decided not to ask again.

"Nice night, huh?" I said, looking up at the cloudless sky. Neither of my two friends responded and I regretted interrupting whatever heart to heart they'd been having. "What have you guys been up to?"

"Not much," Melanie replied, and Parker grunted. "Sophie's working in New York until Tuesday so Parker's been stuck with me."

"He could have worse company," I offered, and Melanie glanced at me before getting to her feet.

"Do you want this?" She handed Parker her half-eaten container of frozen yogurt, though she kept her spoon for herself. "I'm pretty full."

Parker made a face. "It looks so healthy."

"There are gummy worms at the bottom, I think."

Melanie waved the cup underneath Parker's nose and he snatched it with a good-natured grin. Stepping away from us, Melanie called over her shoulder, "I'll see you guys later."

Parker mumbled his goodbye through a mouthful of low-fat dairy but I hurried after her, though she didn't slow to let me catch up. "Wait," I said as I reached her side. "I can walk you back."

"You don't need to," Melanie replied, twirling her keyring around her index finger.

"But it's late."

"I know," she said. She stopped next to a dark sedan. "That's why I drove."

"Oh." Feeling a little embarrassed, I stuffed my hands into my pockets. "That was smart."

With a small smile, Melanie moved over to the driver's side door and then paused. "How was your date with Gemma?"

"Fine," I answered automatically, and she nodded.

"I'm happy for you."

Ordinarily I would've bombarded her with every detail but there was something in her expression that suddenly made me feel insecure, almost as if I'd done something wrong by offering to walk home with her. I scratched the back of my neck, my insides wracked with uncertainty.

"Good night," Melanie said while holding my gaze, and then climbed into her car before I could reply.

She pulled her door shut and by the time I lifted my hand to wave goodbye, her brake lights had already disappeared halfway down the street. I turned back to look at Parker and saw that he was watching me with an unreadable expression on his face.

"Glad you and Gemma had a nice time," he said, stacking the empty cups of frozen yogurt in his hand. He yawned before starting towards the house.

"Are you going to bed?" I asked, surprised when Parker nodded.

"Tired," he said, taking the steps up to the front door without looking back. "See you in the morning."

The sound of the door slamming shut behind him rang in my ears as I stood outside staring at the spot where he and Melanie had sat. Maybe it was silly, but even as I crawled into bed that night, I couldn't shake the feeling that seeing me had sent them both running.

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A/N: Thank you for reading and voting! I'm finally back from my travels and classes started again today. Thought I'd update before things get crazy again. Let me know your thoughts and if you catch any typos! <3