The day after I told everything to Eric, I woke up to a voicemail from Andy. I hesitated to listen to it, but I eventually did. His voice was soft and full of sleep.

"Hey, babe," he said. "I was just thinking about you and I wanted to hear your voice, but I know I'll hear it soon." He chuckled. "You were so pretty today. I realized for the first time that how I've been going about this is all wrong. I love you. I really love you. Being with you again today made me realize how much you make my heart race and I can't get it out of my head. I want to see you again. I want to touch you, even if it's just holding your hand. I just want to make sure you're real and that I didn't dream the whole thing. 

"I love you. I know that now, and I want to make sure you know. Goodnight, babe. Sweet dreams." With a smooching noise, the message ended.

I let myself cry for a moment. How was it that he was feeling the magic I felt before now? Now, when I finally saw everything for what it was? There was a reason it felt like magic: it was supposed to be fleeting. It was all supposed to just blow over and be nothing more than dust in the wind. We weren't right for each other. 

Even though the last thing I wanted was to hear his voice again, I called back. Relief washed over me when he didn't pick up. Leaving a voicemail gave me the strength to say what I needed to.

"Good morning, Andy. I hope you slept well. I'm glad to hear you love me. It's what I had wanted to hear these past months. But now it just makes what I need to say harder. When I was with you yesterday, I didn't feel that spark. There was nothing there. Everything felt bland. I love you, too, but I don't think we're right for each other. Not right now. If it's just our timing that's off, then I'm sure we'll find our way back to each other, but now isn't our time. 

"I wish all the best for you. I really do. I love you too much to want anything else for you, but not enough to keep trying when it won't work. I'm not giving up at this point. I'm admitting defeat. You won, and I can't keep going on pretending we're fine when we're not. Goodbye, Andy. I mean it this time. I promise that it's nothing you did today. This is all on me."

I ended the call and wiped my face again. Why did breakups have to be so hard? I had every reason to give up on him, and few if any reasons not to. But knowing that didn't make it any better. Because when all was said and done, I still loved him. 

Love. A simple word with a complicated and, in many ways, mysterious meaning. I was only more certain than ever about that.

---

"So you're over?" Eric asked when I was telling him about everything over lunch. "Like, for good? You're not planning on going back to him any time soon?"

I stirred my pasta around as I shook my head. "I don't think we're ever getting back together. He just isn't the one."

He was silent for a moment. "How are you taking it? You don't look as bad as I thought you would."

"Trust me, I feel plenty bad."

"You can't really tell. The little bit of red brings out the green in your eyes, so it just looks pretty."

I raised my eyebrows. "Did you really just tell me I look cute when I cry?"

He froze for a moment. "Um, well, uh... Shut up," he murmured. I couldn't help chuckling as he turned red. "At least I'm being honest." He gave me a pointed look before taking a large bite of food.

I frowned. "What is that supposed to mean?"

"I just mean," he said around a mouthful of food, "that I don't think you're being entirely honest with yourself - or me."

"It's been two months, Eric. Two months. I'm mostly over it. I swear. I thought things could work out, they didn't, I cried, and now I'm over it. I came, I saw, and now I'm moving on. Or, well, I'm going to try to. It's not happening, and I'm trying to accept that. As it is, I'm not sure if I'll ever fall in love with anyone else again."

My phone began ringing, interrupting our conversation. I recognized the ringtone right away and didn't want to answer. "You gonna get that?" Eric asked.

I sighed and pulled out my phone. "Hello?"

A sniffle and then a strained voice. "I've never had someone leave such a heartless voicemail for me before. How could you do something like that? I thought we had something and I enjoyed our date."

I closed my eyes, listening to him cry like I did two months ago. If I said it didn't make me want to give in, I would have been lying. "Telling you is better than leading you on. Or would you rather think I feel the same for a while and then find out I had been lying to you for a long time?" The line fell silent. "Thought so." I sighed as I rubbed my face. "Bye Andy." I hung up on him. 

The table was quiet for a long moment but then Eric touched my hand. I looked up at him, startled. "Are you okay?" His voice was full of nothing but concern. It made me want to tell him. So I did. I told him about the voicemails and the conversation. After spilling my thoughts out, I waited for him to make some sort of remark, but it didn't come. Instead, he squeezed my hand. "I think you made the right choice. It hurts, but I think it was for the best in the long run."

"I think so too. You were right."

He shook his head. "You seem to think I like hearing or saying that. Honestly, I don't always like to be right." His voice sounded like there was more he wanted to add on to that statement, but I wasn't sure what it was.

"Thanks for listening to me," I said as I started gathering up my things. Or I would have. Eric still held my hand and seemed to have forgotten. I tugged a little and he released. 

"Oh! Sorry." He blushed and took a large final bite of his lunch before standing. 

I watched him walk away and wondered what was up with him. He was acting a little off, but then he never seemed to like talking about Andy. I was disappointed but I wasn't going to ask him to do something he didn't want to do.

As the day passed, I couldn't get Andy's tears out of my head. They haunted me. It wasn't the first time I'd ever heard a man cry, but it was the first time it was over me. Something about that got stuck in my mind and I kept visiting them over and over. Was there something I could have said to make it easier on him? Was there something I could have done differently? Did I not try hard enough when we were dating the first time?

No matter how much I turned these questions over in my mind, I couldn't come up with an answer. I didn't have an inkling about how he felt the whole time. The only thing I could see when I thought back was the attraction I felt and how everything I saw in him I saw through rose-colored glasses. I didn't look at everything for what it was, and I guess because of that I couldn't remember exactly what happened.

When class ended, I saw Melissa approaching me as I was getting ready to head home. I didn't really want to see her after what happened that day. Besides, I hadn't seen her outside of class since Andy and I broke up the first time, so it was weird I was seeing her now. "Hey," she shouted as she got closer. "Hey, what happened with my brother?" 

I glanced around. Everyone that turned when she shouted were now acting like they hadn't heard anything. "We're just not the right fit right now," I responded, trying to be quiet so the people milling all around us wouldn't hear.

"Not right?" Her voice had gotten loud again. "What wasn't right?"

I glanced around again and saw several glances that left as soon as they noticed me. "Several things. Hey can we not do this here right now? We can go somewhere else."

She glanced around and blushed. "Fine. I know a nice little coffee shop."

We left campus and she brought me to a Starbucks. It had a lot of people in it, but at least I was pretty sure I wouldn't be seeing Andy here. He'd always had an aversion to the chain places with the exception of McDonald's for some reason. 

Once we were settled down with our coffees, she asked me again. "What wasn't right with my brother?"

I sighed. "Do you ask all of his girlfriends this stuff?"

She frowned. "Just the ones he's serious about."

My heart skipped a beat at the thought that he was serious about me, but then it sank as I remembered why we broke up. In the moment, I wanted him back. I wanted everything we had and to not let it go. It was a bad idea, true, but right at that moment, I wanted it so bad I could scarcely breathe. "He didn't make that clear at all, for one thing," I muttered. 

"What do you mean?"

I sighed and took a sip of some too-sweet frappe I didn't care for. "You kind of assume that you're not cared for when you don't see or hear from someone for a month."

She choked on her drink. "Wait. You mean he actually didn't contact you? I thought he was just saying that he was giving you space you asked for."

My brow furrowed. "We were broken up for two months. Is that when he said he was giving me space?"

She thought for a moment. "Come to think of it, probably, yeah."

"No, we were broken up. It was a month before that while we were still dating that there was a period of no contact. I even went to his place and he acted like I wasn't outside."

She simply nodded. "I saw you come over, but I thought he'd gone to bed by then. He'd gone to his place early that night."

"Did he always go early at the time?"

"No, he usually hung out on the phone with you and texted you, I thought. Either that or he played video games."

My heart sank even more, but at the same time, I had figured as much. "He was contacting a girl every evening?"

"Well, yeah, I assume so. He was talking to you, wasn't he?"

I shook my head. "For a month before the breakup, I didn't speak to him and he never texted me."

"Oh," she said quietly. 

My mind jumped to the c-word, the word I couldn't see him doing. Surely he had to be doing something else. That was the only thing that made sense. "He probably had something else going on," I said, trying to convince us both. "I'm sure."

She nodded and stirred her drink. We fell silent for a moment, and I could tell she had something she wanted to tell me, but was struggling with herself. "He's never been a player," she finally said. "I mean, he's had girlfriends before. He's just never had one that stuck around as long as you did. The longest they lasted was a few months and they were out. You, though, you were around for nearly a year. I thought you were the one that would finally stick. Believe it or not, but at the beginning, he was taking it slow. I could tell he liked you but wasn't doing anything about it."

I could remember that. "I know."

She stirred her now well-mixed drink even more. "He's stubborn like that. Something feels like it's important and he wants to protect it by not touching it."

"What do you mean?" 

"I mean, he's the type to think he'd contaminate something by touching it. Admitting he likes something is probably the one thing I'd never expect him to do. It would have to be something he wants with everything in him. It wouldn't surprise me if he never told you he liked you."

"He did."

Her eyes widened. "He did?" she asked, voice rising.

I nodded. "That's not why I left him, though. It wasn't our time. I think what was between us is for the past, and if it's right, we'll come together again. It would need to be him coming to me, though. I'm done chasing love that isn't willing to wait for me."

"But what if you were the one that needed to wait?'

I froze. "What do you mean?"

"What if the other person thinks they're running and you're not willing to wait for them?"

It was an interesting perspective. I hadn't thought of that before. While I thought it over, I sipped my drink. What if that was exactly what I'd done to Andy? Did he maybe deserve another chance? Or did I cut his second shot too short?

---

Word Count: 2236