She was numb.
“Brennan? Hey. You okay?”
Brennan shook her head just slightly, still staring at her closet door. Back in her dorm room after spring break, she felt emptied—like she’d lost all of herself and was nothing but an empty shell. Ambreen eyed her critically.
Brennan flopped back onto her bed, staring at the ceiling. Jonas hadn’t texted her. Of course he hadn’t. Why had she half expected him to? She’d been the one to break up with him, after all.
Broken up. That’s what they were.
She hated it.
The morning after she’d told him this was it, they’d both gotten up and packed, leaving the little vacation cottage behind. Neither of them had said anything beyond cursory comments regarding their trip. (I’ll drive, Jonas had said. Okay, Brennan had replied.) She had wondered if he had even slept; the dark circles beneath his eyes seemed to say he hadn’t, and he’d been sitting out on the front steps when she’d gotten up in the morning.
Not that she had been much better off, having cried half the night. Her head hurt now, somewhere behind her eyes. What was wrong with her? She could have ended her own misery, and yet, she was too afraid to.
“Brennan, seriously.” Ambreen pulled Brennan’s arm until she was sitting and facing her. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Brennan snapped. “What’s wrong is that you always let people sit on my bed and I don’t like it!”
Ambreen frowned. “I didn’t know,” she said. “I’m sorry? I’ll tell them not to?” She eyed Brennan. “That can’t be it though. What’s actually wrong?”
Brennan hesitated, then sniffed before she could stop herself. “Jonas and I aren’t—we aren’t together anymore.”
Ambreen’s pretty face fell. “Oh. Oh no. I’m so sorry, Brennan.” Brennan’s face crumpled all over again. Ambreen climbed up onto the bed and sat next to her, putting her arms around her roommate. Brennan spent the next ten minutes ugly crying.
“I’m sorry,” Ambreen said again softly. “Breakups suck.” She rubbed Brennan’s back while she cried. “What happened?” she asked.
“I don’t—I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” Brennan hiccoughed.
“Okay,” said Ambreen. “We don’t have to.”
They spent the next few days not talking about it.
Brennan skipped her classes. All of them.
She spent a lot of time in the bathroom, staring at her reflection in the mirror—hair in disarray, puffy eyes, red face. I hate you, she told her reflection. I hate you. I can’t do this anymore. Anxiety is in me; it is me. I can’t live like this anymore.
You can fix it, part of her mind said. But she couldn’t bring herself to text Jonas. It was too late, wasn’t it? She’d irrevocably put it out there. It was her fault. Un-take-back-able.
Brennan checked her phone again for texts. There were none. Of course not, she told herself. You broke it off.
She felt like her heart was ripping in two. She had lost everything. Jonas. Her writing. What did she have left?
It’s your fault, her brain sang. It’s your fault, because I am you. There’s no voice in your head that tells you what to do. You tell yourself what to do. You let me do what I want—you let yourself do this. You were afraid that it would end, just like your other friendships, and you’d be heartbroken because it’s more than just a friendship this time. So you thought you’d be better off if you just broke it off yourself—before Jonas got the chance to.
Brennan closed her eyes. “But what if he never would have?” she whispered.
“Seriously, man?” Jonas glared at the TV, where Sam had just pelted him with a blue shell in Mario Kart, passing him for first place at the last second.
“Maybe you should call her.” Travis took a handful of popcorn and leaned back against the wall. “Maybe she’s changed her mind.”
Jonas frowned. “If she’d changed her mind, she would have told me by now.” I basically told her to break up with me, didn’t I? He had told them the whole story. The whole story had necessitated telling them about the leg. Surprisingly, it hadn’t been a big deal—they actually thought the prosthesis was cool.
“Guess the ball’s in her court then.” Travis sighed and threw a piece of popcorn at Jonas’s head. “Even if it’s the end of things, relationships end sometimes, man. You won’t help yourself by moping around playing video games.” He sat forward. “You’ve got to move on.”
Jonas closed his eyes. “Easier said than done,” he snapped.
“True,” said Travis. “But still no less important.”
Sam took the controller out of Jonas’s hand and set it aside. “A lot of first relationships don’t work out anyway, so you’re not exactly abnormal.”
Jonas glared at his shorter suitemate. “Thank you,” he said. “That’s very helpful for my time of heartbreak.”
“I think you need a break now,” said Travis. “Go do some homework. The video games will be here when you get back.”
Jonas shook his head in an effort to clear it. Travis was right; he was letting all his schoolwork fall to the side. “You’re right. I’ll see you guys later.”
He left their room and went next door to the bathroom first. He looked at himself in the mirror. Same crutches. Same hair sticking up. New dark circles rimming his eyes. When he forced a smile at himself in the mirror (an action startlingly similar to when he’d done the same in front of his closet mirror at home, the day he’d taken Taylor her permission slip), he looked slightly unhinged (the same as he had that day).
Jonas left the bathroom behind for his own room.
He sat down in his desk chair and stared out the window. Out on campus, spring was in full bloom, trees heavy with buds and grass growing green after the long winter. Jonas sighed. He remembered walking those same paths, covered with snow, with Brennan. He frowned.
You need to push Brennan out of your mind, the logical part of his brain told him. The emotional part, however, seemed to think it would be a good idea to ignore the logical part and drown him in some sort of contrived depression.
Here are the facts:
1. You and Brennan are broken up.
2. You basically told her to break up with you.
3. How could you, how could you, how could you?