I step away from Jaylinn and run my hands through my hair, not understanding why she can’t see my side of this.

“Goddamn it…” I feel like I can barely breathe, let alone understand what’s happening. I walk over to the sink and look out over the back yard to watch the snow fall. After a few moments I turn to face her again and lay the truth out. “What if I can’t handle it? I love you so damn much that it scares me, Jay. If my making love to you screws everything up for us then what? I’ll lose you. Do you understand what that’ll do to me?”

“The thing is…” Jaylinn stares at me with tears running down her face and it feels like acid on my skin to watch them fall. What she’s about to say is written in her eyes and I swallow, attempting to prepare myself. When she does say it, nothing could have prepared me for that the hurt I feel. “You’ve already lost me, Cooper.”

My eyebrows rise in surprise from the admission, but also from annoyance that she believes this. “I haven’t.”

She nods, “You have. You’re stuck in the past.” She hiccups through the tears. “The tattoo, Cooper, Inhale the future, exhale the past. It’s the only way for me, and you’re not seeing that. You are stuck in the past. Not me.”

She’s sobbing so hard that it’s shaking her whole body and it’s everything I can do not to wrap my arms around her, but I lose that battle with myself quickly. Not being able to take it for another second, I wrap my arms around her waist and tuck her head under my chin. My own eyes mist over knowing that she’s right. She’s always been right. I f**ked this up on my own.

We stand like this for what seems like forever but not nearly long enough. She’s stopped crying now but hasn’t let me go. Part of me never wants her to. The other part knows she will.

The ding of her phone causes her to jump. She uses her sleeve to wipe away her tears. Her mask has slipped back on and she’s in defense mode. Jaylinn pulls her phone out of the pocket from her hoodie; she glances at it and then puts it back.

She clears her throat. “I’m just going to grab the few things I have here and then I’ll be out of your way.”

“Jay,” I say with warning.

“Don’t Cooper. Don’t make this any worse than it is. It’s over, it was fun while it lasted but it’s time for the both of us to move on.” She turns and walks down the hall.

A few minutes go by; my body is screaming at me to go after her and beg her to stay but my mind won’t let me.

“Yo man, have you seen Jay?” I ask Eli who came to the party with us.

He shakes his head, “Last I saw she was sitting on the couch over there with Kevin.”

My stomach drops. Kevin’s the campus drug dealer. He used to be a tight end for the football team in our freshman year at college but was kicked off the team after drugs were found in his dorm. He’s from New Jersey too, but he lived up north and actually went to high school with Eli in Hoboken. Eli said he used to be really popular until he started hanging out with the wrong crowd.

I drop my arm from around Courtney, the girl I was planning on taking home, and go to try and find Jaylinn. Fuck, I knew I shouldn’t have brought her with me but I couldn’t tell her no. All that girl has to do is bat her eye lashes and I cave.

I search the whole downstairs of the frat house for her and Kevin but they are nowhere to be seen. Panic starts to set in, chilling me to the bone. I race up the stairs, three on the right, three on the left and one straight back. The first door opens and some guy is standing there that I don’t recognize, pulling a shirt over his head. I check the bed to make sure Jaylinn isn’t there. I do this to the next five doors; all were opened and occupied but Jaylinn wasn’t in any of them. I get to the last door on the left; it’s dark so I reach around the wall for a light switch. I flick it on and the room is empty.

“Where the f**k is she?” I roar.

I slam the door shut and stamp to the last door. My heart rate spikes causing a swooshing sound in my ears, my body shakes with rage. I turn the door knob, it’s locked. I bang on it, “Jaylinn,” Nothing, complete silence.

Something isn’t right. My stomach knots and I try banging on the door a few times, hoping someone is just passed out and can’t hear me. After a minute I can’t take it anymore and I ram my shoulder into the door. Once, twice, and finally it gives way.

My heart stops, I can’t breathe and my vision blurs.

The banging of a suitcase coming down the stairs shakes me from the flashback. I’m still standing in the same spot, leaning against the counter in the kitchen, when Jaylinn stops at the bottom of the stairs and leans her suitcase against the table in the hallway by the front door.

My face is wet as I recall that night I’ll never forget. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. I know what’s coming. I feel it in my bones, a coldness taking over and seeping into my veins like ice water.

Jaylinn walks back into the kitchen and stands in front of me. She looks down to her hands for a second before she looks up at me. My heart stops as Jaylinn slides the ring off and holds it out for me to take.

I shake my head no and tuck my hands in my pockets. I’m not taking that ring.

She looks down to the ring between her fingers, and then clutches it in her fist. She stands up on her tiptoes and kisses my cheek.

I take my hands out of my pockets and try to reach for her h*ps but before I’m able to grab a hold of her she backs away, her eyes full of sadness for her, for me, for us. I see it then, she wants this to work so badly but I’m holding her back. It’s right there in the tears she’s shedding and the way she can’t look at me now.

“Jay,” I plead, knowing if I could get her to look at me then I might have a chance to change her mind, one last chance.

She shakes her head back and forth quickly, her eyes on the ground. “This is me being brave and fearless.”

I watch as she walks down the hallway. She stops in front of the table and looks back over to me. “I can’t keep this. It hurts too much.” She says as she places the ring on the table and then grabs the handle of her suitcase and walks out the front door, taking a huge chunk of my heart that I know I’ll never get back.

The door shuts and I go crazy because I know what I’ve lost.

“Fuck!” I say as my fist connects with the wall. The outburst offers me nothing in the sense of relief; it only reminds me of what just walked out. I hit a few more things and nothing helps, it only makes me angrier.