“That’s cool,” Adam says. “I wish I kept in contact with more of my friends from college.”
“She’s also my ex-girlfriend,” Ryan throws in.
Adam straightens up. I force a smile. “Yeah, but he and I dated, like, way, way back in the day.” Adam doesn’t answer and I take a sip of my drink.
“It wasn’t that long ago, was it?” Ryan asks.
“It was. It was ten long years ago.”
“Really? It feels like yesterday to me.”
I shift my stance away from Ryan and towards Adam, wondering if I can salvage whatever is left of our mini-date. Turns out, I can’t. A minute later, he mumbles something about having to wake up early the next day. He gives me a quick kiss on the cheek and gives Ryan an uncertain high-five. I watch him leave the bar before turning an accusing look on my now-lone companion.
“What?” he asks, acting like we just had the most normal interaction in the world.
“Are you serious? What was that?”
“What was what?”
“You telling Adam that I’m your ex-girlfriend.”
“I just told him the truth, Sullivan. You are my ex-girlfriend.”
“From a million years ago,” I complain. The waiter reappears, dropping off Ryan’s beer and heading to the next patron. “And what about the other thing you said?”
“About it feeling like yesterday?”
“Yes. That was such a lie.”
“How do you know it was a lie? Maybe to me, it does feel like yesterday. Yesterday especially felt like yesterday.” He gives me a wink and I consider flicking him on his forehead.
“You’re a real pain in the ass. Adam might have been my soul mate and now he’s gone. I don’t know how you’re going to live with the guilt.”
Ryan stretches his shoulders and leans down against the table. “It’s nothing a little therapy couldn’t fix.”
“You should probably seek therapy regardless.”
“That makes two of us. Guess I’ll see you there.”
He holds up his glass and I shake my head with a grin as we clink our drinks together.
Two hours later, I leave McFadden’s feeling very happy, very energetic and very, very tipsy. Ryan seems looser than usual but it’s hard to tell if he’s drunk or not. His personality is too out there for me to distinguish the difference between drunken weirdo Ryan and baseline weirdo Ryan.
We’re heading back to the apartment after we mutually—I stress, mutually—decided to pick up pizza.
“Did you ever think we would end up like this after we first met?” he asks as we turn up 41st Street. “Here we are, thirty-two years old and—”
“Um, excuse me, old man, you’re the only one who’s thirty-two. I’m still basking in the golden age of thirty.”
“Forget about age. Did you ever think we’d be walking down the street with pizza ten-plus years after we first met?”
“That would be a no,” I answer. “The first time we spoke, you thought I was a nerd reading a dirty novel.”
“I did not. You thought I was a rude thief. I will admit, stealing your book wasn’t my best moment, but I wanted you to talk to me.”
“Why?” I find myself asking.
Ryan smiles. “Because when I walked into class and saw you, I thought you were the most adorable thing I ever saw.”
I make a skeptical face but he goes on.
“I wanted to find out who you were, so I sat down next to you and bothered you until you talked to me. And when you did talk to me, I got you so worked up and angry by taking your book and...I don’t know, I just couldn’t stop looking at you.”
“I’m sorry but that makes no sense.”
“You were beautiful, Sullivan. You still are.”
I don’t take compliments well, so I ignore him completely. “I was so bratty to you that day.”
“I deserved it. I was a jerk.”
“True,” I agree. “When you sat with me again in the next class, I was stunned.”
Ryan catches my gaze and keeps it. “I think I was already in love with you by then. I just had to wait for you to catch up with me.”
His words comfort and crush me. We both look forward.
“You didn’t have to wait very long,” I say.
Ryan’s gaze falls to the pavement, a cloud seeming to come over him. “When we broke up, when you cut me off like that...I was messed up for a long time.” Seconds go by until he speaks again. “You really broke my heart, you know?”
We stop walking as we arrive outside my building and I say the first thing that flashes through my mind. “You broke mine first.”
Ryan takes in my words. Part of me wishes I didn’t say them, but they’re the truth. Maybe he needed to hear them as much as I needed to say them.
“It’s surprising that we’re still able to be friends now,” he says, “considering what we did to each other.”
“I’m sure a fair amount of former couples are able to stay friends.”
“And you think they’re the same as you and me? That they had what we had?”
I roll his question over in my head, hoping to find an answer that’s honest but vague.
“I don’t know,” I decide to say. “Did you ever feel what we did with someone else?”
I can see his chest pitch up and down. I’ve probably overstepped but it’s too late to take it back now.
“I haven’t.” His tone is sure and final, not at all in the quiet voice that would have come from me. “I never really wanted to feel that way again. That’s why...”
Before he can finish, a car comes to a screeching halt at the corner. I gasp at the jarring sound as Ryan grabs my arm and pulls me behind him. Two cars are now stopped and are aggressively honking at each other when Ryan turns back to me, letting go of my arm.
I clear my throat and plaster on a smile. “Okay,
