By the time the three hours and twenty minutes are up, my hands are almost raw. My feet are killing me from the heels, and I never want to go on a date ever again. I just want to go home, get a shower, and crawl into bed. Never to emerge again.

When we’re escorted outside, we are told never to come back. They take our pictures to prove they’re serious, and I can’t believe the fancy French restaurant in town has a mug shot of me somewhere inside that warns them not to let me in. I’d be less upset if the food hadn’t been so amazing.

“Come on.” Sean rubs his eyes with one hand and jerks his thumb around the side of the building. “I’m parked out back.”

I follow him without replying. I’m too tired and disappointed to make small talk.

When we reach the back of the building, Sean pauses. Looks side to side, then walks in a circle with his hands out. “Where is it?”

“Where is what?”

“My car! I parked it right here.” He gestures at a spot near a sign that reads, “No Parking Anytime. Violators will be towed at owner’s expense.”

My shoulders drop. I can’t help it. I feel my entire person deflate. “The sign, Sean.”

“What sign…” He swears when he sees it. “That wasn’t there when I parked here, I swear.”

“Oh, it clearly was.” I can’t believe this. We have no way of getting home. “Your car’s been towed.”

“It couldn’t… There’s no way…” Sean runs his hands through his hair, which now looks like he’s been struck by lightning, and turns pleading eyes on me. “I just saw the concrete divider; I didn’t notice any sign. I assumed it was still part of the back parking lot.”

As if saying this will undo what’s been done. As if I could somehow make the car appear through sheer will. If only… “Why didn’t you just pay the valet fee?”

Sean’s eyes narrow. Darken a bit. “I knew the meal was going to cost a bunch. I figured I could park out back and save a little. Walking around the building wasn’t going to kill me. Look, it’s no big deal. I’ll call a Lyft.”

“And how will you pay for it?”

His head falls back, and he swears under his breath. “My wallet is still in the car. Any chance you…”

Did three hours of doing dishes clear his memory? “My card just got cleared out trying to cover that dinner. I don’t have a dime to pay for a ride.” I take out my phone, thinking maybe a roommate will come get me, “And my phone is dead.”

He pulls his phone from his pocket and groans, too. Guess that game killed his battery as well.

That freaking game. This freaking night.

Sean and I stand in the parking lot for what feels like an eternity. No one to call. The restaurant surely won’t let us back in to use their phone. No way to pay for a ride, even if we could call one.

Sean kicks a pebble near his shoe and rubs his eyes. “Well, the impound lot is probably about half an hour from here. We can walk there, and I’ll give you a ride home.”

But the idea of even one more minute on this unfortunate date is more than I can bear. “No, I think I’ll just head home.”

“Are you serious? You’re going to walk, what, an hour and a half to your apartment?”

I don’t know the exact math to convert a half-hour drive into walking time, but “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“But it’s going to start raining.”

“Then I'd better hurry.” And I set off toward home before Sean tries to change my mind.

#

The walk home is excruciating. I only make it twenty minutes before I have to ditch the heels, and then the concrete starts to chafe away the tender skin of my feet. By the time I hit forty-five minutes, the promised rain begins to pour over me, and in addition to raw feet and my already awful mood, I’m now drenched and blinking away the mascara from my eyes.

“Stupid boys. Stupid heart.” I sniff and let the tears fall since I can’t look any worse. I don’t even know if I’m crying because tonight had such promise and turned out to be the worst of them all, or if it’s because I’m mad at myself for trying again. How could I have thought this night would turn out okay? Hadn’t the universe proved its point by now?

The minutes drag on until I finally, mercifully, spot my apartment in the distance, our porch light glowing orange and hazy through the downpour. The sight gives me the tiny boost I need, and I make it to the door with what might pass for life still in me.

The rain blurs my vision as I tug out my keys, struggle with the lock, and let myself into the darkened living room.

I’ve barely closed the door when a voice startles me from somewhere in the dark. “Oh my gosh, Ava, where have you been?”

My brain misfires because it’s not either of my roommates asking me this. I turn, with the glower on my face turning to stone. “Luke? You again?”

His face is creased with worry as his eyes scan me from head to toe. “Geeze, let me get you a towel. Where’s Sean? Why were you out in this weather?”

I can’t seem to move from my spot by the door. It’s not my aching feet, though I’d love nothing more than to trudge myself to the shower, scrub away this awful night, and disappear into unconsciousness for the next several days. It’s him. Here. Now. Why is he always around when I think things can’t get any worse? Luke returns with a towel, and my heart pangs when he leans into my space to wrap it around my trembling shoulders.

“Where’s Becca? Or Shelby?” My voice is hoarse, and I realize I will probably come down with something tomorrow. Or now. Might as well be physically sick, too.

Luke’s gentle touch towels away the rain from my shoulders and the ends of my hair as he says, “Out. Looking for you. When you didn’t come home after the art show closed, Shelby got worried and tried to call you, but your phone was dead. So Becca said she’d run by the art show and see if you and Sean were just hanging out, and Shelby decided to drive around campus and check if you guys might be out walking or whatever. I was here, so I said I’d stay and let them know if you turned up while they were out. Oh, let me text them.”

His hand shoots to his pocket, and then he’s texting, and I’m standing there, and I can’t do it a second longer.

“Can you leave, please?” My voice cracks, and I’m embarrassed, but I can’t control it. The tears start again as I wipe frantically at my cheeks. “I need you to leave.”

Luke’s eyes widen, his mouth drops, and his thumbs pause over his phone. “I… why? I’m trying to help. I’m worried about you.”

No, no, no, no, no. I don’t want to hear about his feelings towards me, not even the friendly ones. Maybe especially not the friendly ones. I’ll just misinterpret them. I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head. I need to be forceful. “Luke, I know that you and Shelby are a thing now, but—”

“I’m not dating Shelby.” Luke steps forward, but when I stiffen, he takes a step back. “Why would you think I’m dating Shelby?”

An exhausted exhale leaves my body, and I’m shaking my head again. Harder this time. Maybe they’re not together yet, but I know what he’s up to. I’m not playing this game with him. “Okay, fine, if you’re not dating Shelby, then I really, really, really, need you to leave. You can’t keep doing this to me, Luke. It’s not fair.”

His brow furrows, and I’m genuinely annoyed at the honest-to-goodness confusion filtering across his face. “I don’t get it. What did I do?”

Ugh, this man. This… man-child. “Come on, Luke. You broke up with me. You dumped me without any explanation and then started hanging out with my roommate every day. Like, how am I supposed to interpret this? How am I supposed to handle this?” I start to panic, and a tiny hysterical laugh leaves my withering frame. “How—how am I supposed to get over you when you’re here all the time?”

Luke’s face drops, and I can’t even look at him anymore.

I close my eyes and push past him towards my room. “You need to leave. If you’re done with me and you’re not dating Shelby, then you need to leave and let me get over you. It’s bad enough to have you here when things are fine, but as you can tell, my dating life is the absolute pits right now, and coming home and finding you, of all people, in what should be my safe place is killing me, Luke. It’s killing me to be near you and not have you. I just… want to let go.” I turn to face him one last time… and wish I hadn’t.

His face is placid. Unreadable. Unmoved.

A final exhale holding the last of my hope forces its way through my lips, and I drop my head, defeated. He’s not here to keep an eye on me, that’s for sure. “I’m going to take a shower now, so… please be gone when I get out. And… don’t come back.”

#

The next morning, I am indeed fighting off a chill, so I don’t feel guilty about staying in bed all day and just mentally committing to catching up on all my work later this week. Besides, I don’t want to face anyone, and my feet are killing me.

Both of my roommates came to make sure I was okay last night, but other than telling them my date sucked and I’m never going out again, the only other thing I’d said was that I’d essentially banned Luke from the premises and would appreciate their cooperation in the matter. Neither of them argued, so that’s that… I guess.

The next day, I force myself to return to as normal a schedule as I can, but my heart isn’t in it. I shuffle from class to class, task to task, without much thought beyond how much my feet still hurt.

The day after that, I finally cave and call my mom, because I’m out of groceries and my account will be empty until I get a new part-time job, and it’s the first day I’m even remotely hungry again, so I have to beg for some cash to hold me over. I’d usually tell her all the details, but I’m so mortified, I just tell her it’s a long story, and if she’ll loan me fifty bucks, I’ll do the yardwork at her house for the entire summer once I’m home. After that, she knows I’m desperate and sends me the cash without further inquiry.

The next week goes by in another mindless blur, and the only thing that stands out to me is that Luke does, in fact, stay away. I thought it would be a relief, coming home and not seeing him, but in a way, this hurts, too. Because it confirms what I saw in his face that night: he doesn’t care.

#

Two weeks to the day Sean took me on the worst date of my life, I return to the apartment after a long day of classes and stand at the door, unable to force myself inside. I’m so empty, so desperate for something to fill me up, that I almost can’t see the point of anything anymore. I can try, and try, and try, and everything will still fail. Inside, my roommates are laughing and playing music. I don’t want to face them. I don’t want to pretend everything is okay when it hasn’t been for weeks.

When footsteps alert me to the presence of another person on our tiny stoop, I stifle a sniffle and blink back threatening tears. The last thing I need is to cry in front of whoever is here to join my roommates’ Friday night party. Whipping around, I spy Luke holding a bouquet and wearing an uncertain half-frown. The flowers. His freaking cute face. His presence on my porch again, after what I said last time. My traitorous, forgetful heart takes about a second to decide it doesn’t care about anything anymore, and a pang of longing for this man, so intense it might bring me to my knees, sears through my body like a fever.

My jaw drops, mostly because it’s a more appropriate response than my knee-jerk desire to throw myself at him and beg him to reconsider, and I lean against the door for a façade of support.

“Hey, um, I know you don’t want to see me, but can I talk to you for a minute?” Luke holds out the flowers, and I accept them without looking away from his face.

“Okay.” I don’t know what else to say.

Luke bites his lip, lowers his gaze, then plunges into whatever it is he’s come to tell me. “The thing is, Ava, I screwed up. Breaking up with you was the worst decision I’ve ever made, and I’ve been kicking myself since I did it.”

Wait, what? I blink, but remain silent, willing this to be real and not a breakdown on my part.

Luke goes on. “I honestly thought it was best for both of us, because being pre-med, it’s a lot of work and time, and I thought it wouldn’t be fair to ask you to accept my scraps, you know? I know you deserve better than that, and I figured it wasn’t right of me to hold on to you when I didn’t know if I could give you the relationship you deserved. But as soon as I did it, I went home, and I was miserable all of spring break. I almost called or texted you a hundred times. But then I thought, you were probably so mad at me and you’d have every right to be, so I thought I might try and talk to you when break was over. But you definitely didn’t seem happy to see me, and I chickened out.”

He was miserable? He regretted it? My heart dares to lift just the tiniest bit.

Luke runs a hand through his hair, and it almost looks as wild as my heartbeat. “So, I asked Shelby if we could run together because I… and I know this sounds nuts… but I thought I could keep an eye on you and how you were feeling, and I thought when the time was right, I would bring up getting back together, but then you had all these dates lined up and I thought maybe you were over me already. I thought maybe I’d lost my chance, and I didn’t want to stop you from finding what you really wanted.”

The tears I fought to keep back now trickle down my cheeks, and I swipe them away with clumsy hands. “All those dates were awful. They only made me miss you more.”

For the first time since he showed up, Luke’s uncertainty fades, and a hopeful smile lifts the corner of his lips. He steps closer, hands somewhat outstretched. “Two weeks ago, you told me not to come back, and I tried to listen. I did. But then I finally registered that you said not to come back unless I wanted you. And I still do.”

Luke steps towards me, and I let myself inch forward into his open arms. I want to say something, but I’m afraid anything I do might shatter this fantasy.

Luke tightens his arms around my waist and leans his forehead towards mine. “I know I handled this abominably, but is there any way you would forgive me for being the most foolish man alive and give me another chance?”

I’m nodding before he’s finished the sentence and raising up on tiptoe to kiss the lips I have missed so much these last few weeks. The second we make contact, my heart lights up and sends waves of joy through every part of my body. I’m home with him. My heart is full with him. And I never want to be with anyone else. “Of course. Of course!”

It’s only after minutes of kissing and hugging that I realize Luke’s a bit teary, too. The sight makes me even more sure his feelings are as serious as my own, and I get the strong impression he’ll never make me doubt that again.

“Ava?”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

“You wanna go do something fun?”

“Sure.” But I pause as we head towards his car and place a hand on his chest. “Just make sure you don’t illegally park anywhere, okay?”

The End