Sometimes, she decides, he must cry at night. He must punch his wall and collapse on his bed and scream and sob and curse the world because he screwed up and he was an ass and he lost her, he lost her and he must regret that.

Anything else would be ridiculous. What they had was so good—warm, comfortable. She would know, after all: she’s the Goldilocks of relationships. She’d been searching around for her just right for so long, and then he came along and it was all so easy. They held hands or they didn’t; they liked the same movies; they refused to listen to the same obnoxious, synthesized music. She ate the chocolate on the outside of ice cream bars so he could get to the cold vanilla treat inside.

So he can’t possibly be happy right now. No, his life is ruined. Like hers.

(Then why did he take her aside after school and not hold her hand and not look her in the eye and mumble so quietly that, um, he’s sorry, but he thinks, um, that they should spend some time apart, um, hope that’s okay?)

(She pushes that memory out of her mind.)

She’s sure.

***

When the wind howls outside and the rain is coming down in sheets of bullets and he swears God must have a hangover because the weather just seems pissed—that’s when he misses her.

He misses her then because of one day, the best they ever spent together, where they were listening to a new CD that she didn’t like at his house and the weather was just like this, so bad that she wouldn’t leave. They spent the whole afternoon together, Jack and Jill, rolling down hills for fun and climbing beanstalks for treasure. Building a fort and [not] baking a cake and getting distracted in his room. She was the most beautiful girl he’d ever seen, then.

It’s only on the rainy days, though, the angry ones, that he remembers the twinkle in her eyes and the freckle on her chin. When the kids are chasing each other outside and the sun is beaming down and the ice cream truck comes by with its familiar jingle, he grabs Mom’s wallet and takes his little brother down and they both get ice cream bars, and he can finally eat the whole thing.

But sometimes, unbidden, he remembers how he broke up with her. How he couldn’t look her in the eye—how he still can’t.

He regrets that. Just not much else.

***

Three years later, they’re in gowns with their diplomas and their friends say, “C’mon, get in the picture!”

They do, smiling at each other and then at the camera. They exchange a hug goodbye and throughout the rest of their lives, they see each other maybe three times altogether. Every time, they’re thrilled and vow to get together again sooner—so inevitably that meet-up happens fifteen years later, in the middle of coincidental grocery shopping, or not at all.

(Neither knows that they’ve become great story material for the other’s children. Maybe, though, that’s for the best.)