“You were in love, though.”

My body tenses as I turn to answer my classmate, “Some people are meant to fall in love with each other, but not meant to be together.”

My classmate nods, sits back in her chair and looks down at her desk. I want to yell at her for questioning my failed relationship, but I hold my pencil in my sweating palm and wait for class to start, for my heart to stop swelling.

School is the antidote for my anguish, and a way to use my brain for something other than thinking about Luke. Walking down the hallways is my only time to contemplate my woe, and I try to ignore the people I don’t even know that well asking me what happened.

It goes on for weeks, this game of dodging and running from the questions my peers throw at me.

I don’t even let myself question what happened, because I know the answers and they terrify me. I know that no one has the right to taste the bitterness of the truth of Luke and me, not even my closest friends or the people who genuinely care about my association with the blonde soccer player I used to call my boyfriend. I figure that after a while, the high schoolers surrounding me will stop whispering and wondering, and I will be able to forget Luke in his entirety.

It’s easy for people to speculate that the reason Luke and I called it off was his high school graduation and large move to California, and they aren’t incorrect for thinking that. It’s a small slice of the entire story, though.

Trying to put an end to my distress, I find myself sitting in Luke’s best friend’s driveway. I don’t even have time to get out of my car and ring the doorbell before Brandon is opening my car door and embracing me. His body is warm and familiar, and he holds my hand tight in his own as he whispers, “I know, Grace, I know.”

I let go of my bottled up torment and cry into Brandon’s sweet-smelling chest when we reach the living room that the three of us used to sit and play music in. He breathes heavily and tries to tell me I’m going to be okay. Tears well in his eyes, but he doesn’t let them escape. It strikes me that I’m not the only one grieving Luke and everything he left behind.

Together, we mourn the loss of friendship with an incredible young man, a young man that we both no longer know, a young man that we will never see again.

Brandon hands me his phone, and chokingly punches in 10 numbers. I hesitate, knowing it’s wrong and that it could cost Luke more than just a conversation.

“Hello?”

I suck in my breath.

“Can you promise me something?” I whisper.

There is silence and I hear Luke say yes.

“That you’ll be okay. That you’ll aways remember me,” I choke, but quickly retain control over my emotions.

“I’ll always remember you, Grace.”

I start to cry, but it’s nothing like the tears I’ve cried throughout the entire painful process of forcibly forgetting the person on the other line. I sob into my hands, my body convulsing and my voice unrecognizable. It’s a cry that I have never experienced and will never experience ever again. It’s the cry of a little girl saying her rightful goodbye to her everything.

“Always love me like I love you?” I manage to spit out.

I hear a sob on the other line. Luke had never been one to hold his emotions back.

“Always.”

And then the line goes dead, and I lay back on Brandon’s carpet and search for breath. I cry until my body is exhausted and emotionally wounded, and then I fall asleep clutching the phone in my hand.

Closure. I have it.

Do you?