The coldest night of my life was the night he left. Colder than snow-ridden winters in Rhode Island when my Mom couldn’t buy me a winter coat after months of beading jewelry on our rotten wooden floors to save up.

I swore I loved him, I could’ve sworn on my life right then and there.

We laid in bed and watched Breaking Bad on my laptop while he heated up microwaved Ramen in his dorm at 12 a.m.. I brought a pint of vegan Ben and Jerry’s with me so we could share. Infatuated, I watched in indifference as he forced the plant-based cookie dough down his throat, complaining about how it was vegan. He could only really take three bites before putting it in his mini fridge in disgust. I still have this empty ice cream pint sitting in my closet. That night, all my friends were sending me videos of the fun going on downstairs and how they were enjoying their last night together at camp–friends I still talk to now that I never got to say my proper farewells to. I chose to stay in the cold while they shared their warmths on the last night together.

I fell asleep in his arms on that final night as the clock struck 4 a.m. and his Uber arrived. He packed his things, and I watched him stupidly. I laid on his cheap blue mattress barefoot with my thick hair falling out of a bun and a blank slate across my face, livid at the universe for putting us across the country from each other. I lay cloaked in his Nirvana shirt, which I feared ever removing from my chest ever since he let me borrow it on laundry days. Eventually I gave it back to him and swapped it for my brown uncomfy sweatshirt. I was shaking, twitching, and it started getting hard to breathe in the cold air. It had never been this cold during an East Coast summer. Everyone in the dorm would even put their fans together on most nights and sleep without blankets because the heat made us all sweaty and smell like p*ss when we woke up. This night was different.

The first time we met I saw him sitting on a rotten sofa in the dorm basement eating a cupcake. I thought he looked cute so I went to sit next to him. My friend beat me to it and I was on the verge of freezing her bra or stealing her cereal next time she left her dorm room unlocked. Later I found out she was a lesbian and was only talking to him to introduce him to me since she noticed me staring. Talk about a girl boss. 

He introduced himself and started sitting next to me when the crew watched movies in the basement. He played saxophone and liked computer science, but most importantly he liked Breaking Bad. I told him I was a fan, and I invited him to my room for a season 4 marathon, and the rest was history. I can’t really watch this show anymore without getting nauseous. F**k, it was my favorite show.

That was our routine every night. As soon as I finished reading anthropology research papers and as soon as he finished his pathology calculations, he’d pull up to my room in his jammies and bravely walk down the girls hall as all my friends mocked him. The first time I laid my head down on his chest, I could hear his heart beating increasingly fast– I could tell he felt something. Not sure what it was, but something.

He wasn’t pretty but he wasn’t ugly– precisely my type. There were pretty boys who liked me, really pretty boys. They tried to sit next to me when he wasn’t around or asked me my favorite songs to play at parties. This made all our raves go sour thanks to my peculiar obsession with early sad Rex Orange County songs, but it was always a sweet gesture nonetheless. 

I turned all these pretty boys down, for him. I still talk to those pretty boys; I don’t talk to him. I don’t think I ever will again. He hated one of my friends, who he claimed was flirting with me. That friend still calls me and hears my cries when I’m down– he heard me weep for months after he left. That friend always calls, but he doesn’t.

It was 4:15 a.m., and his Uber driver was angry that he was running late because he spent an extra 5 minutes trying to make me feel better while I was sobbing like a baby. He had a good heart. I just don’t think it was meant for me. As he left, he had one foot out the door and then I screamed “wait.” and I ran up to him and kissed him one last time. “Keep doing what you’re doing,” he said. Those were the last words I ever heard from him. He left. He promised he’d call, and he never did. As soon as he walked out those decaying steps of the dorm building and into the chilling night air who’s breeze sliced my warm skin like a knife, he was gone forever. It felt like I made him up– like he was just a fever dream that lasted three ethereal weeks.

At 4:30 a.m. – 30 minutes after he had left– I went to my room sobbing. I played “Godspeed” by Frank Ocean while digging my face into my sweat-drenched sheets. The song makes me want to scream and projectile vomit every time I hear it now. I’m honestly getting nauseous reliving this a year later as I type this story up. He ruined Frank Ocean. He ruined Breaking Bad. He ruined f**king vegan Ben and Jerry’s. 

At around 5:30, I couldn’t sleep and I remembered his room was still unlocked. The room that bore my most defining and vivid moments. I snuck into what once was his room and slept there in a state of temporary peace with myself. All I dreamt were vividly real dreams of him. That’s all I dreamt about for the next few weeks.

The next morning, my aunt picked me up and wanted me to tell her about my experience at camp. I learned a lot of useful stuff, made great connections, and even started working with an epidemiologist who asked me if I had a hickey on my neck on the last day of class. All the success I had at camp or my good grades meant nothing then. Nothing mattered but him. Life seemed like it wasn’t worth living if I couldn’t share it with him, and my face was always really numb due to my constant fight to hold back tears. The next few weeks I regularly had a lump in my throat and I only spoke in monosyllables due to the fear that I’d start sobbing manically. Even then, I thought we’d still be together in the end so the pain wasn’t quite as bad as it felt later on. A few weeks later, I knew it was over and a second wave of pain hit.

I asked him to send me a text at the airport when he landed. He didn’t. 

I asked him to reach out if he ever needed anyone to talk to. He never did.

We were both into chemistry and I told him to call me anytime he wanted to study, and he never did either. 

I developed a nervous illness– the kinds Jane Austen writes about. Somehow, I grew extremely fatigued, had an eye swollen pink from two weeks of crying, and lost 10 pounds by the end of this grueling period of my life in August of 2021. I stopped talking to a lot of my friends too– my friends who had no blame in this.

Maybe I got too attached, or maybe I was in love?

A year later, when I reflect back on this time of my life after a year full of kissing other guys and even an experimentation phase, I can confirm I’m “over it.” But was it love? Was it mental illness? Was it my first heartbreak? I don’t know, and I think I have to wait to love (again?) to find out. In the meantime, everytime I open my closet I still see the pint of Ben and Jerry’s we shared that I stuffed in my suitcase long ago when I was a grief-stricken young girl. It’s aged, and the sweet and thick ice cream that once filled it is gone and all that’s left is an empty bent-out-of-shape cardboard container. An empty container that can be filled by anything or any thoughts; an empty container means there’s room for growth and healing, at least I hope so.