Punk Love

He lied to me.

He flat-out lied to me.

He’d never done that before.

“No,” Alex admitted quietly, still not turning around to look at me. “I didn’t have a flat tire.”

“Where were you?” My voice shook. “With Elena? With Ainsley?”

He threw his head back and laughed. It was maybe the most painful thing he ever did. Laugh this way. Because it reminded me of all the things I fell in love with. The raw, male beauty of him. The combination of his hard-everything with his soft eyes.

He spun on his heel, pinning me with a look that made every bone in my body freeze. He didn’t scare me, per se. But he showed me the same coldness that made other people so wary of him.

“I was with my parents. We were discussing my plans for Sweden. I don’t have to take pre-med here, after all. I’m moving in four months, right after graduation.”

My heart collapsed, not brick by brick, but in sheets. Like fallen snow. It felt like he reached into my ribcage, plucked it out, and squeezed it until it bled dry. A red, redundant sponge.

Four months.

We only had four months before he was leaving.

And by the way he was speaking, he had absolutely no plans to try to keep this relationship long-distance.

Alex closed his eyes. When he opened them again, they were void of emotions. I had to wonder if he was at least a little bit sociopathic. I mean, to go from the kind of obsession he had toward me to nothing was extreme. It was like the minute he knew he was going, he cut his emotions off from the rest of his body. He dropped his head into his hands.

“So. This is why I was late. It wasn’t a flat tire. It was my parents basically letting me know I needed to start looking into booking a ticket to Sweden.”

“You lied to me,” I whispered.

I didn’t know why I cared about this one piece of information when something so much bigger was looming in front of us. That stupid flat tire.

“Yeah.” Alex looked down. “Sorry.”

I took a deep breath, then glanced up, suddenly aware we were still in public. A car passed, going around us, like we were a part of the scenery, and not two people in the middle of a meltdown.

“So,” I said.

“Look.” He scrubbed his cheek with his knuckles. “We can try the long-distance shit. Or, I don’t know, you could come study there, too.”

He seemed reluctant to even offer. And anyway, I didn’t want to move to Sweden.

I shook my head. “We knew it was going to happen.”

“Yeah.” Alex’s voice broke. “Still fucking sucks, though.”

I smiled weakly. We were breaking up. This was really happening. I was so overwhelmed with emotion, it felt like I was suffocating.

We were breaking up, and nothing big or tragic or scandalous had occurred.

After everything—my cheating accusations, the high school mess, Ryan, Alex’s European trip—this was what got us. Reality just caught up with us and bitch-slapped us across the face. Earlier than it was supposed to.

For a moment, I was so disoriented, I tried to hold onto us with bloodied fingers.

“Maybe I could visit you…when you’re settled.”

Even as I said the words, I knew I wouldn’t. My parents wouldn’t let me, I was still a minor, and besides, I had no money. Even all those things aside—I knew Alex didn’t want that. Didn’t want to go the long-distance route.

Alex smiled. “I don’t know, Honeypie. I think maybe it’ll just make things harder. I really do love you, you know.”

I nodded. “You just love Sweden more.”

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes. “No. Not Sweden. I love myself more. Is that bad?”

“No.” I smiled. “Just honest.”

It hurt, but I did it, anyway.

“Take me home, Alex.”

How do you avoid running into your ex in the four months you still live one town over from each other? Simple:

You make your best friend, Pauly, promise you she will never, ever let you call or text him, even though he is still sending you random text messages asking if you wanna meet up (translation: have sex).

You pick a brand new hobby. In my case, reading romance novels. Lots and lots of romance novels, where the asshole ends up doing the right thing, which is presumably not leaving his girlfriend to move to Stockholm (what? I’m not bitter).

You eat all the dairy and egg products in the world, and make sure it’s all cage-free and organic, but still go WILD.

You get a new, part-time job over the summer at an ice cream parlor and save up, though you are not sure what you’re saving up for.

You convince your mother you are super depressed and make her take you to the mall and buy you a brand new wardrobe, consisting of all the cute Summer Roberts things you always wanted to wear but never dared to.