The promise. [Short Chapters]

Chapter Thirteen.

It was still pretty early when I woke up the next morning, and since it was still the weekend, nobody else was awake. I noticed that Ella's bed was empty and untouched and I thanked my lucky stars that she hadn't gotten the bright idea to bring Max into our dorm the night before to witness my pathetic tears. I had myself halfway convinced that best friend telepathy was working in my favour.

The first thing I noticed upon sitting up in bed was the ache going through my neck and back. I'd fallen asleep in the weirdest position, with my spine curved and my head somewhere I'm not sure of, but certainly wasn't my pillow, I figured, due to the strained muscles that caused me to cringe when I moved my neck even the slightest bit. I let out a loud whine and quite literally rolled out of bed, ending up in a pile of blankets on the floor. I snatched the topmost blanket and wrapped it around my shoulders, stepped into a pair of bright pink slippers, and trudged out of the dorm and down the hallway, intending to flop down on one of the sofas in the common room, but finding my plans dashed when I saw that the coziest sofa was occupied by a sleeping boy who I identified as Max.

I settled myself into the smaller sofa and tried to focus on the early morning cartoon that was playing quietly on the television, but my eyes fell to the floor and I noticed a second sleeping boy. The dark brown hair, curly from a night's sleep without straightening, immediately tipped me off to who the body belonged to. I sighed a long, deep sigh. Josh.

A large part of me wished he'd found it in him to stay mad at me. Surely that would have made dealing with him post-breakup much easier. But he had to open his big mouth and tell me it wasn't easy to be angry with me, making me feel like Bitch of the Century. I almost wanted him to be pissed, to hate me, to make me feel like maybe I was justified in leaving him.

At that moment, a memory practically slapped me across the face. I could see myself, ten years old, in my grandparents' living room, staring at the face of my mother. See, while my parents were absentee for a large majority of my life, they had come to visit me a couple of times. This particular time, they'd just returned to England after a year roughing it in Ecuador or Nicaragua or somewhere to that effect, and they wanted to see how their "flower spawn" or whatever the fuck they called me was doing. I divided my time that weekend between hating them for pretty much everything and being depressed that my first ever crush had moved to Liverpool before he'd even become aware of my existence. But that's when my mother said it, the words that flowed through my head as I watched Josh snooze on the rug in the middle of the common room.

"Lolita," she'd said, and I'd cursed her in my head for using my real name, "every person has the story of 'the one that got away'. The person they loved or cared for more than anything who they had to let go, be it for whatever reason. I have one, each of your grandparents has one, I'm sure your father has one, and you'll have one as well. It could be this boy or it could be another boy, but you have to know that you'll get over it. You'll both benefit from it, baby, life goes on."

Thinking back on it, that was the most level-headed thing my mother ever said to me, and even though I was still bitter for calling me her baby and even remotely suggesting that she was any sort of a parental figure to me, it made me think. What if the one hadn't gotten away from my mother? Would they have given me up for a life as tree-hugging hippies? Would I be at Hamilton right now, staring at Josh with tears in my eyes and a head swimming with the realization that he was my one that got away?

Before I could start to cry and wonder why letting him go was hurting so damn bad, I heard the rustling of blankets and cushions from the other sofa and watched as Max's head of messy light brown hair lifted to reveal his sleepy doe eyes. He smiled softly at me and sat up, wrapping his own duvet around his shoulders.