While We Were Apart: Senior Year 5

Chapter 6

After overhearing Jeremy brag about partying with my ex-girlfriend, I was finally starting to think of her that way: as my ex. And I stopped hiding and avoiding. I saw my friends again. I tried to stop worrying about seeing Morgan again.

As it happened, all the drama and insecurity that I felt wasn’t shared by any of our mutual friends. I mostly got a “where have you been, man?” greeting, or people chided me that senior year was supposed to be chill, not full of grueling study. 

Most of them had jobs lined up after graduation, or were headed back home to live with their parents as they transitioned into the real world. I had two years of graduate school ahead of me, a Masters in Education, and saw the final semester of undergrad as a way to get ahead.

Now that I wasn’t actively avoiding her, of course I didn’t actually run into Morgan at all through the rest of January and the first part of February. Funny how that works. I thought about her, though, probably too much. I thought about how much she’d changed—how much we’d changed. She was now the type of girl who partied with guys like Jeremy and girls like Cassidy. She was the kind of girl who hung out naked in a hot tub.

Thing was, as much as I wanted to be upset at how much she’d changed, it was hot as hell, thinking about this new side of my girlfriend—ex-girlfriend.

On Valentine’s Day, I did hole myself away in the library, half-working on my capstone paper, but mostly staying away from all the romance around me. I was slowly coming to terms with the breakup, but V-Day was just too much. I didn’t want to see her in the window of some restaurant, staring across a candlelit table at some other guy. I didn’t want to think about her crawling into bed with that same guy wearing the kind of red lingerie that I would never see—

Stop. I needed to stop.

Not that I was without regret. My dumbass self hadn’t just pushed her away, but I’d pushed her into Jeremy’s arms. Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d done that, and now I needed to live with it.

The library stacks were quiet. I’d learned that they were big enough that I could usually find a cubby somewhere and not see another person until I emerged. That was my intention on that February 14th.

Fate had other ideas.

“Nathan?” For a moment, I figured that I’d drifted off, that I was imaging her voice. But then I looked up and there she was. 

“Morgan,” I said with a rush.

There she stood, holding a set of books to her chest. She wore an oversized sweatshirt and leggings, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, her glasses on. It was a far cry from the Valentine’s Day fantasy I’d conjured up, and yet she was even more beautiful to me like this.

“I didn’t think I’d run into you here,” she said. “Figured you’d be out on a… you know.”

She actually looked as nervous as I felt.

“Same.” I considered adding something biting about her and Jeremy, but caught myself. Not going to fall back into old mistakes. “But I’ve always known that no man could compete against the stacks.”

She humored me with a giggle. “Hard to compete with the greatest minds in history.”

She looked cute as she pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose. “Are those new?” I asked, noticing the clear plastic frames.

“Yeah. Needed a new prescription. Guess I’ve been spending too much time down here, in the dark.”

Bet that’s not all you’ve been doing in the dark. The taunt didn’t feel bitter. It no longer tasted like acid or bile. It was just a statement, buzzing in the back of my brain.

“I like them,” I said instead. I really did. “You have a good break?”

It was the masochist in me asking that. That was the bit of me that sought the drama.

Morgan’s face darkened, just a touch. She released an almost imperceptibly small breath. “It was interesting.”

“Yeah?”

“I went skiing. With some friends.” Now she was looking really guilty.

“Sounds much more fun than Christmas in Florida with my family,” I said. “Only took three days with my brothers for me to wish I’d just stayed at school.”

“Oh, that’s just family love. So Alexander was back from… Cambodia, was it?”

“Yeah. Home for the holidays.” That she remembered that my older brother was in the Peace Corps was so Morgan. “And Justin’s doing well in school. He spent most of his time chatting with some girl on his phone.”

Morgan smiled at that, as if remembering a time when we used to do that. This felt like old times. Like back when we were a casual couple. Back before I decided to take a dump over everything.

But I wasn’t going to wallow. Not anymore. 

“So why no date?” I asked.

Morgan’s eyes flickered for a moment. She took a quiet breath, as if to say to herself, So we’re going to do this? She said, “There was no one who caught my interest.” She paused a beat, adding, “You?”

“I actually came to the stacks looking for one. I’ve heard it’s a great place to pick up girls.”

Morgan’s laugh felt more genuine now, despite the lame joke. “I’m afraid that you’ve been deceived.”

“I don’t know,” I said, meeting her eyes. “It’s not all that bad.”

She blushed, glancing away for a moment, then shyly back.

“I’m sorry, Morgan. I was a jealous idiot.” I’d been so afraid of saying that, yet it felt so good to say. “I know it’s not much, but… I’m so sorry.”

Morgan grimaced. She floated over towards me and my little desk, covered in books. She smelled the same as she always did, a familiar blend of her shampoo, her body wash, and just… her. For one brief and hopeful moment, I imagined her throwing her books down, grabbing me, and kissing me.

Instead, she set her books on the table and pulled up a chair beside me. She looked tired, I saw, but she didn’t look away.

“I’m sorry, too,” she said at last. She took a steadying breath. Before I could even ask her why, she went on. “Sorry for taking you to Jeremy’s party. I hadn’t considered how that might make you feel.” She looked at me with a bit of wince. “But he… he really was just a friend.”

I heard the past tense in that statement, and for a split second, I thought about asking her about it. I also thought about how quickly that could unravel, how quickly I could fall back into my irrational, jealousy-fueled mistakes. So I kept my mouth shut.

“I get why you may have had the wrong impression, though,” she finished. “And I shouldn’t have disappeared the way I did. I was just kind of caught up in the moment…”

“I’m sorry I jumped to, like, the worst conclusions.”

“You know that I’d never, ever do… that to you, right? And… and it’s been eating away at me that you think that I could.”

I could see it, now that I was looking for it. I’d been so wrapped up in my own insecurities that I didn’t see that she had some of her own. “I know,” I said. “It’s just… I don’t like that guy. And I don’t understand what you see in him.”

“I won’t defend him, but Jeremy… he’s also more than what you think. We all are, right?”

I could no longer resist asking the thing that I needed to ask. “So you didn’t really hook up with him in London?”

“No.” She looked bashful and flushed. “He tried. At first, in the beginning, he tried. But no.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t trust you,” I said. I pushed out this next apology before I could stop myself. “And I really am sorry I invited Molly to my birthday. That was totally stupid.”

“You were trying to get back at me? For inviting you to Jeremy’s party and disappearing?”

“I guess. I… I wasn’t really thinking straight at all. And I know that I hurt you.”

“Not just me,” she said. “It wasn’t fair for you to do that for Molly, either.”

I sighed. “I know. It was shitty of me.”

Morgan propped her elbow on the table and rested her head on it. “Yeah, it’s possible. We should have talked more. Like this.”

“I wish that we had.” I heard the finality in my words. I felt them. I didn’t like it, but I couldn’t stop talking once I did. It was like tripping as I ran down a hill, and now I was tumbling end-over-end and I couldn’t stop. “We launched right back into our relationship like nothing had changed. But we had. A year apart will do that, for better or worse.”

Morgan looked like she wanted to argue, but I didn’t give her the chance.

“We graduate in a few months,” I said. “You’re going to med school to be a top notch, kickass surgeon or whatever.”

“And you’re going to do the harder job of teaching kids.” There were tears in her eyes. She knew what this was now—this was the breakup speech, the one that we’d put on hold for these last few months.

Morgan reached out to me and took my hands in hers. I was surprised to find them just as clammy as mine were. “I love you, Nathan,” she said, her voice breaking. “I’ll always love you.”

“Just because I’d bring you coffee when you were cramming for an exam?”

Her laugh bordered on the desperate, someone clinging to a ledge that they couldn’t hold forever. Morgan would get so stressed out when it came to school work and her academics. She never believed she was prepared enough, despite always killing it. It was all I could do to calm her down.

“Because you were there for me,” Morgan said. “Because you helped me get out of my own head. And yeah, the coffee was a nice touch.”

“You’re going to do great things, Morg, and you’re going to make some guy really fucking happy.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. “So you’re really breaking up with me for a third time?”

First was before London. Second was after my birthday. And now today. “Tell me I shouldn’t, and I won’t.”

She furrowed her brow and frowned, but didn’t tell me not to. “You’ve definitely changed, Nathan. Twenty-one is suiting you well.”

“I can now legally get wasted.”

Morgan snorted, her laugh wet and sloppy. “I think we’re both still figuring out who we are as… as individuals,” she said. “Isn’t that what this time in our lives is all about?”

She wasn’t wrong, although a part of me wished that she was. I just always imagined that we’d be figuring it out together.

Morgan squeezed my hand one last time and started to rise. “Well, I’ll let you get back to… picking up chicks in the stacks.” There was that smile, peeking out from her flushed cheeks and large, wet eyes.

I didn’t want to let her go. I wanted to reach out, to pull her down to me, to kiss her. She hesitated a moment, as if waiting for me to take it all back.

“Fuck it,” I said to myself.

She turned at the sound of my voice. “What?”

I cleared my throat and opened my mouth with absolutely no idea what was going to come out of it next.

“Look,” I ran my hand through my hair. “I can… I can still bring you coffee when you need it. We don’t need to be, like, together for that.”

Morgan started to smile, and it was nice to see a little bit of light return to her eyes. “So not only are you breaking up with me, but you’re using the ‘let’s be friends’ line?”

It wasn’t an accusation. She was really smiling by the time she said it.

“Totally your fault,” I said. “But you’re right, we’re both still figuring out who we want to be. I just don’t think we need to do that totally apart.”

She gripped her books tighter against her chest and cocked her head to the side, peering at me as if I were a stranger she couldn’t quite make out in the darkness. “I’m confused, Nathan. Are we breaking up, or getting back together?”

It would have been so easy to say that we were getting back together. So easy. But also, I knew now that we couldn’t just go back to the way things were. “I think we need a reset.”

“Reset to when? To the beginning of Senior Year?”

“To the beginning beginning. To being friends again.”

Morgan nodded slowly. “I… I can get behind that.”

For the first time in months, it felt like stepping into the sun. I’d been missing that feeling, to be around her, to be at her side.

“Graduation’s three months away,” Morgan said.

“Still can’t believe that.”

“And I am so stressed right now.” She squeezed the books in her hands. “I could use…”

“More coffee?”

“A friend,” she said at the same time. She tossed her books on the floor and came in for a hug. No move to kiss, just a solid embrace. And it was still better than any kiss I had ever shared with anyone else. She felt so familiar. She felt so right. I didn’t want to ever let her go, but knew that I had to.

“Okay, I’ve got one condition,” she said before releasing me.

“We’re doing conditions, huh?”

She laughed, stepping back. “Can we go get something to eat? I’ve been avoiding any place that sells food today because, well, Valentine’s Day…”

“Sure.” I couldn’t stop grinning. “Probably too late to get a table at Le Jardin de Luxe.”

Morgan looked down at herself in her oversized sweatshirt and leggings. “Not that they’d let us in even if we could.”

“How about Chipotle? I’ll even spring for it… this time.”

She giggled and bent to pick up her books. Rather than offer to help, I visually reacquainted myself with the contours of her ass—a stunning reminder that leggings are a privilege, not a right.

She smiled as she straightened up, obviously aware of what I’d been doing. “Look at you, Mr. Big Spender!”

“Nah,” I said as I began to throw my things into my own backpack. “I have a coupon.”

Morgan threw her head back and laughed. “Best. Valentines. Day. EVER.”

Chapter 7

The rest of senior year was much more chill, just like my friends had urged. Morgan and I were friends, and I forced myself to embrace the platonic nature of our re-forged relationship. 

It was a good decision for both of us. I told myself that it was a good way to heal and move forward, but mostly, it just felt nice to have Morgan back in my orbit again. Not that it was totally easy. I could still feel the jealousy clawing at my insides whenever I saw Morgan with another guy, but as far as I could tell, she didn’t date any of them. She spent most of her time studying.

She didn’t even go to Ibiza with Jeremy and his cadre, either. I knew because I ran into her lounging on the quad, reading a book, over the long break.

“You stayed on campus,” I said, squatting down and saying hello.

“I did. Figured this place was big enough for the both of us,” she teased back. “Also, I’d like to point out that you also stayed.”

It occurred to me that the only reason I knew about this trip was because I’d been hiding in a bathroom stall listening to Jeremy. “My plans to hang out in St. Martin’s with a bunch of wild coeds fell through.”

“Dan forget to invite you?” she said with a giggle.

“Dan’s actually shacked up with Denise, who came to my birthday thing with Molly. Guess some good came out of that night.”

“Wow. Dan’s been dating someone for…” She did quick math. “Almost half a year? This is some kind of record.”

“I know, right? I even heard him use the L word.”

“No shit.” Morgan chewed on that. “I guess miracles do happen.”

“No plans for you?” I asked. I wanted to be more specific, but wasn’t sure how I could explain why I knew that Jeremy had invited her to the European party island.

“Nah. I’ve got too much to do. I’m working on my dissertation, and wanted to get a head start on finals.”

“You know most people relax in their final semester of senior year?”

Morgan shrugged. “I guess this is my way of relaxing.”

***

Graduation Day was filled with all the feels, the bitter and the sweet. As I watched Morgan walk across the stage in her black gown, her hair flowing out of her cap, and her smile lighting up everyone around her, I realized how things didn’t go the way that I’d dreamed.

“You made it,” Dan said, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and pulling me close. “And you didn’t hang yourself.”

“You know, you have a true way with words, Dan?”

“Sorry it didn’t work out for you two, but who knows? You’re still young. Maybe you’ll run into her in a few years and it’ll be different.”

I liked that idea. It was also a dangerous one. “It’s time to let go.” I held up my graduation cap. “We’re not kids anymore.”

“Meh. Today’s all about looking both forward and back, right? Last hurrahs and all that shit?” He glanced past me, where Morgan was huddled with some of her friends. She looked up at me, our eyes locking through the crowd, and I felt the same jolt as the first time we’d met.

Dan clapped me on the back. “Don’t crawl back into your head, Nathan. Live in the moment.”

And he was gone. And Morgan was there, peeling away from her friends. “Hey,” she said when she was close. “Congratulations on the diploma.”

“Congrats on summa cum laude.”

“Thanks.” She looked so beautiful. “Ready for what comes next?”

“I barely know what that is,” I said. “I’m trying to be more chill about things. You?”

“Chill sounds good,” she said. “I’ve already gotten a bunch of pre-work for med school. It’s… a lot.”

“You’ll be fine.”

She grinned at me. “So I heard some of the gang is going down to the Crossing.”

“I heard that too.”

“You’re not going?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I’m kind of all tapped out.”

“Yeah, same.”

Our eyes locked once more. I loved those eyes, deep and brown and filled with warmth. I loved this woman. And I knew I needed to let her go. 

But I also wanted to live in the moment.

“I’ve got a bottle of champagne back at my place. Was saving it for a special occasion, but now don’t want to pack it to move.”

“That does sound like a problem,” Morgan said with a knowing smile.

“It’s already chilled, you know? So maybe unchilling it would make it go bad?”

“Maybe. You asking me to come back to your place for a drink, Nathan?”

Live in the moment. 

“I suppose I am.”

“I’d love to.”

***

We knew what this was as we crashed into my apartment. We weren’t getting back together. We weren’t committing to a future. This was us throwing our graduation hats into the air. This was a goodbye.

But fuck, it felt good to say goodbye.

We were all over each other before the door even closed. Unlike our first reunion at the beginning of senior year, there was nothing shy or tentative about this one. 

We were still in our graduation gowns, our fingers shaking and fumbling to unzip the black, baggy material. “Aww, you’re wearing clothes under there,” I said as I opened Morgan’s. She wore a cute, black wrap dress—perfectly acceptable clothing to wear under graduation robes.

“Hoping I was naked?”

“It would make this easier.”

Morgan just laughed, kissing me as she opened up my own gown. “Hey, at least I’m in a dress. You’ve got all…” Her hands went to the front of my chinos. “...these…” She deftly unbuckled my belt and started working on the front clasp. “...layers.”

We left the robes on as I lifted her onto my dresser. She laughed, hugging me by the shoulders. I lost my balance, tipping into her, our lips finding one another as we laughed. 

“We’re out of practice,” she said as she tugged open her wrap dress.

As I focused on her lacy black bra and matching thong, I said, “Okay, this is better than being naked.”

Her stomach was flat, her navel still pierced with a simple, silver bar. “Glad you approve,” she said, hooking her thumbs into her thong and lifting her hips long enough to whisk it off.

She was still bare shaven. I wondered if she’d gotten any action lately. If she had, no one had been serious enough to mention. My jealousy only fueled my excitement. That this woman, who I still loved, was capable of casual sex had my cock stiff and ready.

“Now get those pants off, Nathan!”

I worked open my chinos, pushing them off to a surprised Morgan. “You’re not wearing underwear!”

I chuckled. “I forgot to do laundry. Nothing’s clean.”

“Well, at least you didn’t wear dirty boxers for your graduation,” she said, smiling the whole time.

“You’ve got a winner in me.”

“Not the word I’d use, but…” Her fingers wrapped around my cock and pulled it between her legs. “It’s definitely convenient right now.”

I pushed into her velvety opening, shuddering as I nearly came. “That feels so good,” I groaned.

Morgan swung her arms behind her, bracing herself on the dresser, and looked up at me through her dark lashes. I put a hand on her hip and another on the wall behind her, and started trusting hard.

“Oh, fuck!” She lifted her legs around my waist, driving her heels into my butt. 

“Uhhnn, Morgan…”

With our graduation gowns hanging loosely around us, we fucked for one last time. The dresser shook and rattled as it hit the wall. Morgan fucked back, driving with her heels and off of her palms.

“Yes… Yes, yes!” she gasped. “This feels… so good. I… ohhh… I missed this… so much…”

My heart swelled. My hips drove. I bent over her, kissing her neck. I could feel her lust quivering along the graceful column, and the quick pulse along her jugular.

“I’m close,” she moaned. “Are… are you?”

“Mmm…” I grunted. I was close. So close.

I fell into her, thrusting deep, encouraged by Morgan’s athletic embrace. I ached for her. “Oh, Nate, Nate!”

It felt good to hear her moan my name. It felt so good.

Time seemed to slow down in that split second before release. I thought about all that came before—the first time I’d said “hi” to Morgan, our first kiss, and now, our last. I thought about what could have been if I hadn’t let my insecurities get the better of me—the two of us tackling grad school together, building a life away from school and finding our way in the real world.

Shoulda. Woulda. Coulda.

Didn’t.

Morgan was no longer out of my league. She never had been. She was just another person, a college kid, trying to navigate the world and prone to dumb mistakes. If I’d only realized that sooner. Didn’t mean I could reverse time. Didn’t mean much. My jealousy and insecurity were still there, all the complex emotions that I’d been struggling with ever since she’d left during our junior year together were not gone.

Didn’t matter. Not as I buried my face in her damp hair and emptied my swollen balls. In that moment, we were together, we were one.

And it didn’t end there. We spent the whole night together, one last, glorious night. One last hurrah. We didn’t sleep much, both knowing that this was it, while neither of us wanting to say it aloud.

“You’ll stay in touch?” she asked.

“Of course.”

I vowed to be better this time. I vowed to not let time and distance draw us apart, the way they had when she went off to London. But this also wasn’t London. There was nothing time-bound about this next phase in our lives.

“You’re going to make an amazing doctor, Morgan. Who knows, one day I may need a surgeon for open heart surgery or something”

She put a hand on my chest. “Your heart’s just fine, Nathan. Just don’t let your head keep getting in its way.”

I nodded. “Very poetic, Doctor.”

She kissed my forehead and stepped away.

“I’ll… I’ll see you around.”

It was an odd goodbye, but neither of us wanted to use those words.

“See you around, Morg.”

It would be another year before that was true, and by that time, everything had changed. But of course, that’s a story for another time.

***

And that concludes While We Were Apart: Senior Year. What comes next? Well, you'll have to wait a little longer!

As always, this has been an amazing experience posting this. I'd intended just to post exactly what I wrote about a year ago, but the thoughtful comments and feedback that you brought gave me more insight into the story I was telling, vs the one that I thought that I was. I had two options: re-write what I've done so that you all see my way, or revise Morgan and Nathan's story to fit the one that you all have seen. I've chosen to do a bit of both. The last chapter of this book is completely different than the one I was going to write, yet in the long run, the story will run its course. This will require me to write a new book 2, but I've already got a fun idea for that one. Then, we should resume our regularly scheduled programming.

Thanks again!