Jacky

Jacky had texted Ryan two whole hours ago and had gotten nothing. It had taken him three whole days to come up with the exact wording, and he'd had to work with Billy, of all people. Three days of stalking Ryan on social media to find any tidbit on what exactly was the nature of his new relationship and was there any little part of him that might be able to forgive Jacky for being a complete and total dumbass.

("This is just a rebound," Billy had said, waving his hand at the photo of Ryan and Charlie, and for some reason Jacky had believed him.)

All of that was just as well, because things with Braedyn had been weird as fuck. Even on the mornings Braedyn had gone with him to breakfast, there was zero eye contact. Jacky wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him and say, "Just come out of the closet already!"

At least when Ryan hadn't been out, he'd still been honest with himself.

The text should have been perfect:

I know you may not want to hear from me, but I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you

"The key," Billy had said, waving a hand through the air, "is that you don't say you miss him. You don't say you want to get back together. You just let him know you're here and you don't hate him. I'm assuming you said some harsh things when you broke up?"

Jacky was slightly offended, but he knew it was true. He had known Ryan's worst fear was feeling like a burden and that was exactly where he'd fired his shot.

"So think of this text as a feeler. You don't want him to feel pressured. You want him to come back to you."

The part Jacky hadn't considered was the waiting. If Ryan was going to run back to him, he had to sit here and wait. And wait and wait and wait. Now it was almost midnight and he'd sent the text a little before ten, thinking Ryan might be heading to bed at ten on a weeknight and would see it before he plugged his phone in to charge, like he'd done every single time he'd slept over. While Jacky often forgot to charge his phone and needed to have a spare charger in his backpack because half the time he was running on five percent battery, Ryan charged his phone every night and had never, to Jacky's knowledge, gone below 50 percent. It seemed like college may have changed Ryan's habits.

What else had college changed about Ryan?

Billy had given up waiting after about ten minutes. "I'm gonna hit up Lucas. See you in the morning!"

The hours dragged by in the dark. Jacky could hear the guys across the hall playing video games, and he wondered if anyone other than Braedyn noticed his absence.

He shouldn't have taken advice from Billy. What did Billy know about relationships that Jacky didn't? All Billy had were numbers. Many boyfriends, many hookups. But Billy had never been in love, not the way Jacky and Ryan had been in love. If Jacky knew one thing about Ryan, it was that Ryan was straightforward. Ryan did not play games. Suddenly it seemed like what Jacky was doing with this text was playing a game.

The text should have said, Ryan, I'm sorry about breaking up with you the way I did. I want you back. Call me if you can forgive me.

Or maybe, Hi, it's your asshole ex-boyfriend, crawling back to you. I'm a total fuckhead for breaking up with you the way I did. Do you think you could ever forgive me? I totally get it if you can't. I probably couldn't.

Jacky checked the time on his phone, nearly blinding himself in the dark. 12:55 p.m. So this was it. Ryan wasn't going to text back. Ever.

Jacky plugged his phone in and rolled over, bringing all the covers up over his head.

Ryan

Ryan had hit a wall. The first few paragraphs had flowed so smoothly he had gotten overconfident. Over the past hour he'd spent more time staring at the screen than actually typing. He'd found himself watching the minutes tick by on the clock at the corner of the screen, knowing that he'd get a break at 1 a.m.

Even still, when Jordan's alarm went off at one a.m., he nearly jumped out of his skin, a result of too much sugar and caffeine. He slammed his laptop shut and grabbed his phone and nerf gun.

Charlie shot him as he was leaping over the couch in hot pursuit of Sam. "Hey, who's side are you on?" he complained.

"Mine!" Harper crowed, and together Harper and Charlie focused all their shots on Ryan.

"Help!" Ryan called out.

Jordan stood up from where she'd been hiding behind the couch. "To the rescue!" Sam joined her, along with Pete, who had come home at some point since the last break and had helped himself to a spare nerf gun. The onslaught drove Harper and Charlie back behind the kitchen counter, which was fairly impenetrable. Ryan's team got closer and closer, until everyone was essentially distracted by food.

"This stuff is crack," Jordan said of the chocolate drizzled popcorn.

Sam tossed out the old coffee filter to brew a new pot. "How's your paper coming?" she asked Ryan.

He made a face.

"I can help, if you want. I'm just making an outline for my final paper in Research Methods. Who do you have for English Lit, Callahan?" Ryan nodded. "He's old school. The Dubliners?"

"Yeah."

"Same thing every year. Let's see what you've got."

Ryan was grateful to have someone who'd already been through everything to help him out. When he'd imagined his life at college, after he found out he and Jacky hadn't gotten into any of the same schools, he'd envisioned having to learn everything on his own, from getting around the city to navigating all of his classes.

After Sam gave him a few ideas, Ryan worked steadily for another hour before deciding he was ready for a break – a non-Nerf break. He stretched his arms up, then headed for the bathroom, then another cup of coffee. Thumbing open his phone, he saw the message Monica had sent a few hours ago, along with another message from a name that made his heart stop.

Jacky.

Ryan set down his coffee and opened up his phone. There, right beneath Jacky's last message – See you soon – was a new text, sent at 9:52 p.m.

I know you may not want to hear from me, but I just wanted to let you know I was thinking about you

He stared at it until his phone screen dimmed and shut down due to inactivity.

"You okay?" Charlie asked, glancing over.

Charlie. Ryan took a breath and tried to shake off his shock. "Yeah. Just tired, I guess."

"Bottom's up." Charlie raised a coffee mug and Ryan took up his own to clink it.

"I'm not sure I'm cut out for all-nighters," Ryan said.

Charlie laughed. "That's four a.m. talk."

Ryan returned to his screen and stared at the words, but all he could see was Jacky's text: I was thinking about you.

It didn't sound like Jacky at all. Or maybe he'd forgotten what Jacky sounded like. There was none of Jacky's sharpness or humor. He tried to imagine a Jacky who would send something like this, a text that sounded so formal and defeated at the same time. Why would Jacky assume Ryan wouldn't want to hear from him? Jacky must think Ryan hated him. Ryan had barely communicated with Jacky at all since that first week of school. But he was waiting for Jacky to reach out.

Wait, but Jacky had sent the last Snapchat conversation. Had Jacky been waiting this whole time for a response, and figured Ryan didn't want to talk to him?

But Jacky was thinking about him. And Ryan couldn't deny he'd been thinking about Jacky a lot, too.

His laptop screen went black.

He tapped the space bar to wake it back up and took a breath to refocus himself. He could think about Jacky's text later, when he wasn't so jittery and stressed out. As he plunged back into writing his paper, he realized that needing his schoolwork as a distraction was the best motivator.