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Back First Comes Love Save as PDF
Chapters (92)
  1. First
  2. Love Connection
  3. Zero
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. One Month Later
  16. Twelve
  17. Thirteen
  18. Fourteen
  19. Fifteen
  20. Six Months Later
  21. Sixteen
  22. Seventeen
  23. Eighteen
  24. Nineteen
  25. Twenty
  26. Twenty-one
  27. Twenty-two
  28. Twenty-three
  29. Twenty-four
  30. Six Months Later
  31. Twenty-five
  32. Twenty-six
  33. Twenty-seven
  34. Twenty-eight
  35. Twenty-nine
  36. Thirty
  37. Thirty-one
  38. Thirty-two
  39. Thirty-three
  40. I Have Never
  41. One
  42. Two
  43. Three
  44. Four
  45. Five
  46. Six
  47. Seven
  48. Eight
  49. Nine
  50. Ten
  51. Eleven
  52. Twelve
  53. Thirteen
  54. Fourteen
  55. Fifteen
  56. Sixteen
  57. Seventeen
  58. Eighteen
  59. Nineteen
  60. Twenty
  61. Twenty-one
  62. Twenty-two
  63. A Christmas Date
  64. One
  65. Two
  66. Three
  67. Four
  68. Five
  69. Six
  70. Seven
  71. Eight
  72. Nine
  73. Ten
  74. Eleven
  75. Twelve
  76. Thirteen
  77. Fourteen
  78. Fifteen
  79. Sixteen
  80. Seventeen
  81. Eighteen
  82. Nineteen
  83. Twenty
  84. Twenty-one
  85. Twenty-two
  86. Note from the Author
  87. Sneak Peek – To the Stars and Back
  88. Two
  89. Three
  90. Four
  91. Also by Camilla Isley
  92. About the Author

“No. I went to Stanford instead, to be with him. He assured me we’d go to Harvard for grad school.”

“Oh. I sense that promise didn’t come true. So you stayed together through college as well. And…?”

“Stanford offered him a scholarship for Med School. Everything paid for. No student loans, no living expenses. It was an offer no one could’ve refused.”

“And that’s when you broke up?”

“No, not yet. I hadn’t applied to Stanford Grad School, so for me, it was either lose one year or move to Boston. Harvard was my dream, Stanford his. It wouldn’t have been fair for either of us to have to give up our dream school.”

“So you left?”

“Yeah. We spent the summer in California and I moved to Boston at the beginning of the fall term. We thought three years apart would be manageable. That’s when we found out why everyone says long distance relationships don’t work. School was demanding for both of us and catching a six-hour flight over the weekend became more and more difficult. We settled on leading different lives. We were used to sharing everything. Every day, every moment. Suddenly, we both had this huge chunk of life with different things in it. Things the other couldn’t understand or get excited about. It was hard. We started arguing, and…”

“And?”

“Depends who you ask. If you asked Jake, he’d probably tell you it was a miscommunication issue. He’d say I overreacted to him telling me about a job offer he’d received in San Francisco. If you asked me, I’d give you a slightly different version…”

“Was your career really that important?” the bartender asks.

“It wasn’t that I valued my career over my relationship with Jake. It was the sensation of always coming in second after his career. I’d given up my college dream for him. I’d waited all of graduate school… it was his turn to put me first. To put us first.”

“If he’s still in San Francisco, what’s made you change your mind now about being together?”

“I’m not sure I have changed my mind.”

“So why buy a ticket to San Francisco if you’re not even sure you want to try to work things out with him?”

“It was a rash, stupid decision. When I found out Jake was getting married, I panicked. My first thought was that I couldn’t let him do it.”

“So what’s changed?”

“I cooled off and thought about it.”

“And?”

“And I realized flying to San Francisco and confronting him was crazy. I mean, what are the odds, really, of us getting back together? I live in London, and he lives in San Francisco. I haven’t seen him in forever. I know nothing about his life. We ruined everything once already. How can we possibly make it work this time?”