Despite how incompatible we are for one another, despite how not in love we are anymore, and despite these intense growing feelings I have for someone else, it doesn’t negate the love I hold for Aida. She was my first love and we’ve been together for half our lives. It’s the end of an era, and it’s sad, regardless of the facts.

Wiping her eyes, she looks up at me, honey eyes shining with moisture and swimming with defeat. “You want to sell the house?”

“Well, yeah. It would make the most sense. You’re not working, and getting half of the money would probably help you figure out what you’re going to do. And I can buy a new house on my own.”

“I can’t fucking believe you, Stone,” she seethes. “After all these fucking years, you’re just kicking me out.”

What?! Has she been listening at all? “Aida… I said we don’t have to figure it all out tonight.”

“I can’t deal with this right now. I need to go to bed.” She stands and walks off, and I’m left wondering if we were even a part of the same conversation.

I don’t know where we’re going to go from here, but a huge weight has been lifted off my shoulders, knowing that I at least got that off my chest. I head to my office and lose myself in grading for the next several hours. By the time I head up for air, it’s after eleven. Pulling my phone out of my pocket, I have a few texts from Cash. We’ve spent a lot of time together over the last two months. Almost every weekend, we find ourselves at the fields, lying under the stars and talking about life.

Keeping this a secret is becoming increasingly difficult. Every single time we’re in class together, all I want to do is hold him, kiss him, breathe him in, and show him off. None of which I can do without losing my job. Hell, just the other day in my office after class, we ended up making out, completely forgetting where we were, and another student almost caught us. Thankfully, they knocked before opening the door.

We tip-toe around what we’re doing, but whatever it is, is growing stronger by the day. There isn’t a single day that goes by that I don’t speak to him one way or another, whether we see each other in class, or we’re texting or FaceTiming, or falling asleep wrapped up in each other’s arms under the night sky.