With each ring, I willed myself to answer it but couldn’t. The only explanation was the truth, and the truth would devastate him. The phone buzzed again, and I pressed the button, knowing if I didn’t answer he would end up outside my door. I wiped my face and tucked my hair behind my ear.

“Hello?” I waited for a moment and my heart pounded through the silence.

“Are you okay?” he finally asked, the pain evident in his voice.

I pressed my lips together and clinched my eyes shut, trying not to cry. “I’m ready.”

There was a pause, and then Jared’s strained voice came across the receiver. “You’re ready for what?”

“I’m ready to move my stuff…I’m not going to study group, so I can help you. We can have my things moved by ten and we can go to bed and forget this ever happened. I won’t talk to him, I won’t go near him. I swear I won’t.” I tried to sound optimistic, but my voice broke over and over.

I heard a frustrated sigh. “Nina, you can’t do that. He’s your friend.”

“Yes, I can. I will,” I promised.

I waited for him to tell me that he didn’t want a weak, faithless coward like me living with him, but he kept silent.

“You don’t want me now, do you?” I asked, struggling to keep calm.

He sighed. “I want you. I’ll always want you. I want you here because you want to be, not because you want to prove something…to me or to yourself. I don’t want you to come here because you don’t trust yourself there.”

I dropped the phone, covering my face with my hands. Why would he want me after what I had done? It was pathetic at best, and at worst it was dangerously close to being unfaithful.

I sat on my bed and rested my head on the pillow, trying to cry quietly. I didn’t want Jared to hear and feel worse than he already did. Ten minutes later I heard a knock at the door. When I didn’t answer, it slowly opened. Jared stood at the door, looking as devastated as I felt.

“I love you,” he said.

I sat up and wiped my face, trying to look him in the eyes. He walked over to me and pulled me to my feet, wrapping his arms around me.

“I want you to come home with me,” he said against my hair.

I nodded. It was the only thing I was capable of.

We kept pace with one another in silence down the hall. Jared didn’t reach for my hand; he simply walked beside me, opening the various doors for me as we walked to the Escalade. When he pulled away from the curb I struggled to keep the tears at bay.