“Um, excuse me, old man, you’re the only one who’s thirty-two. I’m still basking in the golden age of thirty.”

“Forget about age. Did you ever think we’d be walking down the street with pizza ten-plus years after we first met?”

“That would be a no,” I answer. “The first time we spoke, you thought I was a nerd reading a dirty novel.”

“I did not. You thought I was a rude thief. I will admit, stealing your book wasn’t my best moment, but I wanted you to talk to me.”

“Why?” I find myself asking.

Ryan smiles. “Because when I walked into class and saw you, I thought you were the most adorable thing I ever saw.”

I make a skeptical face but he goes on.

“I wanted to find out who you were, so I sat down next to you and bothered you until you talked to me. And when you did talk to me, I got you so worked up and angry by taking your book and...I don’t know, I just couldn’t stop looking at you.”

“I’m sorry but that makes no sense.”

“You were beautiful, Sullivan. You still are.”

I don’t take compliments well, so I ignore him completely. “I was so bratty to you that day.”

“I deserved it. I was a jerk.”

“True,” I agree. “When you sat with me again in the next class, I was stunned.”

Ryan catches my gaze and keeps it. “I think I was already in love with you by then. I just had to wait for you to catch up with me.”

His words comfort and crush me. We both look forward.

“You didn’t have to wait very long,” I say.

Ryan’s gaze falls to the pavement, a cloud seeming to come over him. “When we broke up, when you cut me off like that...I was messed up for a long time.” Seconds go by until he speaks again. “You really broke my heart, you know?”

We stop walking as we arrive outside my building and I say the first thing that flashes through my mind. “You broke mine first.”

Ryan takes in my words. Part of me wishes I didn’t say them, but they’re the truth. Maybe he needed to hear them as much as I needed to say them.

“It’s surprising that we’re still able to be friends now,” he says, “considering what we did to each other.”

“I’m sure a fair amount of former couples are able to stay friends.”

“And you think they’re the same as you and me? That they had what we had?”

I roll his question over in my head, hoping to find an answer that’s honest but vague.

“I don’t know,” I decide to say. “Did you ever feel what we did with someone else?”