I click into his video message. A small pot of water is on screen, long noodles sticking halfway out, not fitting. “My noodles are defective, Willow.”

I smile and my eyes water a little.

“And I know what you’re going to say.” He turns the camera to face himself. “Break the noodles. But there has to be some Chef Boyardee rule against that.” He sighs deeply. His aquamarine eyes carrying a heaviness to them like he hasn’t slept much. “So basically, I’m a mess without you.”

“You’re not a mess,” I whisper to my phone. But he can’t hear me.

He runs a hand through his thick, disheveled hair. The tattoos at his collarbone peek out of his plain black T-shirt. Small stars, shaped into a constellation. He has more tattoos, scattered around his body, while I have none. On paper, maybe it looks like we shouldn’t be together.

He grew up in a mansion three times the size of my childhood home in Maine.

He was kicked out of two prep schools.

He was almost arrested for vandalizing, for drugs and for underage drinking, and if it weren’t for the top shot lawyer his rich parents hired, he might have faced serious consequences at some time in his life.

Garrison Abbey is the kind of guy that wears a D.A.R.E. shirt ironically and hacks assholes’ computers for fun. People flock to him because he’s cool in this mysterious way. Like Jess from Gilmore Girls.

In Maine, most of the student body didn’t even know my name. If it weren’t for my connections to the Calloway sisters, I’d be considered painfully normal.

I still can’t believe we ended up here. Together.

Okay, not together in the physical sense since he is thousands of miles away. But together as in we’re boyfriend-girlfriend. It took a lot of cosmic happenings for that to come to fruition.

The video of Garrison attempting to cook spaghetti ends abruptly after he switches the stove off, giving up on it. I glance over my shoulder towards Bishop Hall. I don’t think I can venture back to my dorm. I might run into Karla again, and I’m not sure I can take another awkward interaction.

As a last-minute distraction, I click into Tumblr on my cell.

My stomach lurches when I see a new post.

Oh no…

Garrison filled out a questionnaire that I didn’t tag him in, and that rarely happens. He doesn’t love questionnaires, but he does them because he knows I’m kind of obsessed. So it’s odd that he did this, right? I don’t know what it means.

I hold my breath like I can stop an impending impact and slowly read the post.

Name: Garrison

Zodiac Sign: Scorpio

Average Hours of Sleep: idk used to be about 7-8? It’s less, so whatever.

Last Google Search: what time is it in London?

Relationship Status: </3

I…can’t…breathe.

He put a broken heart as his relationship status. Broken. As in, I broke his heart? Or is it just fractured while I’m in London and he’s in Philly?