Nothing. He spends the next few days dazed

In the days that followed, to say that I wasn't myself was a gross understatement. Not only had the carpet been swept away from under my feet, the floor I was standing on crumbled into nothing, leaving me to plummet into oblivion and without anything to grab onto. What happened between me and Amy? Who could I talk to? What could I expect to hear? The lifelines, the bridges I had built over senior year, now seemed dilapidated and distant. Even the thought of calling Amy filled me with dread. Did we break up or didn't we, and did she want to be disturbed?

I spent more time on the track, on the streets, as though every thud of my foot against the pavement would take away the hurt inside of me - but all it did was numb the pain, not cure it. The desire to find Amy was counterbalanced now by the costs involved - and the fear that doing so would only make things worse.

Midterms came and went, during which I barely managed to scrape by. Half my thoughts were about Amy: how she was doing, how she was coping - without me being a part of it. The niggling senses of jealousy and doubt only grew stronger. If Simon and Stephanie couldn't go without seeing each other for less than a year, how much of a chance did Amy and I stand? Every other day my brain would entertain these thoughts - and I would feel like scum afterward. Piers' words would echo in my head, as if admonishing me for my mental sacrilege.

"You're a good boy, Ian. How could you possibly even think about going back on your word?"

"Fuck that noise, don't you remember what happened? Now look at yourself! You're a mess! You're the same pitiful loser you were two years ago, single and miserable!"

There were no two ways about it. I was going out of my mind, and it was starting to show. Two weeks after the disconnected call, I found myself outside the cafe Jessica was at - and as luck would have it, she was having her shift, helping to load merchandise on the shelves when she noticed me.

"Ian? You don't look so good," she said, her face full of concern. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah," I muttered, too nonchalant to care. "...Just tired."

"Really? You've been this way for a while, now that I think about it," Jessica frowned. "Whenever anyone approaches you, you look like a zombie!" She firmly looked me in the eye. "Something's wrong, isn't it?!"

I felt my resolve waver like a tree in a tornado.