Shawn was awake earlier than usual the next morning, and even though it was a Saturday, meaning he was free from work, he didn't even try to fall back asleep.
Shifting onto his side, he strained his eyes upwards to see the digital, neon red numbers of his alarm clock, the colon separating the five and double zeros flashing with every second, showing him he still had plenty of time to roll over and fall asleep again. However, his mind seemed to be completely alert and distracted, so he decided to let it drift wherever it felt like going.
And for the most part, it seemed to guide itself to thoughts of Angela.
One year ago, Shawn believed that he and Angela were capable of the maturity to maintain a relationship from opposite sides of an ocean that spaced the two of them over 4,000 miles apart for a whole year. He thought that once Angela returned from Europe, things would feel as if they hadn't even been apart for a second. He thought that if someone loved another as much as he loved Angela, no distance could even dent the relationship.
Now, as he looked back on it, Shawn realized he had only been a sophomore in college at the time, barely twenty years old when he had had that amount of faith in his love for Angela. He had no parents at all to give him any advice or guidance, only Cory, who had practically yelled at him to never let her leave.
Sighing, Shawn rolled onto his back, the mattress and bed frame creaking and bouncing as he did so. Maybe he should have just cut off the relationship then and there, because he had a strong hunch that today was going to be a very awkward reunion with Angela.
Shawn felt that when he would meet Angela today, he would realize that things were not about to be the same. He was waking up to reality, and reality instructed that 4,000 miles of ocean was never going to leave a relationship the same. At all.