August, 1988
Lindsay looked out the airplane window at the morning fog over Los Angeles. Her parents had just dropped her off at the airport and she was on her way to Baton Rouge. To her surprise, Michael had gotten up early to go the airport with her. She suspected it was out of guilt. They were much less hostile to each other now than they had been at the beginning of the summer, but there was still a tangible distance between them. But any good feelings toward him that this kind gesture had created were quickly dispelled by the stiff and impersonal way in which he'd hugged her goodbye.
She still wasn't sure she'd made the right decision in choosing LSU over Dominican. She had chosen it mainly to get back at him, but she'd meant it when she said she thought it would be a better fit for her. She'd been considering choosing it for months before Michael had told her he was dating someone else, but she'd been unable to let go of her fantasy of visiting each other every weekend and going to parties together and maybe eventually rekindling their relationship of last year. But it was becoming increasingly clear that that wasn't going to happen, and she didn't want to be near him if things were going to stay like this. She couldn't deny that she was still in love with him, or at least that she still desperately missed how things had been a year ago, but that was over whether she wanted it to be or not, and she was so tired of being in love with someone that was determined to suppress any feelings he had for her. She'd wasted her entire senior year of high school missing him and she didn't want to spend her freshman year of college the same way. She'd been so miserable for so long, and she was hoping leaving her family and going to college would be the fresh start she needed. Part of her still hoped Michael would change his mind. She knew in spite of herself that she'd take him back in a second if he did. But for now she just didn't want to think about him for a while.