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"When you get a boyfriend, YOU become the best friend and the best friend becomes the second best friend. That's just how it has to be if it's ever going to work."

(Blair to Serena, S1 E8)

Boyfriend Girlfriend Interlude II

[Fourth of July Weekend, 2017]

Across Maine, summer was getting into high gear. The humidity had broken leaving a warm yet clear blue sky, the restaurants were expanding their hours as the night-life soared, and the ice cream shops were doubling up on inventory as tourists did their best to clear them out over the holiday weekend.

One boy and girl, however, were doing their best to ignore the activity in town.

Jake and his girlfriend Sarah were sitting in a beaten up blue truck on a hill overlooking Bar Harbour, watching the dusk stretch over the water and waiting for the fireworks to start.

"Well, you're quiet tonight." Jake said, after almost an hour of silence between them as they gazed at the sky rapidly fading from indigo to inky blue.

"I'm sorry." Sarah said. "I've just had a lot on my mind."

"About what?"

She looked at him knowingly, as though the answer were obvious.

He nodded, slightly, acknowledging the inevitable common thought on their mind for the last month they had spent together.

"Just don't think about it." He continued. "We said we wouldn't talk about that, anyway, until the end of the summer."

"Jackie, we're going home to different states at the end of the weekend. I'm going off to college in the fall. Doesn't this feel like the end of summer to you?"

He smiled. She was the only one allowed to call him by that nickname.

"My family has our lake house through Wednesday." Jake said. "The long weekend's not over yet." He tilted his head to shift his dark bangs as they spoke, momentarily blocking out his green eyes from her gaze.

Sarah was reminded of the first time she had seen him – him approaching her ruddy faced after a summer volleyball tournament and tossing back his hair when she had come up to photograph him for the local newspaper.

She thought him arrogant even then, that any guy who was that cute and knew it didn't need to toss their hair around like a girl. But he had charmed her, and won her heart and given her his.

The heart she found herself now having to give back to him.

Sarah shook her head. Tears threatened her now. But she had to be strong. For them.

She had to make it a clean break.

"It just… I feel it's over." She continued. "I've felt it was over since the moment I got into Stanford."

"I still can't believe you applied a year early without telling me." Jake replied, almost petulantly. "What about travelling to South Asia on our gap year? What about seeing the world?"

"Come on, Jackie. Doing a gap year was always your dream. You know I want to be a doctor. This is a great opportunity to get a head start - I expected you to be happy for me."

He didn't answer her, so she continued.

"We've grown apart, Jackie. It's no one's fault, it was bound to happen. I love you, and I always will, but we need a clean break. Wasn't that why we agreed to hold on to it, have one last summer adventure together?"

"You're going to college next year won't change that much…" He said, shifting his view.

She paused. "You know that's not the only thing that's changed."

"What, you mean Kyle?" He asked. Kyle had been a classmate that asked her to prom earlier in the year.

She recoiled, it was a low blow.

"No, but I could have as easily meant Serena." She countered. Jake flinched.

Both glared at each other for a moment in the dying light, trying to ignite the spark of passion that had fueled them through two years of long distance emailing, phone calls, and countless summer afternoons like this one.

But they came up short.

The spark had gone out.

There was just nothing worth fighting for.

"Kyle… Kyle was an accident waiting to happen." She continued. "I should have realized his intentions when he invited me to prom, even before I found out you weren't available due to exams. You know how it is, you kissed Serena…"

"And you made out with Kyle at an after party, we're even." Jake spit out.

"…But it's just indicative of the problem. We grew apart, you and I. We came to depend on each other more on our friends than on each other. You have friends at boarding school, hormones abound, and well, you grow close. The distance between us… I needed… more. "

"More what?" Jake asked.

"More intimacy." She responded after a moment. "More than online chats and the occasional phone call. But if I'm honest, I've wanted more for a long time."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

"Because there was nothing you could have done." She said in exasperation. "It's not like you would ever have transferred away from Knightley. You love it too much… and we were never going to go to college together."

She laughed, but then grew serious. "There was another thing I had been meaning to tell you."

"What?"

"When you told me, you kissed Serena…" She continued. "You didn't have to, I already knew. Travis had called me after it happened."

"He WHAT?" Jake asked, aghast.

"You really hurt him," Sarah said, "Making a pass at the girl he was in love with for half the semester. And, amazingly, it didn't break my heart. It was like I was expecting it- something like that to happen. You had gotten so close, you talked about her all the time… I realized you were clearly in love with her."

Jake got very still.

Sarah conditioned, her voice full of earnest emotion. "It wasn't until that moment, that I realized I had to end it. It was time, Jake, to go our separate ways."

Jake still wasn't responding, and she jumped in to fill the silence.

"We had a beautiful summer together, and I thank you for that." She put her hand on his arm. "But, we've grew apart. There was nothing we could have done."

Suddenly the fireworks began, against a sky that had grown dark, a brilliant red of flash of orange came to light, crashing and exploding – drowning out the sound of crickets and leaf peepers and the surf and the smell of the ocean and all other senses that they would come to associate with this summer.

"We're really breaking up." He said, after a minute of watching the explosions dancing in the sky.

"It's time." She repeated, her voice cracking as tears began to stream down her face.

As Fireworks began crashing in earnest, Jake reached out to draw Sarah into this arms, crying with her.

Author's Note:

Wow! And you thought I was dead :) I am rapidly updating this story.

xoxo,

Lily Jacobs