Hello again! It's been so long but thank you for coming back. I can't believe we've reached the amount of chapters we have in the first story. But don't worry, this will not end here. I won't say when this chapter starts, but you'll be able to figure it out pretty quickly, I hope. Enjoy!

Jimmy's POV

The car horn blared throughout the neighborhood and even though it was Carl who was driving, I knew Sheen was to blame. They shouldn't be rushing me though. They're the ones who took too long to get ready and put us behind schedule. Taking advantage of the time, I headed back down to the lab to continue working. The vibration from my phone and the text Sheen sent informed me they were around the corner but seeing as it takes a lot more than a few seconds to emerge from the lab, Sheen used another method to tell me their location.

"Calm down. I'm here," I spoke as I slid into the backseat of Carl's dad's Cadillac.

"Well, finally!" exclaimed Sheen. "We're going to be late."

"Since when do you care about being on time?" I spoke, surprised by this.

"I want to get there before the girls," he explained as if it weren't already obvious. "No doubt my girl's gonna look hot so I need to be there so no other guys get to her first."

"She's your girlfriend. She wouldn't do anything about that anyway," I reminded Sheen on the status of him and Libby's relationship since it appeared that he forgot.

"Alright, let's agree now: if the party's lame, we'll meet back at the car at midnight and leave. Sound good?"

"How do we know you're not going to be with Libby all night?" Carl asked the question he and I were thinking.

"I won't, okay? I can spend the night with Libbypop anywhere so if there is nothing else worth staying for, we're out." Carl and I mumbled in agreement. I do have to admit, that plan was just fine with me.

Carl drew the short stick, literally, and was assigned to be the designated driver for tonight, much to Sheen's relief. If I had it my way, I wouldn't even be going to this at all. But seeing as Britney Tenelli's senior year kickoff party has been hyped up all summer, for Carl and Sheen, it didn't make sense not to go. Of course, I had to join them and make sure they wouldn't get into any trouble.


This wasn't at all what I had in mind when I arrived.

At most, I thought I'd have a couple of drinks while waiting for midnight, gather Carl and Sheen as quickly as possible, and get the hell out of here. Even during the games of beer pong, that was still my intention.

So for Cindy to be leading me upstairs with a bottle of tequila in hand and into a dark bedroom, telling me we wouldn't remember whatever we were about to do in the morning was surprising, to say the least.

As always, she kept talking, almost as if she was avoiding what was to come because she wasn't ready. Kissing her, and telling her to shut up, put a quick stop to that.

Within moments, hands and lips were all over each other's bodies and our clothes started coming off. It was almost too good to be true. Like a dream. Because my God, had I dreamed about this.

In a quick move, I turned us so that she was straddling me before she took her top off and her skirt continued riding up. She kissed all over my chest with her mouth open and along with the feeling of her grinding against me and her warm breath on my neck, it took almost everything I had not to turn us back around, tear the rest of her clothes off, and have my way with her. Despite the interruption of her phone ringing, it seemed like sex was going to happen anyway. That is until Cindy, in what felt like a matter of seconds, got up and left the room.

Because that's the thing about Vortex: you never know what to expect.

"So you really think there's no chance of you two getting back together?"

"I don't know," I said slowly to a friend I was glad to be seeing a lot more now that he's back in the country. "It- it's not like it was an easy decision, you know? There were... a lot of factors at play."

"Like?"

With all due respect to Carl, since he hasn't been around for much of my relationship with Cindy, I don't expect him to understand my reasoning for breaking up with her right away. Reiterating all my thoughts about why I decided it wasn't something I wanted to do and was, to be frank, kind of painful.

"It just- it didn't seem like our efforts were getting anywhere or getting anything done. We fought more than anything and it didn't get any better when we actually saw each other. And it- it's fucked up to say, I know it is, but it got to the point where I wondered if it was even worth it."

That was pretty much the first time I said something regarding the reason I broke up with Cindy out loud. I didn't really make it a habit to talk about my relationship problems with the friends I made at MIT. It wasn't really something I talked to my old friends about either. Things could have turned out very differently if I had.

So really Carl paying a visit to Boston, both to visit the area and me, was long overdue. After showing him the best spots in the city and on campus, we stopped for a drink at a decent enough bar by my apartment. Seeing as our conversation started with Carl telling me about his adventures abroad, I had no idea how we ended up on the topic of Cindy and our breakup of which Carl was, with reason, the last one of our group to know.

It wasn't easy to think back to the times I spent with Cindy. Especially because there was one thing no one else knows.

"Can... can I tell you something?" I spoke.

"Of course."

"You can't tell Sheen," I clarified, "or Libby for that matter. It kind of has to do with them and they already have too much on their minds."

"Okay..." He trailed, and I knew that was weird to say out of context. "Yeah, you know I won't."

"So earlier this year," I began, "at their housewarming party... Cindy and I hooked up. In their bathroom." Seeing his expression, I decided to elaborate. "It wasn't anything crazy. She accidentally spilled wine on me so we went to the bathroom to clean up. We were just talking normally and I- I kissed her and she kissed me back and... well, it ended when someone walked in on us. She freaked out and left and I didn't see her again until the Fourth. With your arrival and all we didn't get a chance to talk about it and, honestly, I don't think she wants to." I stopped, knowing I had explained enough.

In response, Carl gave me the look he'd given me only a handful of times during our friendship. And every time, it was because of something involving Cindy.

"Do you still love her?"

"What?" It wasn't that I didn't hear him. I just didn't anticipate the bluntness of the question.

"Well, based on what you're telling me and from what I've gathered, you broke up with her because the distance and communication thing were a pain in the ass, which I get. But you haven't mentioned that your feelings for her had anything to do with it. Because they don't, right?"

"Uhh, what?"

"Jim, come on. It doesn't take a genius to figure this out. Are you still in love with her or not?"

"Yes," it came out as a breath, because that's how natural and involuntary of an answer it was. Carl smiled, a victorious one, and I knew it was the reply he wanted -and expected- to hear.

"So then what the hell are you doing? You shouldn't be with me in this sketchy bar talking about your feelings for her. You should be out there with her, trying to make things right."

I blinked and looked down at my drink, speechless for one of the few times in my life.

"Look, if there was one thing I learned during my years abroad, the most important lesson was to not take anything for granted. There's a whole world out there, full of people who don't have what they want or deserve. Who spend their entire lives searching for what makes them happy. But you have that. You and Cindy have always had that. And to an extent I can understand wanting to take some time apart and see what's out there. It's normal. But you've been separated long enough and from what I can see, there's been little effort to move on. Whether that's because it hasn't worked out with anyone else or you haven't tried, says something."

With a sigh, I let out what I was feeling, realizing that what Carl said made it possible for me to put it into words.

"I think I hurt her too much. She's not going to want me back."

"Oh, man," with how he said it, I knew he could tell how serious I was. "You and Cindy are... the most complex, surprising, and damn near perfect relationship I know. And I know I'm not the only one who thinks so. If you want my advice: don't waste any more time. She's not going to be waiting around forever."


I don't remember the last time it rained like this. It's pouring so much, you can barely hear any other sounds from outside. It's certainly nothing I would want to be caught in like how my roommates all are at the moment. Two of them have a night class and one is out with his girlfriend and considering they each stopped for dinner first, none of them are due back for a few hours. This led me to being alone in my apartment, something I'm lucky about since it rarely ever happens.

And with all that's been on my mind lately, that's a good thing.

Even though Carl went back to Retroville a few days ago, our conversation is all I've been thinking about ever since.

Of course, I'm still in love with Cindy. I never said that I wasn't, nor did I ever say that any loss of feelings were the reason I decided to end things.

It does answer a lot of questions though.

Starting with why did I show up to Cindy's birthday party?

Her invitation was, as I told her, unexpected, but once I got over the shock of it, I realized the right thing to do was to go. I don't know who was in charge of her guest list, but as the day approached, I hadn't heard anything about me being uninvited, not that I think Cindy is the type of person to do that anyway. That only reinforced my decision that I should go. Luckily, Sheen (and obviously, Libby) were going so I knew I wouldn't feel completely out of place. With all those thoughts crossing my mind, it hadn't occurred to me to formally RSVP, something which I later discovered bothered Cindy.

Being in love with her also answers why I, pretty much immediately, volunteered to help her after she threw up at the party. It was in no way how I planned to spend my night and even when we made it to her room, I just went with the flow. Soon enough, it was morning and Libby showing up was practically a godsend.

It was almost a year ago and I still don't know what I was expecting would happen after that night. Since I didn't know when the next time I would see Cindy would be, I tried not to focus on it too much. For the most part, that worked. At least until the day of the housewarming party.

I was already planning to go back home for spring break anyway so for Sheen and Libby to have scheduled the party for the day after I arrived, was very convenient. It was great to see what two of my oldest friends have accomplished in such a short amount of time and I couldn't be happier to have been able to join in their celebration. Of course, what happened between Cindy and I upstairs was not supposed to be a part of that.

Knowing that Cindy would be there, you would think I would have been better prepared to face her when the moment came. I obviously didn't go in determined to find her but knew it would only be a matter of time. It was a huge effort not to instantly go up to her when I saw her, choosing instead to greet everyone, including guests I didn't even know. Once the four of us reunited, however, just after Libby and Sheen addressed everyone, I couldn't hold back saying something to her.

It wasn't until Sheen asked me to grab his phone from his and Libby's bedroom and I bumped into Cindy that I realized she had drifted away. So it was a surprise when I saw whose hand was holding the wine that spilled on me. From that moment, everything between us flowed so easily. It was such a stark contrast to how it was the last time we were alone together, and not just because she wasn't drunk this time.

With everything going on, being with our friends and being back home, it felt like old times again. I guess, given our easy-going banter, it felt natural to kiss her.

And then it just... didn't stop. I momentarily forgot we were broken up and due to the way Cindy was reciprocating, I'll bet anything she did too. That's why, even with the understandable embarrassment of being caught by a stranger, it pained me more than anything when she ran out of the room.

Ever since we broke up, we never spoke about it, not that it's easy to imagine how that conversation would go. But her doing that, after we took those steps and made the progress we did, felt like she was putting the final nail on the coffin of our relationship, something that I'm, the more I think about it, not ready for.

I'll always have feelings for her, in some way, shape, or form. But I was stupid enough to think that time and distance would lessen them and make it easier for us to let each other go. That's far from the truth. The more time that passed without talking to her was torture. The longer I went without seeing her killed me. And having to see her the times I did after our break up and not do anything destroyed me.

So who was I kidding?

All I want, all I've ever wanted, is to be with her.

Deciding not to waste a second more, I went to my room to grab my coat, slid it on, and put my wallet and phone into each of the pockets. I considered looking up when the next train to New York was scheduled for but didn't because I would find out when I got to the station anyway. Making my way through the living room, I was thrown off by the knock on the apartment door since I wasn't expecting any guests nor did I recall any of my roommates mentioning someone would be coming over.

Curiously, I marched towards it with a slightly different objective, undid the lock, and opened the door.

There, seemingly exhausted and drenched from the rain, stood someone that no matter how they looked or how long it's been since we've seen each other, I would always recognize.

"Cindy."

Get ready. It's happening.

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