Jake sighed to himself as his fingers hovered motionless over his phone keyboard. He had written, erased, and rewritten this text several times at this point, and nothing sounded quite right.

Hey Danika! Can we meet somewhere this afternoon?

Hey, wanna hang out later? I need to talk to you about something.

We gotta talk. Meet later?

He didn't want to sound too formal, nor did he want to sound too serious (despite the fact that what he wanted to talk to her about was serious).

Suddenly, as if on cue, a text from her appeared on his screen that read: Hi Jake! :) was wondering if you were free later today and wanted to hang or something.

Jake sighed in relief and simply replied: Sure!

He met her later on at the movies, where they shared a bucket of popcorn and sat in the dark watching some new comedy film that had just come out. Jake wasn't paying much attention to it.

After their reconciliation around graduation, the two had decided to start over, to try and get to know each other as friends before any potential for romance happened between them. Jake enjoyed her company. She was cute, smart, funny, and all around a fun person to hang out with. Which was why he was feeling extra guilty right now over the thought of hurting her again.

When the movie ended, the two wandered aimlessly around the city, Danika chatting away about everything and nothing in particular. Jake wasn't his usual self, only really meeting her with one word responses or nervous smiles. Danika picked up on this after a while.

"Everything okay, Jake?"

Her voice had snapped him out of his thoughts. "Huh, what?"

"You okay? You seem down tonight."

Jake sighed. "I just…well, I have a lot on my mind I guess."

"What's going on?"

He knew he couldn't keep dragging this out forever, and if he was being honest, he was even thinking about just letting it go for tonight and telling her some other time.

But he couldn't do that to her. He knew that.

"I guess I never really told you about my…old girlfriend, did I?" He hesitated using the term "ex" girlfriend (although he wasn't sure why).

There was an awkward beat of silence before Danika responded, "You mentioned before that you had one, but that's it."

"Right, well…a lot happened between us. We went through a lot of tough times together. She had some…family issues…that made it hard for us to really be together. We had to sneak around and hide our relationship for the most part. But after a while, the issues with her family worked out and when it seemed like we could finally be together for real, she moved all the way to Hong Kong and we had to end things for good. I really did want to move on, and I honestly thought I had when you and I started seeing each other…"

Jake's voice trailed off as he stared down at his shoes while they walked, waiting for a response that never came. She was waiting for him to continue.

"Anyways, uh…I just found out from my mom the other day that my family's actually going on vacation in Hong Kong next month, to see where my gramps used to live and stuff. And I guess I've just been thinking about her…"

After a few moments, Danika finally said, "So you…think maybe you'll get back together?"

No. She doesn't remember me. But I want to.

"Well, I just…wanted to say hi to her, I guess. See how she's doing."

"Are you still in love with her?"

Yes.

"I still care about her a lot. But, I care about you too. I want you to know that I really do have an awesome time hanging out with you.

Danika smiled, but it didn't quite meet her eyes. "Yeah, I have a great time with you, too"

Before Jake realized it, they were in front of Danika's house, and she had made her way up the first step. "Well, I guess I'll talk to you later, then."

Jake reached out and grabbed her hand, his brow furrowing. "Danika, I'm really sorry."

The brunette shook her head. "No worries. Just…try to get some closure. Figure out where you stand with her, and then maybe we can try again after that."

She leaned down, and kissed him on the cheek, similar to how Rose did right before breaking things off with him all those months ago. "Goodnight."

With that, Jake reached into his jacket pocket, pulling out the old photo he never let leave his side and gently traced his fingers across it, Rose's smiling face bringing him a bit of comfort. He could only hope that he would get to see that smile in a few weeks time, and that any confusion in his heart would be cleared up then, too.