I was in college, in my twenties, and in love. With Noel. She was amazing: smart, funny, confident, and someone else’s. Yep, she had a boyfriend. Still, we became friends, good friends. The kind of college friends who cuddle on the dorm bed as we watched television; obviously, it was becoming “something.”

We were getting closer, she was seeing me more, and her boyfriend, well almost never. Then, one day she said that they’d broken up, and soon we were a couple, and her (ex) boyfriend was now out of sight and our of mind.

Things were great for two years. It was October – I was set to graduate in May. She wasn’t graduating, yet. We had both gone away to college far from home, and upon graduation I intended to return from whence I came, and we had planned, those two long years, for her to follow me. But I quickly learned how fast things change, and how fast heartbreak can come.

One day she came by and told me that she wanted to share an apartment with a male friend of hers. She assured me they were “just friends.” I said, “no way,” that no girl friend of mine was going to live with some dude. That went over well. She left, angry. The next day she came over and said she was moving in with him anyway. She then suggested that we needed to take, wait for it… a break. Yep. She said it. I’ll spare you the details and we’ll just say – the onset and pain that comes when that broken hearted feeling blindsides you.

A couple weeks later I ran into a friend of hers; it happened to be a very attractive friend, one Noel had often expressed jealousy of. I asked her out – what better way to get over a broken heart than to put a new person between you and the old one?

Later that week, Noel stopped by my dorm to pick up some clothes she had left at my place. Knowing she was coming, I strategically hung a picture of me and my new flame where she couldn’t miss it. I saw her eyes flick to it, and watched her visibly flinch. Was that the shadow of jealousy, maybe even regret, that I saw pass her face? I like to think so. And while it still took me some time to get over the broken heart, replaying her flinch in my mind helped the heartache – a lot. Of course, time did the rest.

Sky, 38, teacher

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