33 | Broken

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"WOW, I CAN'T BELIEVE we just finished our freshmen year of college," said Ava as she packed up the last of her things into a large suitcase. Looking around her room, the walls were white and bare and her closet was completely emptied out and packed into suitcases, making the room look altogether more open and spacious.

"Yeah, it's been an interesting year," I nodded, leaning back on my hands, sitting on her bed. "You ready to go?"

She did a quick scan of the room, making sure she took all of her belongings. "Yup, what time do we have to check out?"

"I told student services we'd be out by eleven," I replied as Ava rolled her suitcase to the front door where my luggage sat.

"And what time is it now?" She asked calmly. I took out my phone and read the time aloud, "11:30."

"Well, there's goes the plan of leaving early," Ava calmly said, shrugging.

I took one last look at our dorm. It felt weird leaving, like something was off. But maybe it was because I never got used to the feeling of Ava and I living here without Nicole once she moved out.

Towards the end of the spring semester, Nicole finally reached out. Although there may have been a lot of awkward tension in the beginning, Ava, Nicole, and I were able to rebuild our friendship. Sometimes it can still get a bit awkward and things haven't exactly returned back to the way it was between the three of us, and I don't think they ever will be, but that's okay.

After lugging all of our luggage downstairs and checking out with student services, we made our way to the parking lot where Hunter was waiting, who offered to give us a ride to the airport. He was leaning against his car on the driver's side, engrossed in his phone.

When he heard the sound of our luggage's plastic wheels rolling against the concrete, he looked up and smiled, particularly at Ava. "Woah, you have a lot of luggage, babe," He chuckled.

He looked between the two of us and the amount of luggage we had, Ava wheeling two big suitcases with a big duffel bag slung over her shoulder while I had one large and one small suitcase, a backpack slung over my shoulder. "Hey, Hadley," He acknowledged me, nodding his head.

Hunter opened the trunk of his Toyota 4Runner and placed our suitcases in like a puzzle, somehow managing to make all four suitcases fit. After hopping into the car, Ava sitting in the front while I sat in the back, she twisted her body around to me as Hunter got in and put on his seatbelt. "So why couldn't Milo take us to the airport?"

I shrugged, "I don't really know, he just said that he'd meet us at the airport because he had something in the morning."

Ava turned back around with a skeptical look on her face, not really buying Milo's excuse he'd given me, and to be honest, I wasn't either. Within recent weeks, Milo seemed off.

His phone had been going off often while we were together, and when I asked who was calling out of curiously, he wouldn't say and brushed it off. Sometimes when I talked to him, he'd drift off and have no recollection of what I said, lost in his own thoughts. I'd asked him if something was bothering him and he brushed it off again, claiming that he was just tired and was worried about wrapping up some assignments.

As the weeks passed, I grew anxious every time his phone rang and he walked away to take the call and came back to me with a troubled expression. After a while, my brain began to entertain the thought that maybe he didn't want me anymore and was talking to another girl, although I doubted it since he'd shown me numerous times that he was still interested in me.

Even though I confidently trusted Milo's words whenever he told me I love you, which made my brain turn to mush every time those words left his mouth and flew into my ears, today felt especially...weird. I hadn't heard from him since yesterday afternoon. I checked my phone to see if he had tried to communicate with me in any sort of way, but nothing from him showed up, not even a single text.

Deeply wrapped up in my thoughts, I didn't even notice that Hunter was dropping us off at the terminal until Ava announced, "We're here."

Hunter popped his trunk open with the ignition still on as he helped us with our luggage in the unloading zone. As he hugged Ava, also giving her a kiss, he said to her softly with a smirk at the end, "I'll see you in a couple of weeks, try not to miss me too much."

Ava's eyes were a bit glossy when she pulled away, disheartened that they'd be separated for a few weeks while Hunter drove back to his family in Oakland for a few weeks before coming to Hawaii. "I love you," he added with a soft smile, tucking her hair behind her ear.

"I love you too," she responded. They shared a kiss again before Ava forced herself to pull away, knowing that a tear would slip out of her eye if she let the moment sink in.

"Have a safe flight," Hunter shouted at the both of us after saying goodbye as we walked into the airport, watching us walk inside before he left.

DO YOU WANT anything from the vending machine?" asked Ava as she stood up, wallet in hand.

"Can you get me a bottle of water?" I responded as I looked up at her, pulling my eyes away from my screen after checking the text conversation between me and Milo for the umpteenth time, still with no response to any of my previous texts.

Ava nodded and disappeared around the corner. Curled up on the side seat under me, we'd been sitting here all day, as our flight won't depart for another two hours at seven. Thankfully there were charging stations available when we arrived and chose two seats on either side of one of them.

Deciding to call Milo again, I pressed the phone to my ear as I heard it ring. With no luck, it went straight to voicemail again and I sighed, pressing the red button at the bottom of the screen.

"So when is he coming?" Ava asked as she sat down and handed me my water bottle, thanking her and trying to pay her back but she refused, saying that it only costed a dollar.

"I don't know, he won't pick up," I shrugged in defeat, looking down as I hoped to see Milo's name flash on the black screen.

After a few minutes, my heart palpitated as the screen lit up with the name I had been waiting to see all day long. I quickly slid my thumb across the screen, a smile on my face.

"Hey, is everything okay, are you here yet? I've been trying to call you, but you didn't answer," I asked, a hint of concern in my tone.

"Yeah, everything's fine. I just got here and now I'm waiting by the gate." His tone seemed odd but I brushed it off as I twisted around in the chair, searching for Milo.

"I don't see you," I looked down at my boarding pass to make sure that we were at the correct gate, which we were, 30B. "I think you might be at the wrong gate." I swayed back and forth as I continued to scan the large waiting area for Milo, straining my neck.

He sighed, "I'm not flying back to Hawaii with you and Ava."

"What? But we all bought our plane tickets at the same time," I stated, confused as my eyebrows met in the middle.

"I returned them later on, and...I bought a ticket to New York," he said, his voice beginning to cause butterflies in my stomach, but not the exciting type. "I got an internship at NBC. Out of tons of applicants, they chose me, can you believe it?" He let out a sad laugh as he tried to lighten the situation, while I stayed quiet. I wanted to respond and tell him how happy I was for him, but I couldn't. I was just frozen.

"Is that what all those phone calls were for?" I asked instead, my voice dying down to a whisper.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you about it sooner." Milo sighed and I could hear the emotion building up in his voice, "I just got you and I don't want to lose you again."

He paused, "But I'm doing this because I love you, Hadley. You know I'll always love you." My hand came up and covered my mouth as I tried to stifle a sob from escaping my mouth, tears blurring my vision.

"I'm sorry, Hadley, but I think it's best if we take a break and take some time off for ourselves." 

My throat closed up, barely able to make a sound.

"Milo—"

The line went dead.

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