Kyle, seeing that you were troubled by what had just happened, left your room and went back to his own, but not without letting you know that he was willing to talk to you when and if you wanted to talk to him. You felt as though your head was spinning. What was going on with you? You cared about Nick so much, how could you just let Kyle kiss you like that…and how could you be willing to kiss him back?

You found that you were asking yourself many of the same questions now that you had been asking yourself when you were going through the whole Tom vs. Nick dilemma. But, back then, you had sort of known in your heart that you were going to end up with Nick. Right now, you really couldn’t tell what would be the end result of what had happened between you and Kyle. ‘Maybe it was just a fluke’ you thought to yourself. Sometimes friends kiss each other and then realize that they don’t really like each other the way that they thought they did. Although, as much as you tried to deny it, you had felt something when you kissed Kyle. There was something there…a feeling that was more than friendship. But, in some ways, it was only natural to feel that. For the next few days, you tossed these feelings back and forth inside of yourself.

You still continued talking to Nick every day. It was weird, because even though you did talk to him at least once a day, you couldn’t help but feel like the 2 of you were drifting apart. Sometimes it seemed like you didn’t have much to talk about, or that you would catch him at the wrong time and he’d be too busy to talk to you.

When you first started dating, it was like there was never a moment of silence between you. There was always something for you to talk about with him. But it didn’t seem that way anymore. You were starting to wonder why…

You made sure to keep quiet about what had happened between you and Kyle. If anyone found out about it, you knew that everyone would be asking you about it and talking about it nonstop. Right now, that was the last thing you needed to be dealing with. You simply explained to Kyle that you didn’t know exactly what you were feeling right now, but you knew that you couldn’t kiss him like that again. You didn’t talk about it too much with him, and told him that when you had sorted everything out in your head, you’d come to him and be ready to talk.

It was an early Thursday afternoon, and you had just returned to your room from your Math class—the last one for the day. You began unpacking your things as you were waiting for Kyle to come down to your room—the 2 of you always had lunch together on Tuesdays and Thursdays after you got back from class.

A few minutes later, he showed up, you grabbed your keys, and you guys headed over to the cafeteria. As you were walking in, you saw a few of the other girls who lived on your floor.

One of the girls, named Lindsey, came up to you guys. She said hi to you, and then proceeded to talk to Kyle. You looked over to where they were standing and talking to each other, and saw Lindsey sort of flirting with Kyle. She said something and started laughing, and then reached over and rubbed his forearm. You saw him smiling back at her and not having a problem with her obvious flirtatiousness.

You don’t know why, but it upset you to see Kyle interacting with another girl this way. You knew you couldn’t, but you felt like walking over there and yelling at her, telling her not to touch him, and to stop flirting with him.

And then it hit you. Right there, standing in line to get into the cafeteria, you realized it….

You liked Kyle. How could you not have realized this sooner? Of course you liked him. You were always excited to see him walk in your room, you always wanted to talk to him, and were always finding excuses to go down to his room or to go places with him. And that is why you let him kiss you…because you had been wanting it to happen just as much and for just as long as he had.

All through lunch, you started to look at Kyle differently. You realized just how cute he was….how sexy his big green eyes with the long eyelashes were, how good he looked when he wore his hat backwards, and how nice and deep his voice was.

You finished up eating lunch and walked back to your room. Kyle went to work on some homework in his room, so you were left alone to think about your new-found realization. Now that you knew you liked Kyle, you didn’t know exactly what you were feeling for Nick anymore. He had been gone for so long now, you were beginning to wonder whether or not you liked him all that much. You wondered how long you had liked Kyle for and been so ‘oblivious’ to it…you decided that you probably had started to like him even before he told you that he liked you. You just hadn’t really realized that what you thought were feelings of friendship were actually so much more.

So what were you to do now? Do you follow these newly-discovered feelings for Kyle? Or do you ignore them and stay in the relationship with Nick?

You eventually found yourself sitting at your desk making a pros and cons list about the situation. It seemed as though Kyle was racking up in the pros section, while Nick was lagging behind and filling up the cons section pretty quickly. When it really came down to it, you decided that Kyle would be the better choice. He’s here all the time. I can see him whenever I want, and I know that he’s never going to be gone for weeks or even months at a time. He’ll never be too busy to talk to me…we can have a real relationship.

Before you could think twice about the decision you had just made, you reached for your phone and dialed Nick’s cell phone number. “Hello?” he said groggily into the phone.

“Hi, did I wake you?” you asked.

“Yeah, I was taking a quick nap. Its cool though. Whats up?”

“Not much really…” you said quietly as you all of a sudden got very nervous about what you were planning on telling Nick.

“Just calling to check on me then, huh?” he said jokingly.

“Yep,” you said.

“Is something wrong Molls? You sound upset or something…”

“Um, no…” you started. ‘Come on Molly, you can do this. You know what you have to do,’ you thought to yourself.

“Are you sure?” he asked worriedly.

“Well, actually…” you said, “I need to talk to you about something.”

“Go right ahead.”

“Well, Nick, I’ve been thinking about things a lot lately…and this whole situation has just been so stressful on me…I’m having a such a hard time without you here. And not knowing exactly when I’m going to see you again is so tough. I know, we talk every single day, but its just not the same,” you said.

“Oh Molls, I know. I’m so sorry. I feel terrible. But like you said, our relationship can withstand this. Its strong enough,” Nick said reassuringly.

“But that’s the thing Nick…maybe the relationship can handle all of this, but I don’t seem to be able to. Do you know that I cried myself to sleep every night last week? I just feel like it isn’t right to be putting myself under all of this emotional stress if I don’t need it. I’m just starting to think that maybe we should break things off, or put them on hold for a little while. For the sake of both of our lives. You have so much going on right now, and you should be able to experience it all without being held back by a relationship. And I feel like I shouldn’t be straining myself this way. I don’t feel like its healthy for me mentally….”

“Molly, what are you talking about? We can’t break up. You know that. We care about each other way too much to let a little distance get in the way of that. I can’t picture waking up every day and not being overjoyed by just knowing that I have you in my life. I don’t want this Molls…at all,” he said sadly.

“Nick, I know…and I’m sorry. But I’ve thought about this a lot and I really think it is the right thing to do. I definitely still want to be friends with you, but I think the relationship should be put on hold…at least for now. I mean, who knows what the future may hold, but right now, I think this is best for me. And in a short time, you’re going to find that it was better for you too,” you said honestly.

“I can’t even believe you…” Nick started angrily, “What we have is so great…how can you not see that? You’re just willing to give up so easily. You’re not the person I thought you were Molly.”

“I’m sorry Nick, I don’t know what else to say….”

“Don’t say anything else. Believe me, you’ve already said enough,” he said,

“I’m gonna go. Call me if you ever decide that you’d like me to be a part of your life again.”

And with that, he hung up. You hung up the phone, and just sort of sat there for a while. You felt really bad about what you had just done, and at one point, you almost grabbed the phone again, dialed Nick’s number and told him that you didn’t mean anything you had just told him. But you didn’t. You knew that, in the long run, you would be glad that you had made this decision.

Now, the next thing you had to think about was exactly how you were going to approach Kyle and tell him that you felt the same way about him that he did about you…..