I Took You Back to Leave You

"Is Australia really that dangerous right now?" I asked, without thinking. My childhood friend's mother was teasing him about how he and Talia really were going abroad on exchange.

She told the two of them not to get anybody "in trouble" while they were over there. One question out of me, and all three of them at the table went quiet.

Gideon was the one who spoke first. "Mom, there's really nothing going on between me and Talia." Auntie Hom was signaling me with her eyebrows like mad.

I took the hint and told him, "You two would be great together. Why not give it a shot?" The second the words were out, Gideon's face went black. Chapter 1 The bedroom door shut.

Gideon pinned me against the wall and bit my lip like a punishment. "What do you mean, great together?" When I finally got a breath, I blinked up at him with wet eyes and said, "You are, though.

Last year you and Talia got voted BIT Computer Science's onethatgotaway ship, didn't you? By a landslide." What was it the anonymous board on campus said again?

One of them was Professor Chow's star student. The other was the daughter Professor Chow doted on most.

The two of them had coauthored a paper as undergrads, and GCSLT had made an exception and taken it. Evenly matched. Two heavy hitters, together.

Not long after, someone dug up the photo of them from high school, holding their awards at the national programming contest.

The photo was blurry, and even that couldn't hide how unfairly gorgeous the two of them were. A few hundred comments under it, everybody yelling that they were shipping it so hard.

I was angry enough to downvote every single one. And I wouldn't let it go until Gideon posted under his own name that he already had a girlfriend.

After that, the powercouple ship became the one that got away. I came back to myself. The kiss hadn't come again.

He was looking at me, puzzled. "Mimi, you used to hate it when Talia even came up." "What's going on today?" Nothing was going on, really. I just didn't care anymore.

Gideon and I were childhood sweethearts, the boy and girl who'd grown up in and out of each other's houses.

The summer we finished high school, our two families rented a lake house together. The parents were inside playing mahjong.

The two of us were out back in the hot tub, splashing each other. In the middle of it he leaned in out of nowhere and kissed me.

It was the third year of my crush on Gideon, and our friendship had officially spoiled into something else.

Once the damage was done, he pulled back from my mouth, out of breath. "Mimi, let's wait until we're steady before we tell our parents." "Otherwise, if you don't want me someday, it'd be so awkward for the families." So we started dating behind everyone's backs.

Gideon's grades kept him first in the class, year after year. He went to BIT. Mine were average. I barely got into the state school and had to stay in Pittsburgh.

Valentine's Day, the third year of long distance. I bought a plane ticket to Boston without telling him. With chocolates I'd made myself, ready to surprise him.

That was the first time I met Talia. She stopped me outside the lab, looking down at me. "Sweetie, I'll pass the sentiment along for you. You can take that back with you.

Gideon doesn't like sweets." Luckily Gideon spotted me right then. "Mimi? What are you doing here?" "Girlfriend?" She looked me up and down and smiled, playful. "Oops. My bad.

Couldn't tell." Talia was the type who got familiar fast.

While she was following me on Instagram, she complained, "Every time one of these days rolls around there's a line of girls bringing Gideon stuff.

If I'd known running interference for him would be this much work, I never would've agreed to it." "Oh—you don't look like you go here.

Harvard, across the way?" I shook my head quickly. I said the name of my school, and I caught it exactly: the flicker of contempt in her eyes.

Chapter 2 I gave Gideon the cold shoulder the whole way to the dining hall. I'd been hearing Gideon talk about Talia for a long time.

A friend he'd met in high school, at the national programming contest, out of state. For three years he'd never held back his admiration for Talia.

He brought her up constantly. "Why didn't you tell me Talia was a girl?" He laughed. "You never asked." Gideon lifted the fish off my tray the way he'd done a hundred times, picking the bones out for me as he asked, "What, jealous already?" I said it straight. "I don't like Talia.

She was rude to me." "That's just how she is.

She says what's on her mind." "Spend some time around her and you'll see she doesn't mean anything by it." He was smiling when he said it.

After that, Talia's name was the bone that never got picked out that day. Stuck in my throat. I couldn't swallow it and I couldn't pick it out.

I started having nightmares all the time.

In them Gideon had his arm around Talia, and he'd say to me, in a voice full of distaste, "Miriam, don't come looking for me anymore." I clung harder, and worried more.

The year I graduated, I decided to leave Pittsburgh and look for work in Boston. But more than a month went by.

Several companies, all the way through the final round, and then nothing. The failure came in waves, one on top of another, until I couldn't get back up.

Gideon said he'd take me on a trip to clear my head. A few days before that, I'd happened to glance at his phone. Everything his feed was pushing was Australia travel.

I got my hopes up on the spot. I put together a real itinerary, and I picked up a night shift to save money. That night, walking home, I thought someone was following me.

I thought about the man outside the 24hour convenience store who still hadn't moved when I got off work. I walked faster and called Gideon, just to have a voice with me.

He picked up on the third try. "Mimi, my phone's about to die. I'll call you back later." Before I could get a word out.

All that answered my shaking, tearful voice was a fast busy signal. I got home and I was still rattled.

Then a post of Talia's came up on my feed, just uploaded. [Thanks to a certain photographer for taking so many pictures his phone died~] In the photo she was beaming.

Behind her, a building that looked like Hogwarts, and jacaranda blossoms all over the street. The location tag underneath. Australia. The University of Sydney.

It was late at night before Gideon called back. I asked. He answered. One question at a time. "Yes, I'm in Sydney. I fly back this weekend." "How would this be a vacation?

Our lab has a joint project with them. We came out for a few days to exchange notes." "Of course there are other people.

Besides me and Talia there's Professor Chow and the two senior grad students from the lab." I was suddenly tired.

As if something had drained me all the way out, and there was nothing left I wanted to say. "If that's all it was, why did you hide it from me?" "I just didn't want you reading into it." A long silence, and I thought I heard him sigh. "Mimi, you never used to be this jealous." It wasn't the first time Gideon and I had fallen out.

But this time. Across 10,068 miles and sixteen hours of time difference. Neither one of us would reach out first. Unlucky in love, lucky in work.

I woke up that day to the offer I'd been dreaming about. Cold war or no cold war—I forgot all of it. On the phone, Gideon's voice had a smile in it. Chapter 3 "Feel better?

Ready to talk to me again?" "I'm already boarded. I got you a souvenir, a University of Sydney thing." "This jacaranda snow globe was hard to get.

I stood in line for hours for it." That was all it took. I was fine again. I went to the airport to pick Gideon up. I was going to tell him about the offer face to face.

What I saw instead was Talia, perched on her suitcase, tugging at his sleeve. "Gideon, my dad says you've already filled out your grad exchange application." "Let me look at it, just to get an idea.

Please?" I was silent the whole way back to the apartment. I wasn't all there. I cracked my knee on the shoe rack by the door and my eyes watered from the pain.

Finally I couldn't hold it in. "You're going to Sydney on exchange?" "Nothing's settled.

And even if it does go through, it wouldn't be until next term." He crouched down and rubbed my knee, his voice going soft and coaxing. "Either way, it's one year.

It's not like I'm staying over there for good." "Mimi, we got through four years of long distance, didn't we?" Four years of long distance. He said it so easily.

The card slot of my wallet was fat with boarding passes, years of them, Pittsburgh to Boston and back. And him?

I could count on one hand the times he'd come to see me at school on his own.

While I was fighting for a job in Boston just to be closer to him, he was writing exchange application essays and lining up recommendation letters.

While I was buying furniture for the home we'd have and planning our future, he was researching the cost of living in Sydney.

I looked at him, crying and smiling at once. "You're getting ready to go abroad with Talia. What makes you think I'd wait for you?" He frowned. "Miriam, you're both women.

I don't understand why you're always so hostile toward Talia." "This exchange is a rare opportunity. We're both people who put our futures first.

I don't know what you're inventing in your head." "In high school you used to pass other girls' love letters to me.

When did you turn so sensitive and suspicious and impossible?" Something in me went up like a match.

I screamed at him. "A friend and a girlfriend are not the same thing!" Gideon studied me for a long time, calm. "I've been thinking, these last few days.

Maybe we're better off as friends." His voice cooled by degrees. "I'm worn out with the application materials and my research project.

I don't want to fight with you over something like this." "Let's separate for now. Both of us cool off for a while." And just like that, Gideon dumped me off a cliff.

The first month after. Every morning I woke up and the sky was gray. My chest was tight and my heart hurt, physically, and I couldn't get food down.

The air felt like someone had put a lethal dose of onion in it. My nose stung all the time and I wanted to cry. I didn't dare open social media. I avoided people.

I cut off every channel that could bring me news of Gideon. Until one night I got back to the apartment late from overtime.

My mom called. "Sweetheart, did the apples get there?" I looked at the box at my feet, nearly two feet tall, and my head started to hurt. "Mom, it's too much. I can't eat all this.

Don't send more next time." "If you can't eat it, share some with Gideon.

Don't you live close to his campus?" Once Gideon came up, my mom was off and running. "Auntie Hom tells me Gideon has a girlfriend now.

Did you know?" "They say the girl's a real looker. Tall, slim, lively, good talker." Chapter 4 "And don't just bury yourself in work.

When are you bringing a boy home?" I don't remember how the call ended. One in the morning.

Like a lunatic, I grabbed a bag of apples and went to find Gideon, and nothing else mattered. A month apart. He'd had a haircut. He looked as sharp as ever. "Don't listen to my mom.

Talia happened to be going to Pittsburgh with friends, and I played tour guide for half a day. That's all." Gideon seemed to have known that rumor would reach me.

And counted on me cracking first and showing up to ask for him back. He took off his windbreaker and put it around my shoulders.

I put my arms around his waist and said into his chest, soft, "You were right.

It's only a year." We were barely inside the apartment before he had me against the wall, kissing me like he couldn't wait.

By the small hours he'd used up the half box of condoms left in the nightstand. After Gideon fell asleep. I looked at him, and what was in my eyes went from fogged over to clear.

All those years of long distance, there was no avoiding the fights, big and small. Gideon seemed to have gotten used to me caving first.

But this time, I wasn't trying to save what was left of us. I was doing desensitization before I left him for good. I eased myself out of bed