We Never Dated

After everything I did to land Gregory Lattimer, I found out he wouldn't even admit we were dating. He didn't go public with us. He never volunteered anything about his own life.

He never once asked how I was doing.

Then, right to his face, somebody tried to set him up with another girl who'd been chasing him, and all he said was, "Not dating." So I went and found him, and I put it to him seriously. "Gregory, could you just… pretend we never dated?" Impatience flickered across his face. "What are you pulling now?" "I'm not pulling anything.

Consider this me begging. I can't let my friends find out this is the kind of relationship I was in. They'll laugh me into the ground.

It's too humiliating…" Chapter 1 Going after Gregory Lattimer was the single boldest thing I did in my teens.

He'd been at the top of our class for years and he was goodlooking, so liking him didn't require any particular reason. I didn't hide how I felt about him either.

One weekend I said it to his face. Back then Gregory said, "If we get into the same college, then we'll talk." Which was really a polite no.

What he probably didn't expect was that I'd actually do it. I wanted to end up at the same school as Gregory so badly that I studied through meals and through sleep.

My grades climbed straight up until I was the biggest dark horse in our class.

When decisions came out I got lucky: I was waitlisted at first and stayed there all the way to summer before it turned into an acceptance.

Once we were in college I started going after him again, and two months later he said yes. We were officially together. Gregory was a reserved person.

He never held my hand anywhere on campus, and most of our texting started with me. But I really did like him. I even liked that cool, distant look of his.

Feelings go both ways, and I thought he liked me too. I'd been buried in a group project, and the first afternoon I had free I went looking for him.

I knew Gregory's schedule and exactly which class he had, so I got to his classroom early to surprise him. What I didn't count on was that Gregory got there earlier.

There were only a handful of people inside, all guys, and the one sitting next to Gregory was his roommate. "Greg, why does that old high school classmate of yours keep coming around?

You two aren't dating, are you?" "Isn't the gorgeous Bancroft girl the one chasing you? I figured you two were an item." The classroom door was pushed most of the way shut.

My hand, already reaching to open it, stopped dead. Old classmate. In the beginning I really had come to find Gregory under the cover of being an old classmate.

But we'd been together for over a month now. I was still turning that over when I heard Gregory answer, two words and nothing more. "Not dating." "See, I told you.

How is the one in the glasses anywhere near as pretty as Kendall Bancroft? Forget everything else, Kendall's the one you'd actually want to be seen with…" The one in the glasses.

Look anywhere and people in glasses are everywhere. But Gregory didn't argue with his roommate. He acted like he hadn't caught the contempt in any of it.

Something in me went cold all the way through. I never let Gregory see me that day, and for the next two days I didn't text him first either. I went back through our thread instead.

Most of it was me sharing things with him, and Gregory answering each message with a few words. His Instagram was clean too. Nothing on it that would suggest he was seeing anyone.

Chapter 2 Back when I'd wanted to make it public on Instagram, he'd said he wasn't used to showing a relationship off.

Looking back now, maybe it was simply that he didn't like me enough. Maybe he thought I wasn't good enough for him.

Two more days went by before I asked Gregory to meet me in a quiet corner of campus. I got there and kept looking around, terrified I'd spot somebody I knew.

Gregory took his time showing up.

When he saw me he didn't ask why I hadn't texted for days, and he didn't care what I'd been doing with those days either. "Morgan Fenwick, what did you need?" Gregory said flatly, standing two steps away from me. "I'm meeting my project group after this." Gregory had teamed up with a few people from one of his classes to enter a competition.

If I remembered right, one of them was the gorgeous Bancroft girl his roommate had brought up. Kendall. I dropped my eyes.

He'd mentioned her to me once, a lively girl in his class, and he'd complained that she was loud.

So the signs had been there the whole time. "Gregory, there's something I want to talk over with you." I looked straight at him. "I've thought about it, and we're really not right for each other.

Could you just… pretend we never dated?" Not a breakup. A retraction of the entire relationship. I honestly could not bring myself to accept this as my first love.

Impatience flickered across Gregory's face instead. "What are you pulling now?" He didn't take it seriously.

Back when I was chasing him, I'd thrown the words I like you at him like they cost nothing.

I said it constantly, I hung around him to talk, I timed my invitations to catch him right at dinner.

All of it had convinced Gregory that this was one more move to get his attention.

But I really didn't want to stay tangled up with him, so I said it more plainly. "I'm not pulling anything. Consider this me begging.

I can't let my friends find out this is the kind of relationship I was in. They'll laugh me into the ground. It's too humiliating…" I meant it.

After we got together I'd kept my mouth shut around everyone from high school, but I had bragged to a few of the friends I grew up with.

I told them I was dating a tall, gorgeous honor student, and that I'd introduce them before long.

If they found out I'd been dating someone who didn't take me seriously, wouldn't that go straight onto my permanent record?

They'd still be digging it up to laugh at me ten years from now. I have a vain streak. When I went after Gregory it wasn't only because I liked him.

It was also, of course, because he made me look good. Between a man and myself, I like myself more.

Letting his coldness and his dodging slide was, in the end, a way of cheapening myself.

A love that costs me my own worth isn't worth having. "Morgan Fenwick, are you done making a scene? I'm busy. I really don't have time to play childish games with you.

If you want to break up that badly, then fine, we're broken up." "Not break up," I corrected him. "Pretend we never dated." Gregory gave a cold laugh. "Fine.

Have it your way." He turned to go and I stopped him. "Then—then can you delete our texts?" Gregory must have been genuinely furious.

He wiped our entire thread right there in front of me, deleted my number, unfollowed me while he was at it, and walked away as proud and unhurried as ever.

So he really never had liked me. It was a relief, though.

Thank God I'd never tucked some unhinged love note in with the gifts I gave him, or I'd have had to swallow my pride and ask for it back.

I cleared his texts and his photos off my own phone too. And now there was no evidence left anywhere that Gregory and I had ever dated.

Chapter 3 There was still a wistful ache somewhere in me.

It burned off completely the day I heard that Gregory and the girl chasing him had stayed alone in a lab until the middle of the night.

God, thank goodness I'd had that relationship retracted.

If people had found out my boyfriend pulled something with that little sense of boundaries, how humiliating would that have been for me?

Being single again didn't feel any different. My roommates did pick up on something, and one of them asked carefully, "Mo, how come you don't go out on dates anymore?

Are you and your—" I cut her off before she finished, beaming. "I'm not dating anyone." "Huh?" "I was just having trouble adjusting to college, so I'd go catch up with an old classmate.

That's all." It wasn't like they knew who I'd been going out to see.

The three of them looked at one another, and finally one spoke up. "You did your makeup every single time you went out, so I assumed it was a date.

Didn't you tell us it was a date?" "I was kidding. I'd only just started learning makeup, so I needed excuses to practice.

I do my makeup when I go out with you guys too." My grinning, shameless act got the whole room off my back.

Then the roommate I shared a room with let out a dramatic little gasp. "Mo, somebody asked me for your contact info a while back.

I thought you were dating someone, so I didn't give it out. I should've checked with you first." "Seriously?

Was he hot?" another roommate jumped in. "We don't hand it out to guys who aren't hot." "No idea. He's a year above us.

I added him on Instagram once for something, we never actually talk, and I've never seen him in person, so how would I know?" She was very eager about the whole thing. "Want me to go find out?" That made me laugh. "Don't bother.

I've been feeling deeply devoted to studying lately. I'm heading to the library." "You've been going to the library this whole time? Traitor, I'm coming too!" "No secret studying.

I'm coming!" "Let's go, let's go!" … Nobody could have found a trace of heartbreak on me.

For more than a year my eyes had gone straight to Gregory in any room, and still, giving him up didn't feel like the sky falling.

A person who loves herself this much cannot tolerate contempt inside her own relationship. Even back when I was chasing Gregory, I considered the two of us equals.

I never reached out to him again, but we were on the same campus, so I still ran into him often enough.

On the walkways, in the dining hall, there was always that girl Kendall Bancroft beside him, and she really was bright and beautiful. She liked to chatter the way I did.

The difference was that Gregory, who had been silent whenever I stood next to him, would tilt his head to listen to her and laugh along with whatever she said.

Once again I was grateful I'd never announced the two of us to anyone.

He hadn't been satisfied with me either, which was why he'd kept his singleguy reputation locked down so tightly.

If people found out I'd been in a relationship like that, I couldn't have taken the embarrassment. Still, I was grateful to the girl I'd been back when my first crush hit.

If she hadn't worked that hard, where would I be going to school now? Men are illusions, and illusions drift. A degree is real, and it stays put.

Gregory and Kendall were the rare goodlooking pair in our year, so of course they turned heads standing together.

I even started picking up rumors about this old classmate of mine secondhand. Yes. Old classmate.

I don't acknowledge him as my first love, so naturally he doesn't get to be my exboyfriend either. The days went by one after another, and I sank into my coursework.

Chapter 4 Our school is in Philadelphia and my family is in Lancaster, a little over an hour west, in a stretch of country where handstitched quilting and embroidery have been passed down for generations.

Then one day I saw a listing on the school's undergraduate research board.

A student in my major, one year ahead of me, was recruiting new members for a social science project, and the project was on exactly that kind of local traditional craft.

The place the craft came from wasn't far from my house. We could do the fieldwork over winter break. I didn't overthink it. I sent a DM to the account on the listing.

We followed each other back almost immediately, and the first thing he sent me was: [Are you Morgan Fenwick?] I had no idea what that was about. [I am. Why?] [Nothing.

It's a nice name.] He had a nice way of talking, too. The guy exactly one year ahead of me was named Remington Ellison, and he sent over a pile of material. [Start with these.

Ask me about anything that doesn't make sense.] Not long after, he pulled me into a group chat that had two other girls in it, both a year ahead. They were lovely.

They told me which station in the dining hall was actually worth eating at and handed over their closely guarded list of delivery spots.

We found a time that worked for all four of us and met in the dining hall. But the first time I laid eyes on Remington, I still stalled out for a second.

His hair was on the longer side, cut into a wolf cut, his skin fair, his nose high and straight, his eyes bright, his frame lean and long.

The girl named Delilah slung an arm across my shoulders, easy and familiar. "New girl. Remington's hot, right?

He's the crown jewel of our year." … In our major, women outnumbering men seemed to be the standing condition.

Among the few guys we did have, one who looked like that genuinely qualified as a crown jewel. "Quit messing with the new girl." Remington had laughter sitting in his eyes. "Have either of you ever treated me like a crown jewel?" "Of course we have.

First week of last year I had money on who you'd end up with, and do you have any idea how badly you made me lose?" According to them, Remington was goodlooking enough and easygoing enough that he'd never had a shortage of people chasing him.

And yet, for more than a year, he had stubbornly kept his stillsingle reputation intact. The other one, Theresa, had obviously had money on it too.

She clicked her tongue. "It's been over a year. I've dated and broken up in that time, and you haven't taken to a single person.

Don't tell me there's already somebody in your heart?" Remington laughed out loud. "You two should read fewer romance novels and more of the literature