The weekend passed slowly and painfully. I knew it wouldn't pass any faster if I didn't get up and do something, but I couldn't. All weekend I let my phone ring. Bom called. Other friends called. Taeyeon called about a hundred times - the one thing that hadn't changed between us - and each time, I let it ring. Instead, I watched sad movies and listened to sad music and felt sorry for myself. There was nothing left to do. There was nothing else to feel.

 

Now that there was no more Taeyeon , alone time was a lot easier to come by. No one else had a key to my apartment, and no one sends you text messages throughout the day the way a steady girlfriend does. There was no one to call just to talk, except maybe my best friend, and I knew that if I called her, we'd just end up talking about Taeyeon , and I'd probably end up crying. And crying was one thing I didn't want to do anymore. I was simply exhausted by all the crying I'd already done.

 

So in total solitude, I was left alone with my thoughts. And mostly, I asked myself questions. I asked why she did what she did, but of course I had no answer. I asked if I had reacted wrong, and I didn't know if I had. I asked if I'd been stupid to think I could have found love, and that was another answer I didn't know. Is it better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all?

 

Not if loss felt like this, I decided. Then again, maybe I hadn't really loved at all.

 

By Monday morning, I figured I was ready to face the world again. The world had, after all, kept on turning while I was barely in it, and as much as I would have liked to call into work, I knew I had to get out sometime. And I knew that at least in going to work, I had one incentive - one smiling brunette who always seemed to arrive early to homeroom.

 

__________

 

"Hey," I said to her that morning, sticking on a happy face. "It's you."

 

"It's me," she confirmed, smiling my favorite smile. "How are you?"

 

I figured she was referring to everything with Taeyeon , so I figured I wouldn't lie. "Alright, I guess."

 

"Did things get better?"

 

"Well," I began, wondering if they truly had.

 

"They definitely got worse. But I think that it getting worse actually might have made it better."

 

She just laughed. "I hope that at least makes sense to you," she said.

 

I sat down, puzzled by my own logic. "I wish it did."

 

She laughed again, and I decided it was my new favorite sound. Picking up on the fact that I wasn't ready to talk about it, she changed the subject. "Did we get the new uniforms for cheering yet?"