This is the third part of a three-part story with a twist. You should read Parts One and Two first if you haven’t yet. After you finish this part, you should read the afterword.

She wasn’t his type. A little too wiry, and a face that—to be honest—looked like it had fought a long war with acne. Not to mention the light hair.

So that first time, when they started having a discussion near the end of class, only to look up half an hour later—well, he really, honestly hadn’t been thinking of her as a potential girlfriend, or indeed particularly as a girl at all.

(But he did add her on Facebook when he got home that night.)

(Continue reading…)

This is the second part of a three-part story with a twist. You should read Part One first if you haven’t yet, then continue to Part Three and the afterword.

She still wasn’t exactly sure why, and that bothered her. But it had bothered her more that she hadn’t been able to say why not.

They had been together almost a year, and it was just about time to start thinking about their anniversary—not talking yet, but thinking—and she started having strange thoughts like if we can make it through the next six weeks, which gave way to even more worrisome musings about how it’d be really sad to break up on their anniversary, or right after their anniversary…

At which point she caught up with her brain and asked why they were breaking up, exactly.

(Continue reading…)

This is the first part of a three-part story with a twist. It continues with Parts Two and Three, and ends with an afterword discussing the piece.

He hadn’t done anything. Maybe that was the problem.

It was almost a year, it was only a year. Much longer relationships ended in heartbreak all the time. Marriages weren’t even guaranteed anymore—with the way some politicians were carrying on these days, it seemed like an outside lover was almost a requirement in the late stages of holy matrimony.

(Continue reading…)