Nude liquid lipstick or rose-gold lip gloss?

I had been asking myself this question for ten minutes as I stood in front of the floor-length mirror in my dorm. I darted my eyes between the dusty-rose colored bodycon dress on my body and the expensive lip products in my hands that, being my cheap self, came free with a perfume I purchased at the mall.

I tested them both out, smacking my lips obnoxiously and pouting them like Kylie Jenner. The plus to the lip gloss? My lips didn't look like a cracked road in the middle of winter.

Ultimately, I went with it and then hunted around my closet for a pair of heels. I was tall, almost five-foot-nine, but I still loved heels, since I somehow ended up around tall people most of the time. Jeffrey was six-two, albeit a rather lanky six-two. And Aimee was around five-seven on a good day, as she claimed.

Speaking of Aimee, she was still stuck in her math final, so I had our room to myself. I had already packed up my bag to head home after dinner with Jeffrey and found out I had gotten an A in one of my hardest classes of the semester, so the rest of the day couldn't get any better.

Throwing on a gray coat over my dress and grabbing my bag and phone, I headed out. I texted Aimee "good luck" as I walked to my freedom: aka the parking lot.

My feet froze in my nude heels as they clacked against the asphalt with each step I took. I began to regret wearing them when I realized how much of the ground was iced over from a recent snow and rainstorm hybrid. I really wondered what went through my parents' minds when they chose the suburbs of Boston to be their permanent home in America. Did they forget winter was a thing?

There was no use in debating their logic when I had to focus on not dying—well more realistically, not breaking my ankle. I could see my car in the distance and began to count the steps until I reached it. I was about three feet away from the coupe when one large stride sent me slipping and sliding over a patch of the blackest ice I had never seen.

I lurched forward and tried to regain my balance until I felt someone grab me from behind. His large hands wrapped around my waist, one higher up than the other, and by instinct, I thrashed out of his grip, but he wouldn't let go of me.

The harder his grip became, the more I recognized those arms that had held onto me more than once before.

I swiveled my head backwards and found a familiar face in the dark, his smug grin growing. I wiped it off by jutting my elbow with maximum force into his stomach.

There it was, that annoying whine of pain that hadn't changed since we shoved each other off the swings for fun in first grade.

"Benjamin, what the hell was that?" I snapped, adjusting the front of my coat and taking a step backwards. He coughed out and rubbed the area of his hard abdomen that received my punch with a wince.

"Just seeing how much you missed me," he responded with a wry smile and adjusted the dark green beanie that hid his brown hair. I hated beanies, but they looked good on him.

"By making me think that I was about to get assaulted in a parking lot?" I unlocked my car and threw my large bag in. I leaned against the trunk and stared him down with my arms indignantly folded across my chest.

"Well, when you put it that way..." He took a step forward, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. "But I also saved you from dying, so you could look at this positively."

"Oh, you think you're so funny." I rolled my eyes and clacked my way to the driver's side of my car. "Please, Ben, if we were dying, you would make sure to save yourself before me."

"Well, only if the circumstances called for it, but I'd still put you as a really close second, Samar," he responded facetiously, even though for once, the sarcasm didn't seem entirely believable. When I ignored him, he added, "Oh come on, don't act like you didn't miss me."

"Miss you? I saw you at Thanksgiving, Ben. Actually, I saw you in the dining hall last week, but I took a detour to get to my table."

"Oh, I remember seeing you too," he began, nodding in recollection. "Your ass looked really good in your jeans that day."

"Oh my god." I placed my hand against my forehead, letting out a long breath. How did he always manage to get on my nerves? "I have to go. I'm going to be late for a date."

"Where are y'all headed? The science library?" His love of the word y'all irked me, as we weren't remotely from the South. "Wait, even better, out to J. Crew for more cardigans?"

"Now you?" I groaned in frustration and slapped my hands against my sides. If one more person bugged me about Jeffrey's fashion sense, I was going to explode. "He's not wearing a cardigan today. Actually, he looks very nice in the photo he sent me." I recalled the way his new haircut and blazer really lessened his nerdy side. "Hold up, how do you know where he gets them from?"

"The dude sat in front of me in French this whole semester. His tag was always flipped out, but when I thought about notifying him I was like, 'I mean, should I really?' Maybe some other guys in the class were looking for new stores for sweaters. This winter is pretty cold." Both of our cheeks were flushed red, and we could see our breath whenever we spoke, so his last statement was finally something logical coming out of his mouth.

Fighting a smile at his antics, I responded, "I'm sure your consideration was so greatly appreciated, Benjamin." I unlocked my car again and pulled open the driver's door. Sliding into the freezing cold seat, I looked back at him. "I'm leaving now. So unless you want to get run over, maybe move out of the way?"

He did move out of the way, in the direction of his Lexus, I could see several spots away from my car. Somehow walking backwards on the icy ground, he called out, "Can't wait to see you at Christmas, Samar!"

I placed my hands and face against the steering wheel, which accidentally let off the horn. I jumped up and started my car, ready to finally begin my Christmas break.

***

Jeffrey and I weren't much of a love story.

Everything truly began from our habit of studying outside. Every day of my freshman year I would see him sitting on the grass of the main quad, with a book as thick as the unabridged dictionary and black-rimmed glasses he kept having to push upwards from the way he angled his head. His work ethic had fascinated me, as he never once took a break (or fifty) to check his phone.

I also found him cute, in a way. He had black hair that mirrored the color of his eyes and a defined jawline I could admire perfectly from where I sat in relation to him. He'd never glanced my way, and I was glad, because he didn't need to know I would spend half of my time stalking him as I pretended to study chemistry.

One day, I realized that he was in my chemistry class, so I moved down a couple rows in the auditorium and sat down next to him.

A couple of awkward classes later, we began talking.

The rest of the relationship had progressed so quickly; sometimes, I couldn't even recall it. All I remembered was that a few months later, we were official, and it had been smooth sailing since then.

While my parents were nearly impossible to please, when they finally met him the following summer, my dad surprisingly didn't chase him out of the house with a shoe. I don't know that they completely liked Jeffrey, but they didn't have a problem with me dating him, as he was about as far as it got from the typical heartbreaker.

"What do you think of the salmon?" Jeffrey jarred me out of my thoughts with his question. I looked up from my plate where the almost entirely untouched filet sat on a bed of greens next to gold and blue potatoes.

"It's pretty good." I didn't even like fish that much, but I ordered it anyway, since it was the safest thing on the menu. Jeffrey's family swam in money, so we never went on dates at normal restaurants. The ones we frequented always had food options I'd never even heard of and the type of people that spent most of their time judging everyone's outfits instead of eating their expensive entrées.

Jeffrey adjusted the collar of his black shirt. It contrasted well against his heather gray blazer, but even as handsome as he tried to make himself, he was always a little cheesy, evidenced by the fact that his socks were dark green and his beard was struggling to make an appearance. "I was thinking of ordering the white truffle risotto as an extra dish. What do you think, Samar?"

I wasn't going to mention the fact that I had never even tried a truffle, let alone know what the dish tasted like. So instead I shrugged, picking up my glass of sparkling water, and answered, "Sure, why not?"

After he ordered it for us, we sat in silence, listening to the soft jazz music played by a pianist to the right of the tables. We had run out of things to say, which normally revolved around academics or our future plans. There was no doubt that Jeffrey was slightly off the whole dinner, as if he kept wanting to mention something but an internal battle between to say it or not was ensuing in his mind.

At last, he leaned over the table and looked into my eyes. "Did I mention you look really stunning tonight?" I was sure that wasn't it, but I nevertheless felt flattered by his compliment. I had put a little extra work into my appearance; a thick coat of mascara and shimmery pink eyeshadow brought out my light brown eyes and my dress hugged me in the right places.

"You don't look too bad yourself," I remarked, smiling at him. "When did you get that haircut?"

"Just yesterday actually. You like it?" He ran a hand through his short hair, and I nodded. He was about to say something else when our risotto arrived. Jeffrey set the bowl between us and took a bite for himself, urging me to do so as well. It tasted a lot different than I had imagined, quite earthy and nutty and screamed superiority.

"Jeffrey," I began and paused to swallow. He looked up from the bowl, nodding. "Is there something you've been wanting to tell me?" He stopped chewing mid-bite and his eyes widened ever so slightly, as if I had caught him red-handed. I folded my hands on the table and waited to hear what he had to say.

"I feel like there's not a proper way to say something like this..." he began, tracing random circles on the table with his finger and finding it hard to meet my eyes. "I just really want you to know that you're a wonderful person."

"I'm aware." I wasn't enjoying the expert beating around the bush he had been performing all dinner.

He smiled crookedly for a moment before his expression fell once again. "So, you know that I got accepted to med school last year."—No, I had forgotten—"And it's caused me to think about a lot of things. Specifically, the fact it's nearly six hours away from here."

"Does this have something to do with a long-distance relationship?" I was beginning to understand the direction he was leading this in, and I didn't know that I liked it.

"A good amount, yes. Look, Samar." There it went. The "Look, (insert name)." The quintessential beginning of almost every textbook breakup, and I wasn't surprised that someone like Jeffrey was utilizing it. "I really think we had something at first—call it chemistry." (So punny, Jeffrey.) "But lately, I feel like we're more of a business partnership than anything. Think about it, have we ever said that we love each other?"

I played vigorously with the gold bracelet on my arm beneath the table and forced myself to look at him. When I first agreed to this dinner, I wasn't expecting he'd spend it questioning the foundations of our relationship. But even as my ego hated to admit it, his last sentence wasn't an opinion, it was a fact. "No..." I said quietly. "We haven't."

"Do you love me?" I shifted back in my seat, as if the question had just slapped me in the face. "Just answer me without having to think about it."

"What type of question is that, Jeffrey?" I snapped anyway. "This kind of wasn't what I was expecting when you said this was a 'We survived finals' dinner."

"Just answer me. Please."

"I don't know, okay? I've never had to think about it because we've always been...okay." It fell silent between us, our breaths somehow the only audible noise in a restaurant full of muted chatter and the loud clink of cutlery.

"I don't want to eventually put you into a long-distance relationship if we really don't feel as strong as we should about each other. I'm only thinking of you, Samar."

I pursed my lips and leaned over the table slightly. "But are you really? Listen to yourself, Jeffrey. 'I don't want to put you in a long-distance relationship.' Did you stop to think about what I would think about that idea?"

"That's why I'm asking you now."

I sighed. "Can you answer this question honestly?"

He nodded twice. "Yeah, what?"

"Do you want to break up with me?"

I had found the right question to ask because he was reduced to silence. But not for long. For the first time all night, one of us answered a question without inviting a million more.

"Yes."

No one had ever broken up with me before; I had no idea how to gauge my reaction. Instead, when he said that, I sat there relatively emotionless, not giving him a reply for a few moments. Because somehow, like I always did, I thought of Ben, of his perpetual cheeky grin and his infamous sarcastic remarks. I thought of how, for the past two years, Jeffrey was my boyfriend, yet Ben made me laugh more than he ever could.

At last, I nodded at him and replied, "I agree."

Grabbing the bowl from the middle of the table, I didn't give him another response. Instead, I dug in and let the reality sink in that, despite the ritzy atmosphere, I had just gotten dumped.