Teen Ink

Small World After All

Zack, you and I reunited once again the day I would be heading over to my dorm. I had received my schedule and my dorm room. My roommate was never mentioned though, so maybe I’d be lucky and wouldn’t have one.

Except, I was wrong. When I got to my dorm, there stood a beautiful blonde, green eyed girl. She was absolutely gorgeous. She smiled sweetly and stuck out her hand to shake mine.
“Hi, I’m Shelby Kline.”
My heart instantly stopped beating. This girl is Zack’s ex-girlfriend. The girl he was in love with.
“Do you know . . .” I hesitated. I didn’t think I should mention his name. That would probably bring back memories that she probably hadn’t thought about in a long time and that would be all bad. Or maybe she would ignore my question and pretend she had no idea who I was talking about. Or maybe this was the wrong Shelby Kline, but it couldn’t be, she was the description of that perfect girl he described so beautifully.
“Do I know who?” she asked confused.
“Zack Calosco?” I said softly.
She smiled, “Yes, I know him. But who are you? And how do you know him?”
She smiled. She smiled! Like nothing she had done to him mattered.
“I’m Payton Hein. I’m a good friend of his.”
“Oh! Payton! He’s told me so much about you.”
What?
“Really? You talk to him still?”
She laughed, “Of course!”
Could this get any weirder? Zack had told me he didn’t talk to her any more. Why was she telling me they still do talk?
“He told me you guys didn’t talk anymore.”
She frowned, “He did? Poop. That sucks,” she frowned, “But we still do, so I don’t know why he’d say that. The boy is so charming, who wouldn’t want to talk to him?”
I nodded my head in agreement. She couldn’t be any more right.
“So what went on between you two?” I asked curiously.
“Oh, you know. He was just way too old for me.”
“How old are you?”
“Eighteen, but when we started dating it was the middle of my freshmen year, the middle of his senior year, and he would be going off to college and I was only going to be a sophomore. My parents would’ve never allowed that.”
Zack made it seem like Shelby was his age then and that she just got up and left without any reason what so ever as to why. But Shelby was telling me otherwise. Who was I to believe? And why would Zack lie to me about that?
“So it wasn’t just because you wanted to leave him?”
She shook her head, “Not at all. I loved Zack and to this day, even though I have had other boyfriends, I still do love him. He’ll always have my heart.”
I nodded. Yeah, I was confused. And Zack would definitely have to do some hardcore explaining but right now, I didn’t care. I was just glad that Shelby and I weren’t completely clueless of each other and we’d have stuff to talk about. My concern wasn’t on anything else but that moment. And how much I’d realize that it was a small world after all.