She swatted my arm and gave me a genuine smile. “Get out of here, I have other clients to see,” she said harshly but still wearing that incongruent smile.

I chuckled and headed back to the house. Using my keys, I unlocked the front door. Jason, the behavioral aide was in the kitchen with Oscar, helping him to cook something. Both looked up when I walked in but only Jason greeted me. Oscar returned his focus to mixing something in a very large bowl.

I didn’t feel insulted or rebuffed by being ignored like that. I didn’t live with people who understood basic social skills. I went up the stairs. I could hear a television blaring and knew that either Kyle or Ryan were home, but all the doors on the first floor were closed.

The whole point of group living was to instill social supports. I think these guys missed that particular therapy memo. Not that I was complaining. I wasn’t there to swear brotherhood to a bunch of strangers.

My goals were more fixed than that.

On the second floor, I headed right and opened the door to my room. I had taken Maggie’s advice and prettied it up a bit. Or at least tried as much as my guy fashion sense would allow.

I had felt like a total douchebag going to Walmart and getting throw pillows and pictures to hang on the walls. I had hoped to impress Maggie if she came down for a visit over fall break. But with her classes ending this Friday there had been no confirmation from Maggie. So I could only assume that she wasn’t coming.

I tried really hard not to be angry. But the desperate need to see her trumped rational thinking. And that stupid, insecure part of me worried that she was slowly and deliberately moving on.

Whether I wanted to or not, I obsessed at times about what she was doing at college. Yeah, she filled me in on classes and friends and parties but I couldn’t be sure she wasn’t keeping something from me.

And those f**king guys, Jackass and Jackassier seemed to come by every time we talked lately. I had tried to calmly ask who the f**k they were but Maggie laughed it off, saying they were her friends that lived in the dorm.

If they saw her as only a friend, than I’d cut off my left nut. Even through a damn computer screen I saw the way they looked at my girl. She was gorgeous; of course they’d look at her the way I always looked at her. And that filled me with a rage that was scary and consuming.

I knew being apart was going to be hard. I hadn’t been delusional. Even still, the sharp pain in the gut I felt every time I had to hang up the phone or shut down my computer, took the wind from my sails.

I was convinced it would be easier if I knew Maggie was at least making an effort to try to see me. I would be able to control all of these ridiculous insecurities if I knew we’d see each other soon.

But as things stood right now, I had no f**king clue when I’d see her again. And I wasn’t hearing her making any plans. I wanted her to live her life and do her thing, but I also needed to know that I fit into her world somehow.

Don’t judge me for being a whiny bitch. I hadn’t developed a bad case of PMS. I was just a guy trying to get better who needed reassurance that the girl he loved was right there beside me, where she said she would be.

Looking at the time, I knew Maggie had an hour before she had to be in her next class. Sitting down in front of the computer, I logged onto Skype and saw that she was online.

Feeling nervous and more than a little agitated, I called her. It rang once before she answered. I watched as her pixilated face cleared and she smiled brilliantly at me.

“Hey you,” she said softly, her brown eyes happy, her mouth smiling.

“Hey,” I said back, crossing my arms over my chest and leaning back in my chair. I was in a defensive posture. I knew I was communicating a mad amount of tension. But I was feeling f**king tense and I wasn’t a guy who could cover up his emotions with random bullshit.

If I felt it, I said it. I lived it. I showed it. It’s who I was. So pretending otherwise wasn’t an option.

Maggie’s smile slipped and then finally disappeared. “What’s wrong?” she asked. We had moved way past beating around the bush. Maggie and I had learned the hard way it was better to get the nastiness out of the way so we could move on.

“Are you coming down here for fall break?” I asked shortly. Maggie’s face shuttered instantly and the grim set of her lips was all the answer I needed.

“I’ll take that as a no,” I bit out angrily.

Maggie rubbed her forehead, her eyes closing in exasperation. “Clay, don’t start this crap. I don’t have the money to fly myself and my parents won’t give me the money for that. Not right now,” she excused.

“Did you ask them?” I asked her.

Maggie chewed on her bottom lip and tucked her brown hair behind her ears. “I know what they would say,” she muttered.

“So you didn’t ask them. You don’t know for sure they would have said no,” I surmised, feeling a sad realization like a cold rejection in my heart. She hadn’t even tried.

Here I was, trying like hell to become the person she needed me to be. Planning a future that included her in every way possible. But was she doing the same?

Because right now, I wasn’t so sure.

“Clay, you know as well as I do that there was no way in hell my parents would fork over five hundred bucks for me to fly to Florida and back. Not when they’re still trying to get comfortable with you and me. I promise…”

I cut her off. “Save it, alright,” I growled.

Maggie’s shoulders drooped and I tried to ignore the sudden glassiness in her eyes. “Don’t you think I want to see you? That I feel only half alive without you? Don’t make this into something it isn’t,” she pleaded, wiping at her eyes.