Chapter Text
Nico knew that he and Will wouldn't last.
They had gotten together their freshman year of high school and had stayed together until the summer after freshman year.
Did you know only 2% of people marry their high school sweethearts?
"Nico-"
"Come on, Will, be realistic! We're going to college in different cities, we're 18, we have... everything ahead of us, you can't seriously expect that-" Nico cut himself off with a huff. They were standing in the middle of Will's driveway. He was almost positive he saw one of his boyfriend's neighbors watching their argument through their window.
Will brought a hand up to his eyes and slowly dragged it down his face. "Nico, we're going to school two hours away from each other, you wanna break up over two hours? What about the last three years?"
"I just- I don't wanna hold you back, Will! You deserve more than being tied down to your high school boyfriend."
"Nico." Will have him an exasperated stare.
"Only 2 percent of marriages are between high school sweethearts."
"Is that a proposal?"
"Will you be serious?"
"Will you?"
"Will."
"Nico."
He takes a deep breath and just stares as Will studies him. He has that face that Nico only sees when he's watching Will work on a particularly difficult math problem. His brows are furrowed, his lips are pursed, you can almost see his thought process in his eyes.
Will pulls Nico out of his own thought process as he speaks again.
"Is this actually you breaking up with me?"
The words cause real pain in Nico's chest. Scratch that, his whole body hurts.
The pain in Will's words, hell, the pain in his eyes made Nico want to close the gap between them and grovel for forgiveness.
But the thought of being the reason Will doesn't get to be a normal, single, college student hurt worse.
Nico's not even sure what comes out of his mouth, but whatever it is, it causes Will to shake his head, turn around, and walk through his front door, leaving Nico in his driveway alone.
And, yeah, it hurts. The grovelling idea is sounding better by the minute.
He turns and gets into his car and drives away instead.
They don't see each other again that summer. Their mutual friends didn't talk about it. Probably because Nico didn't talk about it either.
He couldn't bring himself to take any of the pictures of Will on his Instagram down. He couldn't bring himself to stop wearing the cologne Will gave him as a Christmas present last year. He couldn't bring himself to stop sleeping in Will's old shirts.
He couldn't bring himself to text Will.
He didn't receive any correspondence from his boyfriend, either.
ex boyfriend
whatever.
Summer ended and school started. He was dorming with some engineering major from Texas who had way too much energy for a normal person. He had textbooks chalked full of notes in the margins, (written in Spanish, mind you,) strewn all over his side of the room and would work on one subject before getting bored and bouncing to the next one.
Absolutely brilliant guy. Could be considered a down right nerd if he wasn't so extroverted.
Hence why Nico was at some lame party, letting Leo drag him along, watching him have conversations with different people. Leo didn't want to go alone, as if he'd spend more than five seconds alone even if he wasn't with Nico.
It was only a few weeks into classes and, evidently, people already wanted to get absolutely wasted.
It was honestly even a surprise to Nico how he reacted when some drunk frat guy came up to him and started trying to flirt.
"I have a boyfriend."
The frat guy furrowed his eyebrows and swore under his breath before moving on to his next victim. He vaguely reminded Nico of a caveman. Or a zombie.
Nico was distracted from his analogy when Leo let out some sort of choking sound next to him.
"What?" Leo choked out.
"What?" Nico repeated, confused at Leo's visceral reaction.
"You're dating someone? You have a boyfriend?"
Nico, very calmly, internally panicked at this. The sane thing to do would be to tell Leo that he lied to get the frat guy off his tail.
Nico, evidently, wasn't that sane.
"Uhhh... yeah."
That caused them to leave the party early. Under different circumstances, this would have been a win for Nico.
Leo; however, proved to be a huge gossip.
He wanted details. And well... Nico had them, he was just omitting a key one.
They weren't dating anymore.
"What's his name?"
"Will."
"Full name?"
"I don't know if I trust you with that information."
"How long?"
"What?”
"Have you been together?"
"Oh. Almost four years."
"When's your anniversary?"
"November 16th."
"What did he get you last year?"
"It was like a goodie basket with stuffed animals and candy."
"Is that where the teddy bear on your desk came from?"
"... Yes. "
"Can I see a picture of him?"
And it continued like that for at least two hours.
And, just like that, Nico had a boyfriend.
One he missed dearly.
He would let himself scroll on Will's page every once in awhile. He hasn't posted anything new since the breakup, but he hasn't deleted old photos of them together, which... hurt more somehow.
They still followed each other.
Nico sighed and put his phone down, staring at the ceiling as he thought about how close Will seemed, yet still so far away.