She remembered the way he used to make her feel whenever he's around her. The feel of his hands holding hers - never sweaty, always tight. The way he smiles or laughs. The way he looks at her. The way his breath felt on her face when she looked up at him, their faces only an inch away. His smell, always fresh. Most of all the way her heart tends to run a marathon whenever they were together. It was sort of an intoxication - a high if you will; there was even a hangover, but always in a good way.

But then she also remembered how he said goodbye to her, how everything seemed so high in the skies come tumbling down to the ground abruptly; as if gravity decided to work on them too. He didn't say much, but that was saying a lot. To her, the silence was deafening. The way he ended things - she wished he would have done much more.

The memory of the empty promises haunted her almost every day. Just the way he left things, or didn't leave them, puzzled her. On good days, he'd treated her like she was the only thing that mattered to him and on others, she'd be the last to know. She knew their breakup was far from clean and that she had better run far away and fast, but being the stubborn girl that she is, she stuck around.

***

She looked out the window and took up her cup of coffee and sipped it. On the pathway she was looking into the face of the boy she once loved - the one who made her heart do somersaults. His hand wasn't alone; they found another which looked like a snug fit. She couldn't help but notice the bracelet his lover was wearing. The one with the pink heart.

***

"Happy birthday, Nicole! And here's your present." Samantha handed her a small packet wrapped in glittery paper. She shook the packet and heard a rustling sound. She smiled and reached over to hug Samantha.

"Thanks Sammy. You know you're my sister and I'll always love you even if you don't get me gifts."

Samantha frowned. "Stop the crap and open it already." She laughed. She ripped the packet open - two pretty-looking jewellery.

"Choose one and I'll keep another. I custom-made these and it caused me a bomb but obviously you're worth it. Also, I know which one you would pick, so I made the other something that I would wear."

Without saying another word, she chose the bracelet with the purple star. Which left Samantha with the pink heart.

She hugged Samantha again. "Thank you Sammy. We'll be best friends 'til we're grandmothers."

***

She took another sip of her coffee and looked down onto the magazine that lay open in her lap, not reading it. Somehow her heart did not race anymore whenever she saw him, unlike three years before. Though she's not going to lie; not keeping her promise to Samantha did not make her feel bad, not even a tiny bit. But she realised that she did not feel the anger she once felt when she first saw them together. It was a pleasant surprise to her to have felt such a way and that, was what made her smile.