This could be a disaster

 "Iowa City?" Tony couldn't help but smile. "You got in?" He sighed, happy for Trent. Of course, in the next breath, Trent was asking why wasn't he going to.

"I know you got in," Trent said. "I need you, man. You should be there with me."

"Oh, is this a bromance now?" Tony only smirked. Yes, there was a time he would have gone, but he'd put it on hold. He hadn't even thought about it. He was with Ting now. He wouldn't dare.

"But didn't you want to major in engineering?" Trent looked at him as if he was the one losing out.

"Oh, I dunno. It's so hard," He'd hate to waste his money. He guessed. Although, it was being away from Ting that would hurt the most. "I'm going to school here. I got into a program to work on X-ray and MRI machines." It wasn't like he was sitting idle. He was guaranteed a job at the downtown medical center.

"I am sure you'll have a blast," Tony smiled about Trent's decision. Although, he knew it would be competitive and Trent was the competitive sort.

"Have you heard anything from Brooklyn?" Trent wanted to know while they were out having a milk tea near the park.

"Why would I hear from Brooklyn?" Tony shook his head. "I hardly know her. Besides, you never wanted me to know her, anyway." 

"I just thought-" Trent started, but then confessed how she'd cut him off. She'd changed her phone number too. 

"I wonder why that happened?" Tony tilted his head and squinted at his friend, who really wasn't all that tall. Yes, Tony could see now what a nerd Trent really was, even if he thought he was a girl magnet.

Trent swelled a frown. Tony gave him a pat on the back. "Maybe it's all for the best. After all, your future looks so bright. You have no time for girls."

"Are you sure? You're really happy?" Trent looked a little down.

"Absolutely," Tony nodded. It might feel like it was at a turtle's pace to Trent, but Tony wasn't missing a beat with Ting.

Rafe needed to figure out where to start. Oh, it was always frustrating, wondering if he said the right things to Lily. Somehow, it was like preparing for the worst. As if she'd be in one of her moods that he was just supposed to be mute. 

"Let's break up," she said there at the park on a nice afternoon in the slight spring chill. They'd been avoiding each other lately. Except for Friday nights when it was their time. True, that got through work on the weekends on their rigid schedule at the bakery. And there was always school with a random text here and there.

A shiver went through Rafe as if he might be sick. Of course, he couldn't even look at her, but he couldn't find himself agreeing with her, either.

"No. We can't." He hated change the most. "If..if you weren't so sensitive." He hugged himself sitting there on the park bench.

"Me? You're the sensitive one." She told him. Her face was so serious. She showed no remorse.

He swelled a frown. Was he? He didn't believe that.

"The things you say to me-" She looked at him as if she could smack him, but he knew she wouldn't. "You don't even know how to talk to me."

"See?" He looked at her with his eyes wide open. "You know what I'm talking about. I don't know what's on your mind. I'm the last to know anything. I have to find out everything from my brother."

She was mute then. 

"I think you've changed," he told her.

"Oh really?" She looked over at him blankly. Rafe sighed as if it was a relief to tell her this. He hugged himself, he couldn't say it was a complete relief to let all his thoughts go of what he thought about her.

"Well, nobody stays a certain way, you know." She shrugged.

"What?" He winced. What was she talking about?

"I'm sorry I can't look a certain way that you want me to look. You'll wake up one day and realize just what an old man you've become. You are so set in your ways. Only eating meat and fruit. I know you. I know you way better than you know me, you pimple popper."

It made him smile when she said it. He practically laughed.

"I just want you to be happy and I don't think you can be happy with me," she said which felt like a turn for the worst.

"I want us to..."

"To just be friends," she didn't look at him. Rafe watched her as if he wasn't sure he could live with that. After all, she was the one he wanted to kiss and wanted to be with. Why couldn't that be enough?

"But..I don't want to let you go," Rafe swallowed back tears. "We've come this far."

"I wish I felt that way," Lily looked at him as if she was the stronger one. The one who couldn't get emotional about this.

"I don't want us to give up," he shook his head. "I don't want to be with anybody else."

"I don't want to date right now. I just want us to focus on being the friends we could be," Lily told him. "It's not like I'm leaving you. I just think we are both expecting the impossible."

"The impossible?" Rafe winced. He thought he might be ill, or had this balloon of romance just popped.