"So I'm totally diggin' this guy right now," I told my new acquaintance, glancing at her in the passenger's seat before shifting my eyes back to the road. We'd known each other for about a month, and she was quickly making headway for inclusion in my limited friendship circle. I offered to give her a ride home on a rainy November afternoon.

"Yeah? How did you guys meet?"

I explained that we'd known each other for some time, ran in similar circles and discovered similar tastes between us. He was cute - deep chestnut eyes, kissable lips that parted to allow a soft southern accent to escape when he spoke, a smile that melted me at the core when he didn't. He was tall, hovering a full foot over my tiny frame.

We'd met at an on-campus party. He was so damn quiet. I'd been dancing in a group of girlfriends, and there he was, quietly standing against the wall. We made eye contact briefly - he offered a soft southern smile. I smiled back and return to my groove.

Guys pingponged their way around our group, bouncing around us and trying to find an in with the girl of his choice. It didn't surprise me to feel a man dancing behind me, but it shocked me when I turned and saw him, smiling that sweet smile over my shoulder - and working it out surprisingly well on the floor.

We left the party together later. We talked all night. We kissed.

We'd only been official for a week or so. Didn't matter - hell, calendar days were whizzing by and I didn't even notice. Every day felt like a new one. Every kiss felt like the first.

"Very cool," my friend said. "What's his name again?"

I told her. I met her eyes again.

And no sooner had the moniker fell from my lips, I knew.

She, too, had been smitten by that soft southern swagger. Our talks were theirs. Our kisses had been shared. Two calendars were frozen in time over the same man.

The road suddenly grew blurry, and I hated myself for allowing the blistering tears to prick my eyes. Her apologies may as well have come in Arabic, in Haitian Creole, in straight jibberish, for all I knew. I could barely process it. 'Sorrys' and 'didn't knows' and 'whys' and 'hows' were the only familiar terms that filled the thick space in my car. She wouldn't stop talking, couldn't stop apologizing.

I never wanted anyone to shut up more in my life.

I don't even know how I found her apartment. I just couldn't wait to get her ass out of my front seat and into the cold rain and gray skies. Good, I thought spitefully, even as I knew she was less at fault than our communal Gulf Coast companion.

"We'll talk about this soon, right?" she queried.

I nodded halfheartedly, my tongue too heavy to construct the half-truth she needed to hear. She was barely out of the car before I picked up my cell phone and dialed his number with leaden digits, knowing exactly what I had to do. No explanations necessary.

He answered on the third ring, nearly melted me again with that stupid southern drawl. I cut his greeting short and tossed out her name, just to see how it would register.

Dead silence. Until I filled the quiet with two words. "It's over."