Mum and Dad have been downstairs talking for almost an hour and I can't hear any raised voices, maybe they have both learnt from their mistakes and can make it work. I hope they can, despite Luke's accusations. Because if a relationship like that can work, almost any relationship can.
Luke nodded off over fifteen minutes ago and so I've turned my lamp off and I'm now snuggled under the duvet, trying to let the rhythm of his snores lull me to sleep. It's impossible, my mind is racing with possibilities and I can't seem to switch it off.
After another fifteen minutes, I slip out of bed and into my slippers before padding over to my bedroom window and sliding up the panel. Trying to be as quiet as possible, I hop onto the ledge and out onto the sloped roof of our garage that happens to be below my room. The night – early morning – is quiet with only the hoots of a few owls communicating in the distance.
I've climbed up here for years, it's my happy place, the place I go to when I can't sleep or when it's too late to talk on the phone without waking others. Tonight is the prior but I still find myself searching through my phone and refreshing my snapchat feed to see if he's posted anything. I wonder if anybody has posted any videos from the bonfire to their stories but each one I see has been taken before I got there.
Jay is in one of the photos, brandishing a smile and a goofy thumbs up, with his arms wrapped around Emma. It's only then that I look towards his house and see he's in the same place, a few houses down the street – above the flickering street light – led on the roof tiles outside of his bedroom.
When we were dating, we would call each other from here and talk all night, comparing clouds and constellations until the sun eventually rose in the morning.
I reach for my phone but think better of it, knowing I could never get over someone that I didn't give space to. But then again, I still want to be his friend. Do friends call each other at three in the morning? Do normal friends even call each other anymore? I know that friends certainly don't stalk each other's snapchat stories looking for any sign of movement. But friends also don't overthink this much.
I'm about to lie back and distract myself with the stars on the clearest night I've seen in weeks when my pyjama pocket starts to buzz – it's him, "Hello?" I whisper.
"It's a clear night tonight, I wouldn't suppose you've seen anything yet?"
"Only just got out here, I've been dealing with my annoying parents."
"Parents, plural? Has something happened?"
"Nothing I can't deal with, don't worry."
There's silence on the line until he lets out a sharp breath, "It's a chilly one tonight, which PJs you got on?"
"The snuggly ones with the penguin on, I thought they would be nicest to snuggle in while in a hungover state tomorrow."
"You've got a point there, how drunk are you feeling now? You drank quite a bit, but then again so did I," He snorts.
"Not drunk enough," I'm smiling and I can sense he is too, "I've been pretty sobered up by everything that's happened tonight."
"I'm sorry for storming off," He says quietly.
"I'm sorry for letting you."
"You're not my girlfriend anymore, I shouldn't have expected you to."
"Did you want me to?"
"Yes, no, yes, well… I don't know. I guess in the moment I just assumed you'd be running after me but I'm glad you didn't, I would've done something I regretted."
"Jacobo?"
"Oh God, have I done something? I've done something bad, haven't I? You never call me Jacobo."
"You've done nothing wrong."
"What is it then?"
I fiddle with a fluffy piece of moss poking through one of the roof panels, "We'll get through this, won't we?"
"What do you mean?"
"We're on a break right now, we will get through this."
"I hope so, I bloody well hope so. But if we don't… just don't ever leave me to watch the stars alone, please."
"What if you have a new girlfriend to watch them with you?"
"No other girl will be able to find a toilet shape in the stars like you can, Miss Gable, you're one of a kind."
"And you, Sir Alcantara, nobody could sing twinkle twinkle little star in a tune as delightful as yours."
"Aww don't, you're making me blush."
"Good."
"As a friend who is concerned about another friend, can you please tell me what's happened tonight?"
"Right, okay…" And so I tell him. I tell him everything, even down to the finest of details, and we laugh and we cry and we both appreciate this – the best friend I had and lost because we decided not to make out occasionally anymore.
"So he and your Mum are downstairs as we speak?"
"Unless you've seen him leave," Yawning, I look down at the end of our driveway to where his muddy jacket and tie still lay. It seems hours ago that he left it there.
"Nope, maybe they've fallen asleep in each other's arms, that would be so romantic."
"Or deluded."
"Why deluded?"
"They just won't ever work if they get back together, it'll end up hurting somebody."
"Where's the girl who fell in love with love gone, hey?"
"She's disappeared, never to be seen again."
"I hope that's not down to me."
"No…"
"Even from over here I can see you're lying."
In the early moments of daybreak, I can see him clearer, still in the clothes he was wearing last night, "I do not deserve for you to fall apart over me. Imagine every guy in the world who's lined up for you to break their heart and yet you've lost all faith in love because of me, a weirdo who stalked you for years in secondary school. I can't believe you would even think about not holding out for your own Hugh Grant."
I want to shout across the rooftops that he was my Hugh Grant and that I'd found all I was looking for when I let him into my house all those years ago, "Not all rom-coms have a happy ending."
"But yours will, Carlie Gable, of course it bloody will." I can hear shouting in the background and Jay's suddenly shuffling about, quickly trying to rush through his window and slide into bed, an act he used to do regularly.
"Goodnight, Jacobo." I whisper and, for the first time since he broke my heart, I finally feel like I have a little closure.