Page 94 of Past Present Future

“The more I go to therapy, the more I realize maybe that’s something I’d want to do. Be on the other side of the couch, that is.” He accompanies this with the softest smile, and suddenly I can see it so clearly. “I haven’t fallen out of love with words. But if one day I could help someone who might be just as afraid of what’s going on in their own brain… I think I’d really enjoy that.”

This admission that he’s gone to therapy makes me so fucking proud of him, I could cry. “I think you’d be amazing. Just please promise you’ll still tell me the meanings of things even though I didn’t ask for them?”

“Oh, of course. I can’t stop being a pretentious asshole that easily.”

At that, I reach to nudge him, but he catches my hand, holds it tightly against his chest. His heart taps against my palm. “I missed you,” he says, eyes heavy on mine. An undeniable sweetness. “That’s not part of the scavenger hunt, but I needed to say it.”

“I did too. Every day.”

“And look at that, we just so happen to be right here at our next clue.”

The place where I apologize. Again. For everything.

“Rowan,” he continues, taking both my hands now. I can see him grow lighter with each clue. “I am so sorry. For about a hundred things, but mainly for the way I handled that night in New York. I had a chance to let you in, and all I did was shut you out. I thought it was something I had to go through alone.”

“I wish I could have been there for you,” I say quietly. “That you would have let me. But I understand why you felt like you couldn’t. I don’t have this perfectly figured out, either. I love you, and—”

The way he reacts to I love you makes me pause, as though he’s been quietly starving for it but afraid to admit it. A vulnerable arch to his brows, a slight wobble of his chin.

“I love you,” I repeat, infusing those words with all the care they deserve, “and I want to be in your world with you. No matter what’s happening in it.” Then I shake my head. “God. I just feel so foolish now. All those times I complained about my stupid class when you were going through real shit…”

“It’s not stupid. I know you don’t believe that.” He’s right, of course. “Hey. I always want to hear what you’re going through. If it’s big to you, it’s big to me.”

I nod, wondering how he manages to keep impressing me. Surprising me. My heart is already at his feet.

“You’re sure you still want me?” he asks, his voice breaking. “Because I thought—I worried that being here at school might make you realize you had options, and you didn’t have to settle for me. And maybe you’d want someone more whole.”

“When you told me about your dad on the last day of school—I didn’t run. And I’m not running now.” With our hands still linked, I take a step closer until there are only a few inches between us. “You are the bravest fucking person I know—the only thing that’s changed is that I’m one hundred percent certain of that. You are extremely whole to me. Exactly the way you are.”

He swallows hard. Tips his head downward. I want so badly to cover his mouth with mine, but I have a bit more to say first.

I let go of his hands, because the feel of his skin on mine is much too distracting. “We can get through this,” I continue. “I want to cheer for the good stuff and hold your hand through the bad stuff. Even if it has to happen over video chat.” Then I gesture to the list. “Do you mind if I add one? Because beneath this tree is where I tell you the other major reason I was struggling to write this year.” Even though I’m not afraid of this anymore, I draw in a deep breath. “For a while, I thought I couldn’t write romance because I was in love—that I had to be in pain to write that kind of yearning. And it terrified me, so I was terrified of telling you. It made me question the two of us for a moment, too—because we already had our big romantic moment, and then it was just going to be…” I trail off, struggling to find the words.

“All downhill from there?” Neil supplies, and I can’t help laughing.

“I don’t know! Maybe,” I say. “But I know that’s not true. Any of it. I was fighting my perfectionism this whole time, and I guess it might have also been a bit of burnout? You’ll see when you open your mailbox, but what I wrote for you—it was because I was in love.”

This whole year, I’ve been rediscovering what love really means when you’re in it. The way I fell for Neil was a study in opposites: quickly and yet agonizing, over four years and then in a single night. The getting together was the easy part, even if it felt like the steepest uphill climb at the time. The staying together is the part that books and movies and love songs tend to ignore.

Everything I wrote before we started dating made romance feel magical, monumental. But with Neil, it’s not always about those huge moments. It’s the tiny details, the ones that remind you the other person is caring about you, even when you’re not the best at caring for yourself.

The surprise mail and thinking of you texts and comfort of a favorite hoodie.

“We’re going to keep changing. This isn’t the first time.” I think back to what Miranda said. Because both of us can grow without growing apart. “Maybe we won’t change at the same time—we probably won’t. But we can change together. We just have to give the other person space to do it. Not to become a completely different person… but to grow.”

“I want that. To change with you sounds like the biggest fucking honor.” He reaches for my hand again, and a choked sound slips from my throat. “I’m so sorry—again—that I was unsure. The next time I need to figure something out, because I’m guessing that wasn’t my last personal crisis—I want you there with me. I want to do this with you. All of it.”

“We can’t keep living half-lives, though,” I say, because we also need to establish this. “We can choose each other while also choosing ourselves. We have our separate lives and friend groups at school, and that’s okay. We can’t feel guilty about any of it.” He nods emphatically. “We’ll still talk all the time, obviously, but we have to trust that the other person still feels the same way, and if not, we’ll promise to be open about it. If we’re ever feeling doubt, we’ll voice it as soon as we can.”

“Rowan.” He curls a strand of my hair around his index finger, and I swear he has never said my name quite like this before. “Is it absurd to talk about the future when we’re this young? Maybe. But when we’re committed to a long-distance relationship where the distance ends after four years—three years, we’re twenty-five percent there—I think we have to. I don’t know how I got so fucking lucky to find you in high school, and maybe it evens out with the bad luck of us ending up in two different cities. But that doesn’t matter to me. You are worth it. You’re worth every train ride and care package and middle-of-the-night phone call. Even if we lived on different sides of the world, I’d upend my sleep schedule on a regular basis just so I could hear your voice. Because if I’m being entirely truthful, which is the only thing I ever want to be with you… I think you might be it for me.”

His words settle over me, “you are worth it” and “I think you might be it for me” tucking themselves inside my heart. God, I’ve never felt like this before, not even on the last day of school. Dazed, drunk, absolutely dizzy with love. I don’t know how I ever thought our epic romantic moment had passed.

Neil McNair makes every single one of them feel that way.

“What else is on that list?” I ask, trying to blink away the tears burning behind my eyes.

“I’d rather make the rest up as we go.”

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