Page 32 of Somewhere Between Falling

“I told you, I’ll tell you everything once I’m sure it’s going somewhere.”

“You spend all your free time with him, and you don’t know if it’s going anywhere yet?” she asked disbelievingly.

“Soon,” I promised. I was counting down the weeks until the last day of the term.

“I guess I can wait a little longer,” she said with a dramatic sigh. “Honestly, I’m just relieved that you were able to move on after Bookstore Boy turned out to be your TA. I thought for sure that was going to be the last straw for you, and you’d give up on the notion of love altogether.”

“Ha, yeah” was all I managed to get out. I felt so guilty over the fact that I was keeping this from her that I almost spilled everything right then and there. What would she think of this secret I’ve kept for this long? But the timing didn’t feel quite right, so my secret would stay mine for a little longer.

I finally decided on a white sleeveless top and a light denim jacket. Nice, but still casual. I left my curls loose down my back but grabbed a clip just in case I needed to pull it back later.

We were meeting at our bench—as I had started affectionately thinking of the bench in the park—in about twenty minutes, so I touched up my lip gloss, told Alex goodbye, and headed out the door.

He was already there waiting for me by the time I arrived, and after a paranoid quick glance around, I hopped in his passenger seat.

He was listening to the band Boston today—I recognized the one song of theirs I knew most of the words to.

“So do I get to know where we are going yet?” I asked.

“Not a chance. I don’t want to spoil the surprise.”

We drove down a familiar road, but I couldn’t remember exactly why it was familiar.We had driven for a while, so surely we were getting close.

I was just about to ask, “Are we there yet?” when he turned around the corner and it was yellow for as far as I could see. Just miles and miles of yellow flowers.He parked in a small parking lot right off the side of the road that I definitely would have missed had I been the one driving.

I got out of the car and took in the sight. “Wow.”

“I drove by the other day and saw they were in bloom, so I knew I had to bring you,” he said. He leaned casually against his car watching me take it all in.

“Can we get closer?” I asked.

“Sure,” he said as he reached out for my hand and led me down a narrow path.

I took a few pictures to show Alex later and then Tobias took a couple candid pictures of me walking amongst the yellow blooms.

“You better delete those,” I said sternly. I didn’t want any evidence of the two of us yet, and pictures on a phone were a risk we didn’t need to take.

“Okay.” He pulled me in for a kiss and held me in his arms for a few minutes before continuing, “But some day, my phone is going to be full of nothing but pictures of you. And Atticus, of course.”

I laughed at that.

“What?” he mocked. “He’s very photogenic.”

He kissed me again, but I pulled back and asked, “We aren’t trespassing, are we?”

He shook his head no and interlaced our fingers. “C’mon, if we keep walking that way, there’s a lake.”

We casually strolled through the goldenrods hand in hand until we made it to the lake Tobias had mentioned.That’s when I noticed a small tent set up near the shoreline. I was about to suggest that we turn around so we didn’t disturb whoever’s campsite this was, when I noticed Tobias’s mischievous grin.

“What’s this?” I asked nervously.

“I’m taking you camping,” he said with an unmistakable note of excitement.

“Camping?” I exclaimed in disbelief. “I’m not dressed for camping!”

“There’s no dress code for camping,” he insisted with a smug grin.

“But I brought nothing,” I said, exasperated. “I don’t even have pajamas!”

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