Page 16 of When We Were Young

I glance up at him, then back at the album as I turn the page.

The next one is just of me. I’m at the library, studying. He took the picture, and I never knew about it.

Next to the library photo, is an old bus ticket. It’s crumpled, but it’s been smoothed out.

“It’s from the first time I met your parents,” Oscar says. “Remember? I had to get the bus over, and you were waiting for me at the stop.”

I nod, a strange feeling in my chest, and then I’m turning the pages. There aren’t many more photos—especially not of the two of us—but the pages are packed full of tickets and doodles that I did in our seminars when I was bored and imagining being with him later. There’s a cinema ticket and a leaflet from some tourist attraction in Paris, one we went to on our first holiday together.

“I’m sure it’s this way,” Oscar says, pointing to the right.

I peer at the map, squinting at it. “No, it’s got to be that way. Look.” I point at the street sign behind us and try to pronounce the name.

Oscar laughs at my attempt, and then I’m laughing too.

People step around us, and the crowds herd us closer together. I touch his arm, and he’s grinning, and I’m smiling, nuzzling in close to him, the directions and the map forgotten.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, makes me jump.

I pull it out, see that Jenna’s face has filled the screen.

“Woah,” Oscar says. “That is one scary caller ID.”

My lips turn up at the corners. The photo was one I snapped of Jenna at our Halloween party last year. She was dressed as Frankenstein’s monster, and I was Dr. Frankenstein.

My phone vibrates with more rings.

I decline the call and look back at the album. I run my finger over the embossed surface of a Christmas card. The first Christmas card I got him.

“You kept all these?” I stare at him, and he sits next to me. So close. Again. I look at his hands, resting on his legs. Stare at his knuckles, remember how I used to run my fingers over them.

One of the kittens starts mewing plaintively, and Oscar glances at the cats, but then settles his gaze on me.

“Of course,” he says. “I didn’t want to forget you. Not ever—and I’ve never stopped thinking about you.”

A warm feeling floods me, spreading from my core outward. And he’s so close.

“I’m so, so sorry, Emma. If I could go back and stop myself breaking up with you, I’d do it in a heartbeat. Because I love you. I always have, and I always will.”

My breath catches in my throat. Those words—the ones I wanted to hear eight years ago. And now he’s saying them.

He loves me.

Oscarlovesme. Still?

He pulls me to him, the deepest of hugs, a hug my body has craved for, for so long. I cling to him, and we’re shaking, and his breaths are ragged against the side of my face.

When we pull apart, his eyes are damp.

He smiles, but it is a smile tinted by the past.

The black kitten with the white patch mews loudly as he climbs onto my lap. Needle-sharp claws. I wince, and then Oscar’s lifting the kitten up.

“Can I stroke him?” I ask.

Oscar nods, and I reach out to pet the kitten. The cutest kitten I’ve ever seen. Huge eyes stare at me. The kitten mews and then starts to squirm and Oscar deposits him back with his mother and siblings.

“Can we start again?” he asks. “Can you forgive me?”

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