Page 169 of From Now On

“Yeah, I’m good. Just…thinking.”

“Thinking about what?”

“Well, I called my dad last night and basically told him he no longer had a daughter.”

“What did he say?”

“Nothing. I hung up on him. And right after, my mom handed me an envelope from him. With a nice note and a crayon drawing from my little sister and a check that means I might not need to eat ramen for every meal once I’m in New York. He dropped it off at her salon. Pretty sure it’s the first time they’ve talked face-to-face in ten years.”

“Wow.” His arms fold across my chest.

I lift my hands, running them back and forth along his forearms. “Yeah. It was a lot easier to hate him when he was entirely hateable.”

“You don’t hate him, Eve. That’s why it’s hard.”

I blow out a long breath, admiring the glassy surface of the Sound. Overhead, there’s nearly a full moon. Everything—thewater, the few boats bobbing, the rocky sand—is bathed by a silvery, ethereal glow.

Something warm and rough brushes the back of my palm. A stone.

“Here. Hold it between your thumb and middle finger,” Hunter instructs. “And hook your index finger around the side. Make sure your thumb is on top. Keep your wrist parallel to the water, and then?—”

I hurl the stone as far as I can. It skips and sinks in the same motion, disappearing a split second after it hits the water.

“I think you got the hang of it,” Hunter says.

I laugh once, then turn so I’m facing him. “You know I’m not athletic.”

He grins. “Your bowling is better.”

“Barely.” We went with Conor, Harlow, Rylan, and Aidan last week.

“We’ll practice when you visit me in Philly.”

“Okay,” I agree, playing with a button on his shirt. “I can’t believe wegraduated. It doesn’t feel real yet.”

His hand skims up my bare arm, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. These ones have nothing to do with the temperature. “Four years went by fast.”

“We’re spending the first and the last night of college together,” I say, a little awestruck.

Hunter twirls one of my curls around his finger. “Good start. Better ending.”

I smile, but it fades fast. “I wish I could go back to the beginning.”

“I don’t,” he says.

“You…don’t?”

“Nah.” He tugs gently on the piece of hair he’s holding. “All the best stuff is still ahead, Eve.”

“But we’re going to be living ninety-seven miles apart.”

Yeah, I mapped it. An hour and forty-five minutes by car. Two hours by train. Nine hours by bike—not that I’ll be testing that time estimation.

It doesn’t feel like I had enough time in the same place as him. Not enough ofthistime, together.

“It won’t be forever. We are.”

I stare at him, stunned.

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