Page 60 of If This Was a Movie

We ride the fifteen floors up, getting off on the top floor then moving to a flight of stairs that lead to the rooftop. A cold breeze knocks the air from my lungs, but the look on Jules’s face is what keeps me from feeling it, total awe and excitement as she moves in a small circle, taking in the town below.

“Oh my god, you really can see the whole town,” she whispers to herself. “Look, there’s my building.” Jules points to where herdance studio is excitedly before turning again. “And your house.” She’s like a little kid discovering something new.

“There’s my parents’ house,” I say, pointing to the west where the sun is starting to dip below the treeline that surrounds the town of its namesake.

“Wow. This is so cool,” she says, stepping closer then looking up at me. “Thanks for bringing me here, Nate.”

“Thanks for coming shopping with me. You know, Henry was right. This is the best place to watch the sunset in town,” I say as a breeze rolls through, making Jules shiver. I pull her to me, her back to my front, and I’m pleased when her body never goes tight, instead sinking into me almost instantly.

Progress.

“It is pretty,” she says low, watching the sun sink beyond the boundaries of our little town.

When I was a kid, I hated Evergreen Park. I hated how small it was, how everyone knew everyone, hated that I couldn’t go anywhere without getting stopped, without someone asking how my mom was or something about my sisters.

But as I got older, after I left for school in New York, I missed it. I realized a town like this doesn’t exist much outside of fiction anymore, and I was lucky to have it. It’s why, when I found out about Sophie, I immediately bought a house here, fully intending to raise my daughter in this small, idyllic town.

“This has to be in at least one of your movies, watching a sunset together.”

“InSleepless in Seattle, they meet on the Empire State Building at sunset,” she says, briefly looking at me over her shoulder.

“What’s that one about?” I ask, watching the colors of the sky change.

“A widower.”

“Sounds depressing.” She huffs out a laugh, trying to elbow me, but I hold her tighter. “What else?”

“Well, there’s a meddling kid,” she tells me.

“I’m familiar with that,” I say, and she laughs again.

“His kid makes him call up this radio station to talk about how lonely he is and how much he misses his wife. Then the entire country falls in love with him, people send letters…it’s chaos. But this one woman tells him to meet her at the top of the Empire State Building.”

“Ah, I see.”

“It’s a classic I can’t believe you’ve never seen it.”

“Add it to our list,” I whisper, leaning and pressing a kiss to the top of her hair.

“Our list?” she asks.

“What, you’re not making it your mission to give me a full education of romance movies?”

“I, well, I…” she says, then tries to turn, but I hold her tight so she can’t, instead staring at the setting sun. “We can watch something else, you know. If you don’t?—”

“I do,” I say quickly, cutting her off. “I love learning what you like, what movies make you happy. It’s like a small look into the world of Jules. I gotta take what glances I can get.”

“Not much to know,” she says. “I’m pretty boring. I’m just a girl who doesn’t know to drip her water lines and watches too many movies and lives in delusion most of the time.”

I don’t like the tone of her voice, like she’s embarrassed or thinks she’s not everything. When I turn her to look at me, I see the same look over her face. I wrap my arms around her lower back until her chest is pressed to mine, her hands moving to my neck.

“I’m totally crazy for you, Jules. Whatever version, whatever bits of you you’re willing to share,” I whisper. A long momentpasses where my heart pounds, thinking she’s going to say something that will break this moment.

“I’m really fucking scared,” she whispers, and despite the negative tone, this confession of hers feels like a win. She’s no longer telling me she’s done with the mere idea of love but that she’s too afraid to try. “If I fall, I could get hurt. Really, really hurt, Nate.”

I’ll take it.

I shake my head. “I’ll always catch you.”

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