Page 95 of The Seven Year Slip

My body reacted before I could, and I hurried across the kitchen, and he pulled me close, burrowing his face into my stomach.

“Are you real?” he mumbled because I had disappeared in front of his eyes the last time he saw me. Every day I came back into the apartment, I’d hoped it’d bring me back so I could explain, but it never had.

I combed my fingers through his hair. I memorized how soft it felt, how his auburn curls hugged my fingertips. “Yes, and I’m sorry. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”

He leaned back a little, and looked up into my face with those lovely pale eyes. “Are you a ghost?”

I laughed, relieved, because, yes, I was and, no, I wasn’t, becauseit was complicated, because I knew what this feeling was now, warm and buoyant, and kissed him on the lips. “I want to tell you a story,” I replied, “about a magical apartment. You might not believe me at first, but I promise it’s true.”

And I told him a strange story, about a place between places that bled like watercolors. A place that felt, sometimes, like it had a mind of its own. I only told him the magical bits, the parts that clung to my bones like warm soup in winter. I told him about my aunt and the woman she loved across time, and her fear of good things going sour, and I told him about her niece, who was so afraid of something good that she settled for safe, that she shaved off so much of herself to fit the person she thought she wanted to be.

“Until she met someone in that terrible, lovely apartment who made her want just a little more.”

“They must have been very important to her,” he replied softly.

I ran my fingers down his face, memorizing the arch of his brows, the cut of his jaw. “He is,” I whispered, and he kissed me, long and savoring, like I was his favorite taste. I wanted to burrow myself in his touch, never come out again, but there was a part of me that tugged back to the present, where I belonged.

“But why seven?” he asked after a moment, his eyebrows furrowing. “Why seven years?”

“Why not? It’s a lucky number—or,” I added teasingly, “maybe it’s the number of rainbows you’ll see. Maybe it’s the number of flights you miss. The number of lemon pies you’ll burn. Or maybe it’s just how long you’ll wait before you find me again in the future.” I began to pull away when he grabbed my middle and drew me back in.

“I’ll never have to wait for anything if I never let you go,” he said earnestly, holding tightly to my hands. “We can stay here—forever.”

What a lovely thought. “You know we can’t,” I replied, “but you’ll find me in the future.”

His eyes grew steely. “I can find you now. Today. I’ll search everywhere. I’ll—”

“I wouldn’t be me, Iwan.”

Seven years ago, I would have been terrible for him. Twenty-two and fresh off my first real heartbreak, having gallivanted off with my aunt all summer, kissing every foreign boy I met in shadowy bars. Love wasn’t something that I looked for, it was something I made, over and over again, to try and forget the guy who broke my heart. I barely remembered his name now—Evan or Wesley, something middle-class and suburban, driving an eco-friendly car, with his eyes set on law school.

Seven years ago, I was someone else entirely, trying on different hats to see which one fit best, which skin I was comfortable with sharing.

Seven years ago, he was this bright-eyed dishwasher with soap under his nails, wearing overstretched shirts, trying to find his dream, and in the present, he was glossy and sure of himself, though when he smiled, the cracks showed, and they were cracks that most people probably didn’t want to see. But I loved them, too.

That was love, wasn’t it? It wasn’t just a quick drop—it was falling, over and over again, for your person. It was falling as they became new people. It was learning how to exist with every new breath. It was uncertain and it was undeniably hard, and it wasn’t something you could plan for.

Love was an invitation into the wild unknown, one step at a time together.

And I loved this man so much, I needed to let him go. This him. The one in my past.

Because the one in my present was just as lovely, though a littlebit worn down, but also a little bitmore, and I felt so silly now because I’d been comparing him to this man I had met in the past. I’d imagined he’d be just like this Iwan, only older. But we all change.

“But then who will I be in seven years, when you find me?” he asked, unsure, as if he was afraid of the person I’d meet.

But there was nothing to worry about.

“You,” I told him, bending down to press my forehead to his, soaking in every detail of this Iwan of before, this boy who hadn’t yet had a broken heart, who didn’t know the words to those kinds of songs yet. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to wrap him up in a blanket and ferry him through all of it. I wanted to be there for it—I wanted to be there forhim. But I wouldn’t. Not for a long while.

“You are going to travel the world,” I said. “You’re going to cook widely and you’re going to absorb cultures and foods and stories like a sunflower drinks in the sun. And I think people will see a spark in you, and your passion for what you do, and someday you’ll make recipes people will write about in magazines, and you’ll host guests from all different walks of life, and you’ll make good food, and they’ll fall in love with it. With you.”

A smile played across his lips. “So youhavemet me in the future.”

“Yes,” I replied, and I memorized the way his cheek felt scratchy with five-o’clock shadow, the soft furrow in his brows as if he was trying not to cry.

“Andyou,” I whispered, a promise to him, “are going to be amazing.”

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