Past Present Future

I think you might be it for me.”

You’re worth every train ride and care package and middle-of-the-night phone call.

Forelsket (Norwegian): the euphoria you experience as you begin to fall in love; or, how I feel whenever I’m around you.

The flight was smoother than I imagined, my motion sickness kept at bay with some Dramamine tablets and a series adaptation of one of my favorite books, War and Peace, that I’d always meant to get around to watching and Rowan loved to tease me about.

“You’re a nineteenth-century nobleman trapped in an eighteen-year-old’s body,” she said last month before giving me another one of those looks. Deep brown eyes, one side of her mouth curving upward, pure mischief. “Guess I have a thing for older guys.”

The only thing New York doesn’t have going for it is the fact that Rowan Roth isn’t in it.

Every moment she smiled, laughed,
gazed at me in a way that made my heart swell—so, approximately 99 percent of the time we spent together—felt like something to stow in a secret pocket of my suitcase and take back out when we were deep in winter.

Neil shakes his head; I catch the motion out of the corner of my eye. “No, no, no. I was pining for most of those four years, absolutely tortured because the girl I liked couldn’t stand me. You were simply going about your life, vaguely annoyed by some guy with too many freckles.”

“Maaaaaybe. But before we got together, I couldn’t imagine not seeing you every day. Did I ever tell you that?” I turn to him, and the look on his face tells me that I did not. “The few weeks leading up to graduation, I’d get your texts in the morning and feel a little sad that they were coming to an end.”

A patented Neil McNair smirk. “And you, connoisseur of romance novels, didn’t realize you were madly in love with me.”

“Yeah, well. We all have our flaws.”

His laugh drums against my cheek, that sound I love becoming something almost tangible. “You asked, once, if I remembered when I started having feelings for you. And I think that was it. The whole time we watched, I could hear everyone else making fun of it, but you were so quiet. You paid attention because it was school, and the fact that it was a field trip didn’t change that. When you
laughed, it was genuine. Sincere. The acting was terrible, but you took it seriously. And a couple times, you glanced over at me to see if I was laughing too.”

“You were,” I say, that seemingly trivial day coming back to me. A dark theater, my nemesis next to me. The pride that comes with getting the humor, obnoxious smart alecks that we were. Are. “At the same time, usually.”

“Right. And it made me feel so connected to you, the fact that you were curious if I found the same things funny. Plus… you smelled really nice. I went home and thought to myself, ‘This is it. This is the girl.’ I was done for.” His thumb travels down the length of my neck, and it would be so easy to close my eyes and fall asleep like this as the sky turns dark. Then he buries his nose in my hair, takes a deep inhale. “Still just as intoxicating.”

I laugh-yelp as he does this, pretending to push him away.

“You’ve been important to me for years,” he continues, as though he knows I need the reassurance, and I tuck those words right next to my heart. “The distance isn’t going to change that.”

ROMANCE NOVELS DON’T talk about what happens when the heroine and hero go off to different colleges.