It’s time for me to go home.
“I can’t let anything get between me and my future,” I say. “Not the attack. Not anything.”
He pauses. Then, “Not me?”
I let out a huff that sounds like a chuckle. “Are you saying we have a future now?”
He grabs my hands. “I’m saying I’d like for us to have one. I mean, we live on opposite sides of the state, and we both have lives where we live.”
“A long-distance relationship doesn’t scare you?”
He laughs. “Of course it scares me. You may wake up one day and decide I’m too fucked up to bother with. Doesn’t it scare you?”
“Of course it does.” I draw in a breath. “I’m scared of wanting you so much that I’ll look up one day and realize I’ve let go of everything else.”
His expression softens, edges lowering. “You won’t. I won’t let you.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise I’ll pull you back if you start to drift.” He steps closer, close enough that I can feel the heat of his body. “And you’ll do the same for me.”
I rest my forehead against his sternum. He slides his fingers into my hair.
“Say it again,” I murmur. “The part where you’ll fight.”
“I’ll fight for you,” he says against my crown. “Every time.”
And some tiny fracture inside me begins to knit together. Not all of it. Not the complicated places. Just enough to stand up straighter.
“How long do we have?” I ask, and I don’t mean the storm.
He hears me anyway. “You’ve got lab tomorrow,” he says. “I’ve got…a life I said I would start living like it matters.”
I nod. “So not long.”
He kisses my forehead. It’s not the kiss I want, which makes it worse. “Maybe long enough,” he says.
“Don’t say maybe.”
“Then long enough.” He tips my chin up gently. “Long enough to make a plan instead of a promise.”
“Plans change,” I say, because we swore to be honest.
“Then we change them together.”
We move at the same time—me toward the table, him toward the door—and collide in the middle. Not hard. Just enough. His hand lands on my hip to steady me. My breath catches. He doesn’t take advantage. He just steadies me and then lets go.
He fumbles with his phone, typing. A few dings of texts go back and forth.
“Aunt Melanie at two tomorrow,” he says casually, as if telling me this is as normal as the sun shining.
Another reminder that tomorrow, he’ll be back on the Slope, and I’ll be in Boulder.
“That’s good,” I say.
He nods. “Thought I’d start the fight before I talked myself out of it.”
“Time’s running out,” I whisper. “For us.”
