Page 41 of Given Our History

He sighed. “Do you think it’s possible that you’re meant to meet someone?”

“What, like fate?” I asked.

He was quiet for a long moment, head angled toward me, eyes searching my face. My heart was pounding, though I wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe.”

With most things, I was a skeptic. I didn’t believe it until I’d googled it, read everything I could find on a given subject. But maybe I wasn’t so skeptical about fate. After all, maybe it was fate that we met in the cafeteria that rainy day, fate that we drew the same number during the three-legged race. Fate that our birthdays were a day apart, as though Teddy was born and the universe realized the next day that it had almost forgotten his twin flame.

I didn’t mean to leave him hanging. But him staring at me like that was making me feel all sorts of things I shouldn’t have been feeling, so I forced myself to look down at the book, still splayed open in front of me. “Blueprints and Borrowed Letters,” the chapter title read—and beneath that, the page was freckled with water. I looked up at the sky, flinching when a drop landed on my cheek. “Looks like it’s starting to rain.”

Teddy glanced skyward. “Huh.”

And then, before either of us had a chance to react, the sky opened up, like it had only been waiting for acknowledgment.

I squealed as we gathered everything haphazardly in our arms, books and crumpled-up sandwich wrappers. Teddy canopied the blanket over our heads and I ducked in close, the scent of him mingling with the earthy smell of rain. We made a beeline for the Volvo. At the driver side door, I fumbled with the keys. Teddy waited until I was inside the car to hurry around to the passenger side and then collapsed into his seat.

We looked at each other, breathless and laughing. I remembered two things at once: first, a similar sprint to shelter, one I took with Izzy three years ago, the day Teddy and I first met; second, that he had asked me a question just moments ago, and in our bid to outrun the rain, I hadn’t answered.

“Yes,” I panted.

His grin faltered. His eyes darted to my lips and back up again. “What?”

“Yes, I believe in fate.”

He held my gaze for a beat, his damp hair curling at the ends and glasses flecked with water. The rain beat against the roof of the car, streaked down the windows, shielding us from the outside world. Then he leaned across the center console, took my chin in his hand, and pulled me toward him, lips meeting mine in the middle.

It was only awkward for a second, finding our bearings, but his mouth was warm and inviting, and so I melted into the kiss. His tongue parted my lips, sending a wave of heat crashing through me. I’d never been kissed before; I’d tried to imagine it countless times, but this was so much more real.

And that terrified me. I broke the kiss, drawing back a little. His eyes searched my face, thumb still tracing my jaw.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “It’s just—”

“No, I’m sorry.” He sighed and leaned back in his seat, hand sliding from my face. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, it’s—” I shook my head, reaching for his hand and interlacing my fingers with his. “I’m glad you did it.” There were a million thoughts buzzing around my head, emotions that I didn’t know how to name. But we were only seventeen. I remembered what Teddy had said last year about not letting anyone stand in the way of his goals. I pictured my future the way Teddy talked about the past—primary sources spread across a desktop, tattered books and text messages and half-finished applications to Ivy Leagues. I couldn’t afford to feel this way, because it could only mean one of two things: either we’d suffer through years of long distance, or one of us would have to compromise. Kissing dream schools goodbye for the sake of living closer to one another, one of us working a dead-end job while the other earned a degree they might never use. Like my parents. Like his parents. The thought of it was suffocating.

That didn’t mean I wanted to let go of whatever this was. But Teddy was my best friend. And I needed a friend right now, more than I needed a boyfriend. I took a deep breath. “Teddy, I—”

“I’m leaving for Greece,” he blurted. I snapped my mouth shut, stunned into silence. “As soon as the semester’s over. To visit my aunt and uncle for the first week, but then my lab partner invited me to go backpacking around Europe with some friends.”

I should’ve been relieved. And I was, in a way—relieved that he wasn’t asking anything of me, wasn’t making any grandiose promises that neither of us would be able to keep in the long run. But equally, I was sad. A sort of premature loneliness washed over me, knowing that I wouldn’t see him for a while. I wouldn’t be able to text him that I needed a distraction and have him show up at my door the next day, a folded blanket tucked under his arm and his backpack crammed with used books.

The rain outside had lessened, but water still streaked down the windshield so that Federal Hill Park looked like an Impressionist painting.

“Just for the summer,” Teddy clarified. “I’ll be back in August for school.”

“I guess that means we should maybe put a pin in the whole conversation,” I said quietly. “If I’m not going to see you for a few months.”

After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded once, decisive. “Okay. We’ll wait.”

CHAPTER16

PRESENT

September breezes by so fast that before I know it, we’re already in the first week of October, and the gala is looming ever closer. I’m trying not to stress, because for the most part, it’s coming together. Various local businesses agreed to donate gift certificates for the raffle. Limitless Party Supply donated two boxes’ worth of autumn decorations—last year’s overstock that would’ve been sold this year for 75 percent off anyway, because apparently mushrooms and orange twinkle lights have fallen out of fashion sometime in the last twelve months, but for my purposes, they’re perfect: cute, secular, and inoffensive. And on Monday, I’m picking up the vinyl banners from the office supply store the next town over. But I’m starting to feel a little overworked, strained—a button sewn on with a single thread, threatening to pop at the slightest movement. I keep reminding myself that it won’t be like this forever, that this is only one semester, but between my classes, the gala, and rewriting my dossier, I haven’t had a lot of time to myself. I haven’t touched my article about Elizabeth of York in weeks, let alone polished it up enough to submit to journals.

I burst into Franklin 106 like a storm banging through the shutters, causing everyone’s heads to snap up. “Sorry, sorry,” I say, breathless. I’m fifteen minutes late to our Thursday meeting. I let my messenger bag drop from my shoulder and it hits the floor with a thump as I plant myself in the seat between Bel and Teddy. “One of my students had a few questions about the midterm and I lost track of time.”

Teddy’s brows pinch together and I give him a tiny shake of my head.