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“How long can you stay?” Marcus asks me.

“I can stay all night. Everyone in my family knows I’ve been missing you. My brother called me a sad sack at Thanksgiving.”

“A sad sack?” He laughs. “God, I’m sorry I turned you into a sad sack in front of your family.”

I shift slightly, propping myself up on one elbow so I can look at him. “I should probably text my mom and let her know I’m okay, that I’m not going to make it back tonight, but I’ll be there tomorrow."

“Go ahead. I’ll be right here.”

I grab my phone and type out a quick message that’s vague enough not to invite a dozen follow-up questions tonight, but hopefully she won’t worry. My mom responds almost immediately with a string of hearts and “take your time, sweetheart,” which I feel grateful for.

I set the phone face-down on the nightstand and turn back to Marcus, who’s watching me with a soft, unguarded expression.

“What?” I ask.

“Nothing. Just looking at you.” He reaches up, tucking a strand of hair back from my forehead. “I missed doing this. Just looking at you, admiring how handsome you are.”

“You’ve got the rest of tonight to do plenty of that.”

“Good.” He pulls me back down against his chest, arms wrapping around me fully now, no hesitation left in the gesture at all. “I plan on taking full advantage.”

We stay like that for a long time, talking a little, filling in small pieces of the months apart in fragments neither of us rushes through. He tells me about the record on his wall. I tell him about volleyball and work. He tells me more about what happened with his family last Christmas Eve and Dr. Patel. Neither of us tries to cram it all into one night. There’s no need to. For the first time since Christmas, we actually have time.

Sometime past midnight, exhaustion catches up to us, and we fall asleep like that, fully clothed, wrapped around each other in a hotel room in the town where all of this started four Thanksgivings ago.

Tomorrow there will be logistics and distance to figure out. Trust to keep rebuilding, families to face—or a family—questions to answer, an entire life to reroute around the fact that we finally, finally chose each other out loud.

But tonight, we’re just two people who finally found their way back to each other.

CHAPTER 35

Marcus

Last night went better than I ever could’ve hoped, and the drive back to Chicago feels different this time. Much better than the devastating drive last year.

This time, I’m not running away from another forced family interaction or burying myself in the numbness of the highway. This time, I can breathe, and I don’t have to fight for it. There’s no gravel turnoff calling my name.

I keep the music low and let myself replay pieces of last night. How Evan chose me even after I’d given him every reason not to. I laid every broken piece out on the table, and he didn’t walk away from any of it. He didn’t belittle my depression or my feelings. He stayed, and he loved me through it all. He picked me, damage and all.

I wish we could just be together, but we still have the issue of distance, and I need to make a plan with Dr. Patel about breaking my pattern of self-isolation. Usually when something hard happens, the shame gets loud, and I go quiet, convinced silence is safer when I’ve never had anyone to turn to before. But Evan knows, and that means there’s less to hide.

Until my session with Dr. Patel, I start sketching out my own plan. Josh and Evan have each other’s numbers if anything comes up. I’ll keep every therapy appointment on the calendar because missing them is always the first domino. I’ll stay on my medication even on the weeks I feel good enough to wonder if I still need it. And if I have anything big coming up that I know is a catalyst, like seeing my family, I’ll make sure to talk it through before and after with Evan and be honest about how I’m feeling. Now that he knows everything, the idea of that does feel easier.

The hardest part is going to be the waiting. Evan wants me to come visit Seattle so we can both decide if it’s the right move for me to make, and just thinking about it has me grinning like an idiot in my own car.

It’ll be my first time out West, and I can’t wait. For once, we’ll have more than a few stolen days between our two separate lives. A real visit, with time to just exist together in his world. To see if his world could become mine, too.

He told me he’d text me dates as soon as he got back to the office and checked his calendar. But I haven’t been able to stop thinking about my own logistics either. It’s the most excited I’ve let myself be about anything in longer than I can remember, and it feels strange in the best possible way, planning something instead of bracing for how it might fall apart.

By the time I pull up outside my building, I realize just how little this apartment feels like home. It never has.

I let myself in and stand in the doorway for a second, observing how bare bones it really is. There’s the one record hanging by itself on the wall and that was Evan’s idea.

I don’t want to live like this anymore. I want a home that feels warm and homey, and not in the performative version I grew up in. I want my own touches, and Evan’s too. Records covering the walls instead of just one. That’s what I want to come home to, not just an address with my name on the lease.

As soon as I put my bag away, I pull out my phone and text Evan.

Me: