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“I’ll call you before I go to bed tonight, but it might be really late.”

“I don’t care,” I rush to say. “Call me anyway, I mean.”

His smile grows inch by inch across his face.

“I got you,” he replies, still pressed to me.

He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out.

I’m slipping, panicking. My hands start to shake.

“Boston,” I blurt out, completely out of control. “What do you think about getting an apartment there…with me?”

Storm’s face seems to freeze like he’s on TV and I’d just pressed “Pause” on the remote. Each heartbeat in my chest feels like it might be my last, but then he puts me out of my misery when he places a kiss on my cheek.

“I think…the idea bears definite consideration. I’m open to it,” he replies.

He smiles.

I blow out a breath, a sick twisting sensation overtaking my gut.

“I love you, Shae Olivya Rivers,” he says. I search his face as if the answer to all my worries might be in his moss-green eyes.

“I love you, Storm Alexander Sandoval.” There. That feels…that feelsright.

He leans over and places a gentle kiss on my lips before unlocking my front door and checking out the space inside. He nods at Ezra and Yenn when he spots them on the living room sofa.

“Call me if you need me,” he replies. My stomach tumbles when my internal reaction is to say, “Always.”

Once Storm is gone, I head to my bedroom but stop when I hear sniffling.

Then, more of a shock, I realize the sniffling is coming from me.

What the fuck? Why am I crying?

I don’t know if it’s what Storm said. Or what he didn’t. Or if it’s the pressure of pretending like Harvard is still what I want.But something cracks open inside me, and once the tears start, they won’t stop.

The bewilderment brewing inside me has the tears coming harder.

And harder.

Spinning—the world is spinning and I’m shaking, vibrating, and?—

I’m not in control. Nothing is in my control. Everything is, everything is?—

My heart pounds in my chest, my gut clenches as if I might lose everything I ate at dinner with Storm two hours ago.

“H-help,” I stutter, trying to focus on anything around me, but I’m completely outside of my body.

What’s happening to me?

With a sob, I collapse onto the floor and close my eyes, falling into the darkness, and in the next moment, I’m in Yenn and Ezra’s arms.

The sofa beneath my body is almost like an embrace.

“Girl, what is going on?” Yenn’s voice is softer than I’ve ever heard it, and I try to blink through the tears streaming from my eyes.

“I don’t…I don’t know, Yenn,” I say, hiccupping. I’m bordering on the edge of hysteria, so I try to breathe, but I can’t.