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Light-headed, I yank myself back from the edge. I don’t want this to be over just yet.

Neil: Wish I could feel you.

Rowan: is that what you’re picturing?

Neil: No.

Neil: I’m wondering what it would be like to watch you.

I send that one off without a second thought, my breaths coming hard and heavy, focusing only on what this brave, empowered version of me would do. What I might be too shy to voice in real life. I don’t overthink—I just let myself feel. In my imagination, we can be both filthy and sweet. Depraved and wholesome. I want her in every possible way.

Technology clearly gives us more courage. If we couldn’t have this in person, this boldness, then at least we can have it now. Tonight is enough. Tonight is everything.

Rowan: can you get on a train right now? it’s only four hours

When I laugh, it’s followed by a pang of missing her.

Neil: Not sure if I can last until then.

Suddenly my phone starts vibrating in my hand, enough to jolt me into a sitting position. She’s calling. Rowan is calling me.

At first I think it might be an accident, that she hit the button by mistake.

“Rowan?” I say when I pick up, breathless.

“Hey.” Her voice is just as thrashed. Fucking gorgeous. “I just—I’m almost—and I wanted to hear you. And I thought… maybe you’d want to hear me too?”

Everything in my body tightens, a rubber band ready to snap. “Yes,” I exhale, relief racing toward me faster and faster.

She falls apart a moment before I do, her moan yanking me across the finish line. No holding back. No inhibitions. Her breathing is sharp and stunning right in my ear, somehow sounding closer than she’s ever been, even when she’s right next to me.

We listen to each other like that for a while, our slow sighs painted with satisfaction.

“That was…,” she says, breaking off with a laugh.

“Really, really good?”

“Yes. Ugh, I love you.”

I love her. I love her so much in this moment—not just what we did together but this vulnerable version of her. It’s never not a novelty that I’m the one she opens up to like this, and I’m not sure I could verbalize it if I tried.

“Next time,” she says, her tone all too innocent, “we’ll have to do it on video.”

* * *

The weeks leading up to Thanksgiving are a blur of exams and reading and rescheduled calls because one or both of us has to study. I go to one more meeting of the Linguistics League before realizing it’s something of an impenetrable fortress. After that night on our phones, I feel more connected to Rowan than ever, which is enough to keep me going when we can’t talk as much as we did earlier in the fall.

Then she texts two days before the holiday with about a hundred crying emojis, saying she’s sick and that she doesn’t think I should come tomorrow. I tell her maybe that’s exactly why I should: to take care of her.

Rowan: no no no, no one should have to see me like this. I’m a bit heartbroken, but I don’t want to make you sick

As much as the reality of it stings, as much as I like the idea of taking care of her, I get it. The frustration and disappointment swirl together in my stomach, but I can’t be upset with her—it isn’t her fault. Winter break is just two weeks away. We can make it, even if this news makes the disappointment hang low in my stomach the rest of the day.

When Skyler hears, he invites me to his house for Thanksgiving again. I thought it had been a joke when his dad brought it up during move-in, but the guy is relentless.

“It’s really no problem, having one extra mouth to feed,” he says. He has two older brothers and two younger sisters.

The idea of being around a dining table with a huge loving family… I’m not sure I’m in the right headspace for it.