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Because I have a feeling everyone’s been keeping a secret, a this-would-forever-change-the-romance-novel-world-if-it-got-out kind of secret—that the very best parts happen after the book is over.

And that’s where we begin.

All my love,

Rowan

25

ROWAN

THE APPROACH OF finals week seems to wrap the entire city of Boston in a thick layer of anxiety. A twitchy energy swirls through campus, fueled by index cards and highlighters and practice tests. This time when we’re staying out all night, we’re partying at the library and guzzling energy drinks, waking up with John Locke’s The Second Treatise of Civil Government tattooed on our cheeks.

I divide my time between Spanish flash cards and my final creative writing project, unable to process that this year is almost over. While I’m not exactly disappointed with what I’ve accomplished, it’s a bit of a shock to realize there’s plenty I’ve missed out on. Sure, Paulina and I finally tried real Boston cream pie, but I haven’t joined a single club. I don’t have the tight-knit group of friends I thought I might. And I haven’t explored Emerson’s Jewish community, even though it was one of the things I was looking forward to the most.

Next year, I decide.

I have time.

It’s been seven weeks since that night in New York, six weeks of tentative texting and fragile hope. Living in the uncertainty has been less terrifying than I thought it might be, especially when I give myself space to write about it in between study sessions. As long as writing has been a part of my life, I’ve never written anything specifically for another person. And yet that’s what I find myself doing—because all the words I’ve scribbled down aren’t just about him. Without even meaning to, I’ve addressed this to him.

A few days before finals start, I slide those pages into an envelope, send them off to New York, and allow myself to exhale.

Back in my room, I settle in for a steamy night with the subjunctive tense. But just as I start quizzing myself, I hear the sound of a frantic key in the lock.

“Rowan?” Paulina’s voice. “So… there was someone interesting in the elevator with me just now.”

When I turn around in my chair, he is the last person I’m expecting to see. I even have to blink a few times to make sure he’s real.

Neil McNair is in my dorm room.

He’s standing next to my roommate, giving me a small wave, looking at once sheepish and sweet and maybe even slightly electric, like adrenaline took him all the way here instead of Amtrak. And maybe it did.

This is summer Neil, the one I grew so attached to last year, his hair windblown and brightened by the reappearance of the sun. He doesn’t look anything like the boy I saw last time, the one with sunken half-moons beneath his eyes and a heavy slump to his posture. Now he’s in an easy cardigan and T-shirt and jeans, his usual scuffed Adidas.

He is here.

I reach for my desk to shut the book I’ve been working out of, but I’m so distracted that my hand gropes air instead.

“How’d you get in?” I ask, and though that’s nowhere near the top of my list of questions, it’s what comes out first.

“Sneaked in with someone else,” he says, cheeks turning pink in that way I love so much. “Possibly not the best security.”

“I’m going to make myself scarce.” Paulina grabs her laptop, tosses it into her penguin-shaped backpack. “Bye, have fun, tell me everything later!”

And then we’re alone in my room.

There’s a confident set to his shoulders I haven’t seen in a while, since long before that night in New York. His spine, a little straighter. If I reached out and touched him, I wonder if he’d feel any different.

“So,” he starts, just as I say the same thing. An awkward laugh passes between us.

“I wanted to surprise you,” he says, ruffling a hand through his hair. Somehow even his nervous fidgeting makes my heart race.

“Consider me surprised. How… are you?” It’s only when it leaves my lips that I realize it might be a bit of a loaded question, but Neil either doesn’t pick up on it or doesn’t mind.

“Good. Really good. Listen—I know finals are coming up, but if you have some time, I thought we could maybe go for a walk?”

Neil McNair came to Boston to ask if I wanted to go for a walk.