I’m already crying. I swallow thickly and press on. “They … it’s stupid, and it doesn’t make any sense, because they’ve only known each other for a few days, and everyone will make fun of them when they say it out loud, but I think they might be the kind of forever you read about in books.”

His eyes blaze in the sunset’s orange light.

“But more than that,” I say, “they love each other’s secrets. She loves his journals and he loves her photos. She tolerates his brain-damaged dog and he lets her sit closer than he’s used to letting people near him.”

Nolan takes a step forward, hand outstretched.

I lunge for it, trip over a rock in the lake, and right myself against his chest. I don’t care how cheesy it is. Neither does he.

“There’s a photo,” I say, as he lowers his lips to my forehead, his eyes fluttering closed, “of a girl wearing headphones, and her favorite book balanced on her knees, and she loves you. She doesn’t know it yet, but she’s going to meet you, and it’s going to be the very best of beginnings.”

He stares at me and I realize he is looking at me to pull courage, like I am his whale. It’s a burden and a privilege I will gladly bear, and I try to tell him that with my smile, my eyes, the thread pulsing between us.

He kisses me then, because of course he understands. And later there will be time, time for hungry missed you kisses and I’m never leaving you again kisses and everything in between, but for now it’s enough to stand by the lake that is not the sea and let the clever wind ruffle our hair and be.

epilogue

If my life were a book, I would start the next part here, standing behind the camera tripod, taking pictures of Alex and Nolan maneuvering my boxes around the sink in my newly permanent residence in Val’s spare room.

But this isn’t a book; it’s our story. Nolan and me.

And, for now, that means community college in Michigan—taking photography classes and fencing classes and even an intro to microbiology course because why not—and working at Val’s. It means weekly video chats with the Williamses and the occasional phone call to my mother, who never turns off the TV when I call, but at least she answers.

It means long nights in the Orman room, reading side by side with Nolan, who frequently puts his book down to lean over and touch my wrist to make sure I’m staying, to which my heart says, I am. I am. I am.