I tried to not be so sad about it, so when we were lying there, I asked him to tell me about Boston. I told him maybe one day when I got out of school, I could go there.

He got this look in his eye when he started talking about it. A look I’d never seen. Sort of like he was talking about heaven. He told me about how everyone has the greatest accents there. Instead of car, they say cah. He must not realize that he sometimes says his r’s like that, too. He said he lived there from the ages of nine until he was fourteen, so I guess maybe he picked up a little bit of the accent.

He told me about how his uncle lives in an apartment building with the coolest rooftop deck.

“A lot of apartments have them,” he said. “Some even have pools.”

Plethora, Maine, probably didn’t even have a building that was tall enough for a rooftop deck. I wondered what it would feel like to be that high up. I asked him if he ever went up there and he said yes. That when he was younger, sometimes he would go to the roof and just sit up there and think while he looked out over the city.

He told me about the food. I already knew he liked to cook but I had no idea how much passion he had for it. I guess because he doesn’t have a stove or a kitchen, so other than the cookies he baked me, he’s never really talked about cooking before.

He told me about the harbor and how, before his mother remarried, she used to take him fishing out there. “I mean, Boston isn’t any different from any other big city, I guess,” he said. “There’s not a lot that makes it stand out. It’s just . . . I don’t know. There’s a vibe. A really good energy. When people say they live in Boston, they’re proud of it. I miss that sometimes.”

I ran my fingers through his hair and said, “Well, you make it sound like the best place in the world. Like everything is better in Boston.”

He looked at me and his eyes were sad when he said. “Everything is almost better in Boston. Except the girls. Boston doesn’t have you.”

That made me blush. He kissed me real sweet and then I said to him, “Boston doesn’t have me yet. Someday I’ll move there and I’ll find you.”

He made me promise. Said if I moved to Boston, everything really would be better there and it would be the best city in the world.

We kissed some more. And did other things that I won’t bore you with. Although, that’s not to say they were boring.

They were not.

But then this morning I had to tell him goodbye. And he held me and kissed me so much, I thought I might die if he let go.