His answer to that is a slow, roguish smile that gives me no choice but to pull him to the bed and under the covers. I climb on top of him and whisper, “Say it again.”

He pulls my face close to his, eyes on mine. “I love you, Mae.”

As the words fall from Ben’s lips, again and again, as he says them against my skin and into my mouth and as he fills me with them and with himself, I am safe, this moment and this boy a capsule speeding through space.

But.

The thing about wormholes—you reach the other side of the tunnel eventually.

After so many minutes, so many gifts, Ben’s eyelids begin to drop: a sunset. I watch him sleep. Watch our night fade into day, our minute in the wormhole burning up as it hits the atmosphere, as the sun peeks into the room, spreads across the bedroom floor toward the bed. A wave of light. But still: a wave.

And I think: I am going to lose you.

i didn’t want to walk away from him.

Train Seat

C Line

Boston

28

Hannah

Snow isn’t so bad when you have diamonds in your pockets and whiskey in your blood.

I turn to Drew. “I’ve never been kissed in the snow.”

He leans toward me, and I turn my head up, waiting. I thought it would have come so much sooner. The orchard was hours and hours ago. The night is long gone—the sun is already starting to peek into the sky.

But it doesn’t matter because here it comes, our first kiss, finally, finally—

Drew fixes my scarf, then rests his hands on my shoulders. I slide my arms around his neck, but he removes them, his fingers tangling with mine before he lets go.

“Not like this,” Drew says, quiet.

I blink. “What?”

“Let’s get some food. Coffee. Get warm.” He’s already walking toward the diner. “It’s been a long night. Aren’t you cold?”

He’s walking away from me, toward the steamed-up windows, the neon OPEN sign, the turkey and Pilgrim decorations.

“What the fuck, Drew?”

He stops. Sighs. That tired sigh of everyone around me. That I-wish-she-weren’t-her sigh.

“Hannah.”

Snow swirls around him, and he is a poem. Does he know? Does he know how beautiful he is?

I wish I deserved him.

“I thought we…” I shake my head. “I broke up with him. I chose you. I stood there in front of him, holding your hand. Did I, like, read this all wrong or—”

“Hannah, you’re high. And drunk.” He throws up his hands. “I’m sorry if I’d like you to remember the first kiss I give you.”

I stare at him. “Are you seriously fucking judging me right now? Because fuck you for that, Drew. You’re the goddamn drug dealer, not me.”