I feel my lips lifting. Do not smile like that. It’s this giddy smile that should never reveal itself to the person who put it there. “Okay,” I suddenly say.

“Okay…yeah?” He knows that I’m accepting his offer to pick me up on Monday.

I nod. “How should we communicate?”

He switches lanes easily. “By letters probably,” he banters. “I’d say two tin cans, but I don’t think the string would reach from me to you.”

“What about communicating in ones and zeroes?”

He feigns confusion. “What is that? Ones and zeroes…nah, I don’t like those.” He almost smiles, because after today, I know he likes the internet, maybe even more than me.

15 PRESENT DAY - October

London, England

WILLOW HALE

Age 20

I haven’t spoken to Garrison in weeks.

Days turned into nights. Nights turned into mornings. And time seems to seep like water between my fingers. Losing it all.

Our videos to each other have grown more infrequent and shorter. The ones I send, I’m rushed, frazzled running between classes.

His are more concerning. Heavy-lidded eyes and mumbled words before he dozes off.

I lie in bed, wide-awake. My eyes pin to the ceiling, little glow-in-the-dark stars pasted to the cement.

Call him again, my thoughts pull me. I snatch my phone and dial, but it rings to voicemail. Not surprising really. It’s only 9 p.m. in Philly, and Garrison works until midnight. He’s the type of person that zones completely into his work, loses time and sense of everything around him.

It’s why he’s so good at what he does, and I can’t blame him for not answering. Not when there were plenty of calls I missed because I was in the library or dining hall or…Barnaby’s.

I toss my phone aside.

A tree branch scrapes my window as the wind picks up outside. Rain pelts the glass and tries its best to soothe me to sleep.

But I’m too wired. Too longing.

Too much of a lot of things.

My fingers brush my lips. It’s been so long since we’ve even kissed. Since he’s held me. Touched me. Since I’ve run my fingers through his hair. Since he’s wrapped his arms around me like I’m the only person he wants to embrace. To protect. To love.

I lean over and turn off my lamp, plunging my dorm room into darkness. Alone, with the sound of the rain shower, images of Garrison pop into my head. His hair that curls a little by his ears and his aquamarine eyes that always stare through me. Like he knows.

He knows.

What it’s like to have people who are supposed to love you unconditionally but they don’t. Who are supposed to protect you. But don’t.

He’d touch my cheek and say, “It doesn’t matter anymore. We’re not seventeen. We don’t need them. We always have each other.”

I’d stand on my tip-toes and press my lips to his. Warmth underneath his palms as he slid them underneath my shirt. He’s the only guy that ever touched me like that. Kissing. Hugging.