I don’t know the very moment I fell in love with Evan. It felt like I was counting the days until it would be over, and then one day, I simply decided on forever. Just like that, a snap of my fingers. Slow, so slow and resistant, and then in an instant, I was his and he was mine. And that’s how it was going to be forever.

I smile at the thought and try to focus on the lines staring back at me from the computer. I try to read the words, but I keep glancing at the wall behind me. At a photo of the first night he took me to meet his parents. It was after I’d decided on forever.

I’d never felt that kind of fear before. The fear of rejection. Not like I did that night and I know why: it’s because I’d never put my heart out there for anyone to take.

I was very much aware that Evan had every piece of me. Unless he didn’t want me. In which case, I’d be broken and I didn’t know how I’d recover.

The thought consumed me the night he brought me to his family home. I was sure his family wouldn’t like me. It’d been so long since I’d been with a family for dinner. I used to go to my friend Marissa’s when I was in high school. But that’s not the same. Not at all. It was also a rarity that I accepted Marissa’s parents’ offer for dinner.

When you lose your parents at fifteen, people tend to look at you as though they’ve never seen anything sadder. I’d rather be alone than deal with that.

So I was, until Evan. And he didn’t come on his own, he had a family that

“had to meet me.”

My back rests against the desk chair as my gaze lingers on the photograph. I had it printed in black and white. It’s the four of us on the sofa in his family home’s living room. It’s funny how I can see the colors of the sofa so clearly, the faded plaid, even though there isn’t any color in the picture that hangs on my wall.

All four of us are smiling. His mother insisted on taking the photo. Just as she’d insisted he bring me that night.

It’s only now that I can remember how Evan’s father looked at her. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but that’s because they hadn’t told us that she was sick.

I guess in some ways it was the last photograph. If that isn’t accepting someone into your family, I don’t know what is.