Page 3 of Past Present Future
Maybe that’s how you’re supposed to feel on the precipice of drastic change.
By the time the sun begins its descent in the sky, Joelle has to leave to pick up Neil’s sister from a friend’s house, and my parents, perpetual early risers, are starting to yawn, a fact we considered when we took separate cars. Kirby and Mara, realizing that Neil and I might want just a little more time to ourselves, hug us tight as I promise to text them the moment I land.
It’s gotten chilly, but it’s nothing that can’t be solved by burrowing closer to Neil on the picnic blanket. I brought his heather-gray hoodie with me, the one I don’t plan on ever giving back, but I left it in the car. His body heat is so much better.
“On a scale of one to ten, what do you think is the likelihood that our parents will become best friends while we’re gone?” he asks, draping his arm across my shoulders and pulling me against his chest.
“At least a nine. It’s cute, though. I don’t want any of them to be lonely.” When I let out a sigh, it sounds much more agonized than I’m anticipating. I’d hoped we could end the night without a therapy session, but apparently I was wrong.
“You’re anxious. Do you want to talk about it?”
“Oh, just the usual fear of the unknown,” I say. “I think the worst part is that I don’t know any of what to expect. Every single part of it will be new. I can visualize the campus, but not my dorm room or my classrooms. I don’t know what Boston’s transit cards look like or if my professors will like me or where I’ll sit when I’m calling you.”
“Is it unhelpful if I remind you that you don’t have to have it all planned out right now?”
“No, but it doesn’t change the fact that I want to,” I say with a small whine.
For a few thoughtful beats, he lets his fingertips play through my hair. A gentle rhythm. “Do you remember,” he says, “sophomore year, when honors English went on that field trip to see a modern reimagining of Macbeth and we wound up sitting next to each other?”
“Shhh! The Scottish play,” I quickly correct him. As if I don’t remember all of it. Every moment of the last four years. “The one where all the characters worked in a McDonald’s, and Lady Macbeth kept trying to scrub ketchup off her hands? Of course. I should probably apologize, huh. I think I tried to get Sean to switch seats with me.”
His laugh drums against my cheek, that sound I love becoming something almost tangible. “You asked, once, if I remembered when I started having feelings for you. And I think that was it. The whole time we watched, I could hear everyone else making fun of it, but you were so quiet. You paid attention because it was school, and the fact that it was a field trip didn’t change that. When you laughed, it was genuine. Sincere. The acting was terrible, but you took it seriously. And a couple times, you glanced over at me to see if I was laughing too.”
“You were,” I say, that seemingly trivial day coming back to me. A dark theater, my nemesis next to me. The pride that comes with getting the humor, obnoxious smart alecks that we were. Are. “At the same time, usually.”
“Right. And it made me feel so connected to you, the fact that you were curious if I found the same things funny. Plus… you smelled really nice. I went home and thought to myself, ‘This is it. This is the girl.’ I was done for.” His thumb travels down the length of my neck, and it would be so easy to close my eyes and fall asleep like this as the sky turns dark. Then he buries his nose in my hair, takes a deep inhale. “Still just as intoxicating.”
I laugh-yelp as he does this, pretending to push him away.
“You’ve been important to me for years,” he continues, as though he knows I need the reassurance, and I tuck those words right next to my heart. “The distance isn’t going to change that.”
We shift on the blanket, Neil sliding me on top of him while he kisses me, and it isn’t long before I’m pressing myself more firmly against his jeans, grateful the park has emptied out. I’ve given a little thought to missing him like this, the abject neediness of his breaths and mine. The groan when my lips settle in the spot where his neck meets his shoulder. His hands on my hips and mine on his face, as though if we just cling tight enough, we can make those weeks go by that much faster.
I never expected to fall so hard, so quickly for someone right before our lives split in different directions. Even if my feelings had been dormant for most of high school, that night in June put the past four years in such sharp, renewed focus. A rose-tinted filter. While I also never thought I’d be starting college with a boyfriend, I can’t imagine how I’d feel if we’d given ourselves an expiration date, the way some couples in our graduating class did, determined to go to school with zero attachments. A few times, I wondered if we’d break up before August and wouldn’t have to worry about it.
But the thing is, dating Neil McNair isn’t actually all that different from sparring with him. We just get to make out afterward.
Being with Neil, I realized a few weeks into our relationship, is easy. Which naturally makes me more convinced the universe was playing a trick on us this summer, two and a half months of bliss before catapulting us into a long-distance relationship.
All my years of planning and daydreaming, the times I swore I’d be different and live more in the moment, and the imminence of it takes me completely by surprise. It’s nerves and uncertainty and a touch of nausea knotted up in one twisted ball.
It’s the fear that once I drive away tonight, we will never again have what we had this summer.
Eventually we have to head back to my car, one of the last ones in the parking lot after we circled and circled to find a spot hours ago. His hair is wonderfully mussed, my body still buzzing with a desperate electricity. As though my bones and muscles cannot bear to let him go.
The drive is too short—we pull up to his house after several detours and “just five more minutes” that somehow last almost thirty. With more effort than it’s ever taken, I shut off the engine and engage the parking brake, an ominous silence filling the car.
“We were too spoiled,” I say, staring directly ahead because if I look at him, I might not be able to hold it together. “Seeing each other nearly every day for the past four years.”
Neil shakes his head; I catch the motion out of the corner of my eye. “No, no, no. I was pining for most of those four years, absolutely tortured because the girl I liked couldn’t stand me. You were simply going about your life, vaguely annoyed by some guy with too many freckles.”
“Maaaaaybe. But before we got together, I couldn’t imagine not seeing you every day. Did I ever tell you that?” I turn to him, and the look on his face tells me that I did not. “The few weeks leading up to graduation, I’d get your texts in the morning and feel a little sad that they were coming to an end.”
A patented Neil McNair smirk. “And you, connoisseur of romance novels, didn’t realize you were madly in love with me.”
“Yeah, well. We all have our flaws.”
When he reaches for my hand, there’s no trace of humor in his expression. “I miss you already,” he says as we thread our fingers together. “Is that weird?”