: Chapter 34

From: Macy Lea Sorensen

Date: September 1, 6:23 AM To: Elliot P.

Subject: Miss you Like crazy.

From: Elliot P.

Date: September 1, 6:52 AM To: Macy Lea Sorensen

Subject: re: Miss you It’s only been a few days, but I’m already wondering when you’re coming back.

From: Macy Lea Sorensen

Date: September 1, 8:07 PM To: Elliot P.

Subject: re: Miss you I think this weekend. I went over to Nikki’s this afternoon, and Danny was there. They were playing video games, and were having so much fun, and all I could think was that I wanted you to be there.

From: Macy Lea Sorensen

Date: September 1, 8:12 PM To: Elliot P.

Subject: re: Miss you Crap. Dad says we can’t this weekend, but maybe the weekend after. School starts on Tuesday and he wants to get a few things done here this weekend.

From: Elliot P.

Date: September 1, 9:18 PM To: Macy Lea Sorensen

Subject: re: Miss you I think it’s probably a good idea if we just try to keep our heads down during the week. It’s going to be too hard, otherwise. I’m going crazy.

From: Macy Lea Sorensen

Date: September 1, 9:22 PM To: Elliot P.

Subject: re: Miss you Do you think this is a bad idea? Being together?

My phone rang in my hand, Elliot’s picture popping up on the screen. I had taken it only a week prior, when he was standing on a mossy rock in the woods behind our houses and staring up at the trees, trying to identify a bird he’d seen. In the photo, the sun caught him in profile, accentuating his jaw and the definition of his chest beneath his shirt.

My heart was pounding so hard, and when I answered, my voice came out thick. “Hello?”

“Macy, no,” he said immediately. “That’s not what I mean.”

I nodded, staring at my wall, and the glossy poster of a unicorn there, which I’d had since I was eight and never bothered to take down. “Okay.”

“I just mean,” he said quietly, “that we’ll drive ourselves nuts emailing every ten minutes every day of the week.”

I sat down on my bed, kicking off my sneakers. “You’re right, of course. It just feels different now. Scarier to be apart.”

“It’s not different.” He seemed out of breath, like he was jogging upstairs. “We’ve always felt this way. I’m here. You’re there. Just like before, we still belong to each other.”

“Okay.”

“And when you come up,” he said, and I heard a door close in the background, “we’ll spend as much time together as we can.”

I curled into my pillow, cupping the phone close. “I just want to kiss you tonight,” I whispered. “I just want you here, beside me, kissing me.”

He groaned and then went quiet, and my heart felt twisted inside my chest, aching.

“Mace,” he said. “It’s all I want to do, too.”

We fell into silence then, and I wondered if he would let me fall asleep with him on the phone, later. My hand slid beneath my shirt, feeling the warmth of my stomach, imagining his palm there.

“It’s only one more year that it has to be like this,” he said, finally. “Think about that. We’re graduating in the spring. Our lives won’t be separate anymore. It will go by so fast, and then we can be together, for real.”