Hi readers, it's Jay. Here's a future fic for you. It takes a while to get going, but hopefully you'll stick around. Please, don't hesitate to share your thoughts with some reviews. xoxo!

Patrick Verona never thought he'd see the name Kat Stratford again after stalking out of high school with his barely earned diploma. But here it is, in crisp, bold letters of the New York Times, staring back at him with a haunting, I-dare-you edge, not unlike the girl who owns it. Patrick's smile hardly surpasses lugubriousness as he begins to read her editorial titled "The Evolving Truth About Climate Change" under her very own opinion column. He could almost picture a seventeen year old Kat lecturing him right now, although, he yet again realizes, vivid imaginations are never like the real thing.

"Kat Stratford, huh?" At the sound of his best friend's voice, Patrick crumples up the newspaper hastily and glances sheepishly at Keith. "Haven't heard that name in a while."

Patrick tries to shake off the topic nonchalantly, but his throat is too dry and his mouth isn't working properly, so the words come out in a sort of obvious discomfort. "Oh, I was just skimming an editorial…"

Keith, goddamn him, snatches the newspaper out of Patrick's hands and scans through the pages. "Dude," Keith says, shaking his head. "You can't go down this road again."

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You know exactly what I'm talking about. Pat, you were hung up on this chick for months. I had to practically haul you out of bed every morning the year after Padua ended."

"That's slightly overdramatic, don't you think? It's just a newspaper article."

"It's her newspaper article. And I bet you've read it at least three times."

Patrick gets out of his seat, heads toward the fridge in his and Keith's apartment, and pops open a Budweiser. He needed distraction, fast. That's how he got through it the first time, after all. When Kat broke their relationship off the summer before going to Brown, he was angry. He couldn't believe it; he refused to believe it.

"I can't do a long distance relationship, Patrick," she'd yelled at him, five summers ago. They were outside at the Stratford's front lawn, summer air suddenly surrounding them like volcano smoke.

"Why?" Patrick shot back, clutching his hands together. He remembered how cold his skin was, even though his blood felt like it was boiling underneath. "Because you can't afford to be held down by me? Because I don't fit into this lifestyle you're about to build?"

Kat shook her head vehemently. "That's not it, Patrick. It's just… it's not going to work, okay? You can't possibly tell me that we can have what we both want when we're a thousand miles apart from each other. And I can't give up Brown, Patrick. I can't. I've been working my whole life for this."

"I'm not asking you to give anything up," Patrick had said. "You're the one doing that."

Kat turned silent, fast.

"Look, isn't what we have… isn't it worth trying? You can't give up just because you're scared—"

"I'm not scared," Kat snapped, before the words even left his mouth. Her voice cracks, shredding through the atmosphere, but she quickly recovered herself. The next few words Kat spoke were broken and staggered. "Look. I've made my decision. I'm sorry. Goodbye, Patrick."

The rest is hazy to Patrick. Maybe there were more words exchanged. Maybe it didn't happen as quickly and as chaotically as he remembers. Kat's back was suddenly turned away from him, and she was already heading inside, but Patrick's feet stayed rooted to the grass.

He remembers being unable to walk away, and he remembers that maybe that meant something.

"Wait," Patrick pleaded. "Kat, I love you."

Patrick had murmured these words a million times in his head. He had etched them on the corner of his history notes, bored in class. He had even whispered it a few times to Kat when she lied asleep in his arms.

It was the first time he had said it to her face, but it was the absolute wrong time.

Kat paused at the front door of her house, and for a moment, Patrick was almost positive that she'd turn around, that this was just another fight ready to blow over. But long, aching seconds passed, and with an apologetic, teary glance, Kat shut the door on him.

The next morning, she left for Brown.

The next morning, she left him.

Everything else after that felt accidental, like they weren't supposed to happen—like he didn't want them to happen—but they did. That November, Patrick moved out of the house (partly because he couldn't stand his stepfather) and bought an apartment in L.A. with the money he scraped up from working at various vehicle repair garages. There, he found a decent job working at a local auto shop as a motorcycle mechanic for a good year and a half. Then he and Keith—who had surprisingly remained a loyal friend since high school—moved to New York City for a fresh start.

In New York, everything threaded together for Patrick. He became a part-time student at the Manhattan Community College, where he earned a teaching degree in mechanical engineering. He landed a job teaching auto shop and basic engineering courses at Tribeca High School. For the next few years, Patrick lived comfortably. He was content enough, satisfied even. But every now and then, usually in the middle of the night when everything was quiet and all that surrounded him were his own thoughts, a familiar feeling would creep up on him. And no matter how hard he tried, Patrick couldn't shake it.

Now, though, as Keith eyes him, Patrick rolls his eyes wearily. "Will you stop worrying?" Patrick says. "She's just a girl. I've moved on."

This feels like a lie, especially to Patrick. Sure, he'd been with a multiple girls since Kat, and he liked many of them. But something always stood in the way for Patrick when it was time to take the relationship further. Susie's smile wasn't warm like the way she looked at him. And Jennifer wasn't passionate about global warming and feminism and civil liberties, not like the way she was. And when Lauren pressed her lips to his, when Ashley ran her hands down his chest, when Belle pushed herself into of him, it didn't complete him the way she did.

"Whatever, dude," Keith says, disturbing Patrick out of his thoughts. "Just… be careful, all right? I don't want… I don't want you to get hurt again, man."

Patrick touches the newspaper in front of him, thumbs his finger over her name. "I'm fine," he murmurs, but he knows he has gone to the deep end, treading in unruly waves. "I'm just fine."