A/N: I don't even…
Astrid Hofferson was head cheerleader, Captain of the wrestling team, ASB president, and Valedictorian. She walked across the stage on this fateful day about as proud as a teen could be. Her life was the ideal high school experience. Every girl wanted to be her, and every boy wanted to be with her. She'd been accepted to Harvard Law with a full scholarship, and was self-declared future first lady President of the United States.
But for all her accomplishments, Astrid didn't feel like the luckiest girl in high school. And maybe she wasn't.
For you see, Astrid walked the halls of her school receiving praise in the form of anything from whistling to high-fives, but she barely took note of the people who insisted on insisting that she was perfect. She only saw the groups of two that appeared here and there who took no notice of her.
The couples.
Astrid had decided a long time ago that no matter how many people argued the contrary, she wasn't perfect. She was only half.
Because even though she had everything, she didn't have the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world. The person that all her friends had come to call "You-know-who."
As in:
"Why is Astrid so down in the dumps today?"
"She's moping over you-know-who again."
"Aw, come on, you could do so much better than that…"
That was always the bit where she tuned out her friends.
They didn't seem to be able to understand that they were meant to be together! They were one, he and Astrid. And without him, she was just… half.
So as she received her diploma with a false smile, she didn't feel perfect. She just felt like half.
She delivered her speech flawlessly, to an uproar of applause at the end. She even managed to avoid thinking about him. Her eyes only flicked to his seat, like, maybe twenty-three times during the speech. Maybe exactly twenty-three. She hadn't been counting… And the Nile isn't a river in Egypt…
After graduation, she attended all celebrations that were socially mandatory (She doesn't know why she's still trying, they already love her and she's leaving them anyway...) and then ventured back to her home at a moderately late hour of the night.
She changed out of her formal blue dress and into a pair of comfortable jeans and a T-shirt. Then she went to her backyard and pushed the loose panel of her fence to the side. She was barely able to squeeze through anymore. She guessed she wouldn't have to after tonight.
She saw him, already waiting for her, half-way up the Sycamore tree.
"Hey." She saw his silhouetted form turn his head away from the stars he'd previously been staring at to look at her.
"Hey." Came his reply. And after a moment… "Are you coming up?"
"Yeah." She said with a soft smile that he probably couldn't see by only the light of the stars anyway. She placed her feet and hands expertly on the branches of the tree, like she had for years, coming to sit on a branch that faced the one upon which he sat. She could see him better now, with less branched blocking him from view. She supposed for a moment how poetic that was, that she could only see him properly in the moonlight when nothing stood between them.
Before her sat her best friend.
"I thought that… you didn't come at first and I thought… Nevermind." He shook his head.
"What?" She asked in a tone that she reserved only for him.
"I just thought you might not come." She was shocked.
"Of course I came, this is our last night and… well, I'd rather spent it with you than with them anyway."
"Please."
"No, Really!" She always found his self-consciousness a curious thing. Here she was, the most popular girl in school, in love with… well, him, and he still didn't believe that "You are the most amazing person I have ever met."
"Astrid, you don't need to say things like that…"
Not that he KNEW she was in love with him.
"We're friends, and that's so much more than anything I could have ever hoped for, you don't need to-"
"Well, apparently I do, because you haven't accepted it yet."
They laughed, and he smiled at her. He never failed to amaze her with that smile. It was possibly the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen in her life. They sat in companionable silence for a bit before his smile dropped and he spoke.
"It is though, isn't it?" He said, looking dead into her in that way he does.
"Is what?"
"Our last night." His gaze dropped to the ground, ten feet below. "After this… I'm going to Europe, and you're going to Harvard."
"We'll have skype and telephones." She pointed out, not wanting to think about having no more of… whatever this was.
"Yeah, but…" His hand fell on the trunk of the tree. Their tree. "No more of this."
It was in that moment, watching him be so… sentimental, that she made her decision.
"There's something I have to tell you." The look in his eyes scared her, as if he was worried she'd say "Hey, remember how we were friends secretly? That was all a joke, get a life nerd." She'd never say that ever because
"I love you." Yes, that's right, she… but the spoken words hadn't come from her mouth, but in the nasally tone that was so uniquely his.
"Wait, hold up. That's what I was going to say!" She said.
"What, really? I just thought I'd get that out of the way before you… well, I mean, I—"
She shut him up by placing her lips gently against his own. When she pulled away, he looked like a toddler who'd just been handed an ice cream cone. (Crap metaphore, but she couldn't think of a better one.) She was sure she didn't look less excited.
"You know," He said, still smiling, "Long-distance relationships are really hard…"
"Screw that." She kissed him again. "I love you."
As they descended from their own heaven, he turned to her.
"Thank you."
"You better call me every day."
"I would have anyway."
"And text me?"
"Of course!" He turned away, but she caught his hand and spun him around for one more kiss.
"And when we come home for the summer…"
"Yes?"
"Meet me half-way up the Sycamore tree?"
He smiled his beautiful smile (The most beautiful smile) and hugged her tight.
"Always."