Four and a half years later

I stand on my favourite bridge in Central Park and wait impatiently. I glance at my watch, feeling like one of those high-strung businessmen on TV who don't even have time for their kids, let alone the kind of relationship I'm hoping to enter. I feel jittery and nervous, petrified that nothing will work out the way we wanted it to.

Four years of college have been leading up to this one moment; it all defines my future.

"Miley."

I spin around, grinning. He came. He promised four years ago that he would, but I wasn't sure if he would remember or if he even wanted to be with me anymore.

"Nick," I breathe.

I think back to the pact we made four years ago. Senior year had ended. I never did return to New York during that school year. We were going to different colleges across the country – he was moving to the East Coast and I had been accepted to Stanford. It had all seemed kind of ironic that he was going to be closer to New York than I was, while I was going to school across the country. I had tried to end it, but it was too difficult. At the same time, a long-distance relationship, which we had tried for the first semester, wasn't working either. So we made a pact. He promised that when college ended and I went home to New York, if we still wanted to be together, he would meet me at Bow Bridge in Central Park.

He takes a step forward, his hands shoved nervously into his coat pockets, and smiles awkwardly at me. "I was worried that you wouldn't come."

"Me too," I whisper, moving hesitantly closer to him.

"I've missed you."

"I've missed you too."

We don't need to say anything else. He walks right up to me and quickly embraces me into a tight hug, lifting me off my feet.

The years I had spent declining invitations for dinner and saying that I was hung up on someone else were finally adding up to this one moment in which I am reunited with Nick. Perhaps it was ridiculous of me to have spent so long pining over this one person, but he is worth it all.

The boy has become a man and the drama is over. Everything that had happened between when I had left New York and my return had not been a waste. If anything, they made our reunion even better.

I remember thinking all those years that not everybody ends up with their one epic love, but I'm starting to think that maybe I will.