(Noah)

Maybe I should have expected this outcome, or at least more seriously considered its possibility. Adam seems to think so, and he keeps apologizing for not having warned me off. I hadn't planned to tell him about Sunday's debacle, but he jokingly asked if I were still carrying the ring around just in case and I guess my reaction wasn't as opaque as I'd intended. That's when Adam admitted he'd wondered whether Elle and I were on the same page, given some of her comments about marriage, but that he'd thought it better not to meddle. And I'm glad he didn't—as painful as Sunday was, it was still a conversation Elle and I needed to have, and not via an intermediary.

And maybe Sunday wasn't the disaster it felt like in the moment. Maybe I did get what I wanted, or at least the important part. Elle all but said she both wants and expects us to get married. Just... not yet. And without actually making that decision yet—because, somehow, saying she wants to isn't the same as saying we will. Somehow. But Elle admitting that's what she wants is already a victory. And, obviously, I know it's what I want. So, then, the only real difference is semantics. If we weren't going to manage to get married before Dinah's arrival anyway, and if we both want the same thing in the long run, then maybe it shouldn't matter that Elle needs to call our current state something other than engagement.

It does matter to me, is the problem—but the situation is what it is. This is how Elle feels, and marriage isn't something I want to have to talk her into. So, I just need to deal with it. Elle's said she isn't going anywhere and I've got to trust her and trust that she'll come around, as frustrating as all this is. At least the awkwardness is fading as the week goes on.

Still, this feels like the wrong time to be flying across the country, and for a wedding of all the ironic things. I offer to cancel the trip, but Elle insists there's no need and I get the impression she's looking forward to a few days' break from this awkward dance we've been doing. Maybe she's right. I'll see my friends, she'll run around with Lee and Mickey, we'll each get a couple of days to wrap our heads around our strange non-decision, and hopefully when I get back we can start fresh, free of this week's weirdness.

Of course, a wedding turns out to be a terrible place to escape from thinking about marriage, especially in my current situation. Jokes about how I need to hurry up and propose to the girlfriend who shut me down when I tried to do exactly that just days ago get real old, real fast. First it's the guys at the bachelor party joking about my being next, then the friends I go to lunch with Friday ragging me for dragging my feet, and now just about everyone I know at the rehearsal dinner is asking if we're engaged yet. After a while I start dodging acquaintances and making a beeline for people I don't recognize at all, and that works decently well. I get to know some of the bride and groom's family and non-Harvard friends, and I get a break from repeating that Elle and I are in no rush: win-win.

At some point after dinner a somewhat familiar face approaches and I brace for another round of unwelcome questions. To my relief, Ian makes no reference to anything Elle or baby-related. Instead we make small talk about jobs and where we've been living, and then Ian leans in conspiratorially, gesturing broadly at the room.

"So, which one do you have your eye on?"

"Which one what?"

"I figured you of all people would know already which of these lovely women are single... or interested anyway."

Yikes. "Can't help you there, I'm afraid."

"Really? Single and squandering this prime opportunity?"

Apparently he's the last person not to have heard.

"Not so much single." I laugh.

"Ah, sorry, didn't see a date with you; I just assumed. Is she here?"

"Elle couldn't make it this weekend." No need to discuss why.

"Well, what she doesn't know... Wait. Shit. Elle Elle? The same Elle? Or do you just have a thing for girls named Elle?"

"Just this one particular girl named Elle."

"Damn. When did that happen?"

There are many answers to that question. Three months ago. Eight months ago. Seven years ago. Years before I realized what had happened. I go for vague. "This year."

"Huh. Well, that's good, I guess. She was fun."

And then Ian goes back to speculating about which of the bridesmaids he has a chance with. Maybe it's just Ian being the least likely person on Earth to have marriage on the mind, but I can't help but notice he's the first not to harass me about our plans, whether seriously or jokingly. And maybe this is what Elle was getting frustrated about, that automatic assumption so many have been making, that entitlement people seem to feel to weigh in on our lives and relationship. She's probably right that if she weren't pregnant we'd be hearing a lot fewer wedding bell jokes this soon after getting back together—it's just that I still don't see why that should affect how we think about it. But, I've told her that already, told her that I'd want to anyway, and evidently that doesn't change how she sees all of this. So, once again, my options are to deal with it and wait for her to figure this out, or... well, there are no other options.

Elle and I fall asleep on the phone Friday night, and when my alarm goes off the next morning it takes me a groggy minute to remember where I am and why she isn't next to me. I have no idea what it was we were up talking about so late, but I do remember Elle laughing a lot, actually laughing, and that's a relief.

I've got time to kill before needing to get ready for the wedding and I don't feel like dealing with my friends again so soon, so I go for a run and then sit on a park bench to enjoy the respite from nosy questions. There's a couple with a toddler picnicking nearby and I try to wrap my head around the idea of being in their shoes soon. It's educational, too—I'm learning that toddlers are extremely loud, really into bubbles, and surprisingly fast given their ridiculously short legs. Maybe the prospect of having my own kid to wrangle soon should be more terrifying, but it's just not. We'll figure it out. And that's the part we should be focused on right now, not getting hung up on whether there's a difference between agreeing marriage is in our future, someday and just getting engaged already, damn it. Okay, so maybe I am hung up on that one. But so is she.

Trying not to think about marriage while attending a wedding ceremony works exactly as well as you'd guess, and my friends don't help the situation, continuing to badger me about my own plans at the reception. I distract myself with the ridiculous aspects of it all, sending Elle a stream of texts about the flower girl hurling a fistful of petals right at the minister's head, the fact that not one of the eight bridesmaids seems happy with their matching dresses, and the bride's father mispronouncing his new son in law's name three times during his toast. I do hesitate before sending some of those texts, but I only promised to drop the topic of us getting married; Elle can't expect me to avoid the entire concept of marriage for however many months or years she's going to need to feel ready.

I wake up disoriented Sunday morning. Just like my first two wakings here, the room is way too quiet and the bed way too lonely. Instead of Elle's soft breathing, there's nothing but the whir of the hotel air conditioner, and even though I seem to have slung an arm over a pillow at some point in the night, it's no substitute for Elle burrowing against me to avoid the morning light. But I must have been dreaming about her, because I wake up confused, then disappointed, by her absence. The thing is, that's not new. It's how I've woken up most weekdays since Elle's first visit to San Francisco. I spent two years telling myself to get over her and pretending I had, and then two mornings waking up next to her again put me right back at square one.

And maybe it's that sharp pang of disappointment, that stinging sense of absence, that finally makes it all clear. I missed her yesterday. I missed her all weekend. I missed her every time there was a reading at the ceremony or a toast at the reception waxing lyrically about the nature of love. I missed her every time I watched the bride and groom make dopey faces at each other. But I missed Elle all those times because we already have that, and if our years of idiocy haven't managed to change those feelings, I don't see why I'd need any kind of formality to officialize them. And I didn't just miss Elle then, in those overtly sentimental moments, either. I missed her a hundred subtler ways throughout this trip, all those times I turned to tell her something or reached for her before realizing she wasn't there.

We already have what we need, we already know what we have, and if Elle needs more time to admit that we're already there, if she needs to prove some point to herself about doing this for us and us alone, that's fine. More than fine. I don't need to trust she'll get there someday, because I know she already is. All but the formalities, and if she needs those formalities a certain way, if she's got expectations she refuses to let go of to rush to the altar, I'll wait. We'll do whatever legal paperwork we need to make sure Dinah is protected, and then I'll wait.

But I won't wait to see her. Maybe we needed this time apart, but now it's enough. I've spent the weekend celebrating someone else's love story, and I'm sure the beaming bride and groom will understand if their flagrant happiness has made me realize that brunch with them isn't where I need to be right now. The friends I'd planned to stay the extra night in New York to see will also have to forgive my change of plans.

There's a flight leaving JFK at eleven and that's just enough time to shower, pack my bag, and grab a cab to the airport. I consider telling Elle, but it's still way too early on the west coast. Besides, surprise appearances have been working for us lately. I've got the entire plane ride to try and figure out what to tell her, and by the time I land at LAX I think I've got it down.

Lee asked me once when it was my feelings for Elle had changed, and the best I could come up with was that they never had. Sure, it took me time to realize how I felt, and longer after that to accept it, but the feelings were always there. It was before any of the breakups that Lee asked that question, but my answer would be the same today. The breakups never changed my feelings, just how I dealt with them. No matter how much anger and bitterness I tried to hide the truth under, I still felt the same. And maybe that's the point now. I know how I feel about her. I know how she feels about me. And as long as we agree on that, we can disagree on the right time and the right way to make this decision.

(Elle)

It's a lonely wake-up again on Sunday, but at least there's only one more day and one more night ahead of me before Noah returns. I'm feeling more settled with where we are, more relaxed. What we have is already so good, and this awkwardness isn't going to last; there's so much left to do to keep us busy, and soon enough Dinah herself will be monopolizing our attention.

I do have a heart-stopping moment as I put away laundry and come face to face with the ring box; there it is in the top drawer of his dresser, just like he said. I'm briefly tempted to peek inside, but I don't. Just because the time isn't right doesn't mean I don't want the whole experience when the time is right. Besides, the ring isn't the point. It's not like discovering it's perfect or hideous or a plastic mood-ring from my eighth birthday party his inner sap somehow made him keep all these years is going to change my mind about anything. It's there, I know it's there, and I've got to trust it'll still be there when the time is right.

I've put off packing up my old room long enough, so after a quick breakfast I drive home—well, my former home—and get to work, promising my dad I'll yell for Brad whenever I need anything heavy moved. I try calling Noah to say good morning, but he doesn't pick up and he's not reading my messages. He should be at the farewell brunch by now, so I'm guessing he's got his phone in his jacket and his jacket on his chair as he mingles.

I start with my closet. The only clothes left are those I knew I wouldn't need this past school year. Winter attire brought back from Boston, high school uniforms, dresses and costumes from long-ago parties. I keep a few sweaters, but the rest of the cold-weather wear goes into the donation pile. Who knows whether I'll need it again or when I'll fit into it again. Same with the uniforms; I keep a couple of shirts that don't scream uniform, and a skirt and tie as souvenirs, but all the rest goes. The costumes and nice dresses I feel more sentimental about; I'll keep those here as long as Dad puts up with them. Maybe I'll never wear those dresses again, but they're full of memories. Finally, I go through my dresser and toss the random ratty old clothes I should have gotten rid of years ago, and that's the clothing done with.

Books are next. Those are easy to sort because I want all of them. I load the ones I can reach into boxes and the rest I'll have to ask Brad to help with later. I steadily work my way through my room until there's nothing left but the stuff I've been intentionally avoiding, the boxes stashed out of reach and out of sight into which I'd crammed every last reminder of Noah and Boston a few weeks after Dad's accident. Everything I didn't want to think about having lost. I take a break to gather my courage before asking Brad to drag those boxes out of the closet for me.

Of course, if there's one thing that sorting through the accumulated flotsam of the first decades of my life has forced me to admit today, it's how futile that attempt to erase Noah from my life had been. Despite our collection of anniversaries, there was never really a before, never a time he wasn't in my life in some way. There, in so many of the pictures recording Lee's and my adventures, and just out of frame in so many more. The doodles he added to every postcard Lee sent me from family trips. The handheld console he'd claimed to never use anymore when he gave it to me to distract myself at the hospital, even though I'd seen him playing it all year. The seashell on my desk that he'd been the one to find, but that I'd pestered him for all summer until it just appeared in my bag one day. The Never listen to Lee he'd carefully inked in bold letters on my cast after that whole scooter incident.

Not to mention, most of those dresses I decided to keep earlier were those reminding me of parties and other adventures with him. There's a reason my prom dresses are long gone while the blue dress is still here. The blue dress that I'd once tried to get rid of, until Noah lobbied for keeping it. I was mystified why, since I'd never worn it to anything with him. Or so I thought, until he sheepishly admitted that dress caused him more than a little bewilderment at my sixteenth birthday party. Bewilderment that he decided to deal with by stealing Tuppen's date, but it's a more charming story when I leave out that detail.

Anyway, it's time to face those last few boxes; I yell for Brad and he drags them from the closet for me. First up is a storage bin that turns out to contain all the Noah-things that had been strewn around my room before we'd broken up. Countless pictures of us, goofy gifts and souvenirs, a baseball cap I'd stolen from him and refused to return, the repurposed biscuit tin I'd saved ticket stubs and notes and other sentimental reminders in while we were dating. All of it got rounded up one insomniac night not long after the final furious hang-up, and it's clear from the haphazard way everything was tossed into the bin how angry I was that night.

Then there's a box of BU mementos. That stuff I hadn't hidden away so much as saved for later, back when I hoped I'd be back in Boston by the next fall at the latest. Intramural athletics jerseys, my student ID, the nameplate a friend made for my door, a half-completed punchcard from the student center coffee shop, a well-earmarked course bulletin, and so many other little things I never imagined I'd never need again.

The last box is the biggest one. It's one of the boxes Lee packed and shipped back from Boston for me, and when I look inside I realize it's the one that I never finished unpacking after seeing it was full of my winter outerwear and blankets. A lot of what I pull out goes straight into the donation pile—I'm hoping never to need a parka or this many scarves again. This must have been the last box Lee packed, because there are all kinds of random items from my dorm room mixed in along with the winter clothes and bedding—a tangle of USB cords, my hair dryer, a purse, souvenir cups from campus events, spare soccer shin guards, my shower flip-flops. Nothing I had ever noticed I was missing. Finally I lift out what looks like the last layer, my duvet, but underneath I discover a shoebox covered in writing. The handwriting is Lee's, but that's not why my stomach drops when I see the box. No, it's the box itself, with its familiar colors and logos from a brand I have only ever seen the other Flynn brother wear. Lee's messy scrawl practically covers the top of the box, text squeezed into all the available space, and when I lift the box out I discover the message keeps going all the way around one side and to the underside.

Elle, Noah asked me to send this with your stuff. I still don't understand what the hell you two are fighting about, but work this out soon because you're both miserable and there's only so much glowering I can take before I shove Noah into the river. You and Dad seem to have talked him out of taking this semester off, but honestly I'm tempted as well because it's just no fun here without you. xx, Lee. PS: Your roommate said to reassure you she packed your underwear and bras, not me. Like I haven't seen it all every time you trick me into helping you do laundry.

Noah sent me something, and somehow it didn't occur to Lee to flag that for me? To realize that maybe the box of coats and blankets wouldn't be one I'd prioritize unpacking in LA in September? I look at the shipping box again, and Lee had helpfully labeled it "WINTER + RANDOM." I'll yell at Lee about this later, after I see what's inside the shoebox and how irate I need to be. Lee packed up my room about two weeks after Dad's accident, a week after I realized I wasn't leaving LA anytime soon and Noah flew back to Boston. That's around when the fight was turning incurably hostile, when I was so fed up with telling Noah I didn't need him dropping out for me, so quick to anger every time he called.

I open the shoebox and find a note taped to the underside of the lid, a page torn from a spiral notepad and covered in Noah's dense, blocky writing. I put it aside to look at last. I'm not sure I want to read it. Noah never mentioned having sent anything, not this spring or in October and definitely not back then, and maybe not knowing is better than having to wonder if whatever it was would have made a difference.

Most of the space inside the box is taken up by a fabric-covered cylinder, and as I lift it out I discover it's my favorite coffee thermos wrapped in two Noah-sized tee shirts. One of them is the Harvard orientation shirt I'd claimed as a nightshirt ever since my first visit, and the other is from a concert we'd attended my last summer in Boston. A post-it on the thermos reads This was in my room and I didn't think you could live without your coffee. You also made it clear long ago this shirt is yours, so I'm sending it, along with a second one for laundry day. Please don't forget laundry day. God, I'd forgotten how he used to tease me for putting off laundry until every single thing I owned was dirty.

Next I find a stack of postcards rubber-banded together, with a post-it reading I thought postcards had gone extinct, but apparently tourists still buy them. I figured you could use some reminders until you get back here for real. There's more random small stuff in the box, most of it with some kind of explanatory note. Earrings I'd left in his room. A chocolate bar from the fancy place I loved in Harvard Square, now covered in bloom, and I am really going to kill Lee for not making sure I found this box sooner. Crosswords to keep me busy at the hospital. Comic books labeled For Brad. The exact pink Red Sox cap I always, always made fun of tourists for wearing.

At the bottom of the box is a flat rectangle wrapped in white printer paper, and I inhale sharply as I unwrap it. It's a book, a hardback with faded cloth covers and "The Blue Castle" stamped across the spine in foil lettering. Another page torn from a notepad falls out when I open the front cover.

Shelly,

This was going to be for Christmas, but I figured you could use it now. N

The Blue Castle was my mom's favorite book, the sentimental novel she'd fallen in love with at twelve and would pull out when she needed a lift. I would always tease her and call it antique chick lit, but once she was gone I read her battered paperback copy over and over, needing to feel that connection. And she was right, once I got used to the outmoded style the story grew on me. Her copy followed me from home to Boston and back, and it's in my nightstand at the new place now, its covers practically falling off. This copy, though, is gorgeous despite its evident age, and I have no idea how Noah managed to find it; if it's not a first edition, it can't be far off. There are post-its peeking out from a number of pages, and after I read the first few I realize Noah must have actually read the book.

The idea that he'd tracked down this book for me, that he'd read it just to leave me notes, and that he'd known I'd reach for it after Dad's accident, has me sniffling before I've even gone past the first chapter. I look around my room, and I guess I'm done packing for the day. I curl up in my armchair and start flipping through the pages, looking for Noah's notes, and there are dozens of them, post-its inserted every few pages with comments ranging from the snarky to the sincere.

Ah, the taciturn mystery man with a bad reputation. I assume they hook up.

Ok, so this is actually tragic and I will never admit to you that I almost cried a little. Almost.

A secret room she's never allowed to look inside. Always a good sign.

This would be really sweet if I weren't still worried he's a murderer.

Partway through the book the pen color changes and the comments stop having anything to do with the story, and I realize Noah must have added these notes right before packing up the book, without having time to finish reading it. Some of these last notes are silly doodles, others reference running jokes of ours, and more than a few are just the words I miss you in letters large enough to fill the post-it. It's the last note, on the inside back cover, that breaks me, not that there was much left unbroken; all it says is Call me.

It's far from the first time I've cried angry, frustrated tears over our disaster. It's far from the first time I've been this bitterly enraged that we let this happen. Enraged at both of us, equally, separately, jointly. I don't care who might have been ever so slightly more responsible for the breakup, we were both entirely to blame for its duration. If there's one thing October proved, it's that no matter our collection of justifications and excuses for our respective anger, none of it would have survived just fucking seeing each other. Not that we wouldn't have needed a mountain of talking afterward, as October also proved, but if one of us had just called, had just dropped their pride and shown up, all of this could have ended years sooner.

We've lost so much time already, let our fear and hurt feelings stop us just short of the goal line so many times. When I was almost ready to call but let Abbi's gossip stoke my insecurities. When Noah drove past my lit window after coming home but didn't stop. When I chickened out of going to his graduation party. When I let myself admit how much I missed him enough to add a third star over my shoulder, but still refused to call him. And then October. That whole disaster. My meltdown. Noah dodging Christmas dinner. The two months it took me to be ready to call him with our news.

And why? I've spent the day sorting through my entire life, surrounded by reminders of our whole story, the good chapters and the bad, and it's always been him, always been us. It took us a long time to figure that out, but it was always there. I'm done fighting it, done letting my fears get the better of me, and if I'm angry right now it's at myself for refusing to see this earlier. Mickey kept asking what I was waiting for, what I needed to convince myself, and the truth is there's nothing to wait for, nothing more I need. It's all here, all around me, in every keepsake saved and every memory still fresh despite the years apart. I know what I want, I've known it a long time, and I'm not going to compound the mess we made of things this year by waiting for some mythical calmer moment.

I'm filled with nervous energy all of a sudden, jittery and kinetic and tense. It's one thing to make a decision, another to figure out what to do about it. I try calling Noah, but he's still not answering, and it's not like I'm going to pour this epiphany out to him over the phone anyway. Or, I don't know, maybe I am, once he finally picks up. How do I not say anything? Which is ridiculous; I all but insisted henot bring the subject up again for months, not until after Dinah, after life settled down again, and now all of a sudden I'm climbing the walls at the idea of having to wait one more day for him to get back so I can tell him he's been right all along.

I pace my room restlessly, looking for things to pack, trash to pitch, disorder to neaten, anything to channel this energy. And then I see it again, the note that had been taped to the lid and that I'd set aside to read later. It's just one page, Noah's handwriting uncharacteristically rushed and littered with erasures. I'm almost afraid to read it now, but I can't not, I have to know. I'm too agitated to sit still and, as I stand by the window clutching the note, I will the warmth of the early afternoon sun to relax me.

There's no date, no greeting, just a torrent of words filling all the available space.

Lee wants to get your room packed today, so I guess it's now or never for this note. Look, Elle, I have no idea why we're fighting. I know what we're fighting about, I just don't get why. That's not on you, that's on both of us, and you've got enough to deal with, which puts this on me to fix. Except I don't know how. I can't keep calling you when the result every time is you crying even more. You want me to stay here and graduate, fine. It's just more time I'll have to bum around Boston later, waiting for you to finish, but no problem. That was the plan anyway.

I won't keep arguing about it, but you know how I feel. So when you're ready, when you want to talk, when I don't for whatever reason make you so angry, call me. Just call me. Whenever. Lee thinks we should fly home at Columbus Day, but I need to know you want me to. I can't keep making this worse every time I say anything.

Anyway, there's stuff of yours I wanted to make sure you got back, and some things I thought might help. I wish you'd let me be there and actually help. Not because you need it, because I want to. If you change your mind, today or next week or months from now, the offer stands.

That final sentence is crammed into the last white space on the page and there's no sign-off, no X's and O's, not even his name. Just raw honesty and an open invitation that I never saw. Not that the letter would have changed anything. It's all the same things Noah was saying on the phone. But I don't know. Maybe having it on paper, in a form I couldn't interrupt or goad into a fight, just words staring fixedly at me, would have been harder to ignore. Maybe.

I feel like I should be furious right now. Furious at Lee for making it so easy to overlook this box. Furious at Noah for never checking that I'd gotten it. Furious at myself for... all of it, everything. But I'm not. Instead, I'm just done with it all. Tired of rehashing our worst moments, frustrated to discover yet another way we screwed up. I'm done with it. That earlier burst of nervous energy has evaporated, and now all I want is to crawl into bed and forget about all of this. It's not even mid-afternoon, but it's been a long day and an even longer week. I'll take a nap, I'll have dinner with Dad and Brad, maybe I'll stay over to avoid another lonely night in the apartment, and then hopefully by the time Noah gets home tomorrow I'll have figured out how to tell him that I'm done being an idiot.