Before I know it, the double date is already over. Quilene, Jonah, and I have to say our respective goodbyes to April and her family as we head out for the beach house. Man, this was such a good day. I can't wait until we get a chance at another double date. I bet it'll be even better than this one was. As we talk amongst ourselves, we happen to bump into Lars and Esmeralda and Lara. They're such a cute family, especially Lara.

"Hi, Hope!" Lara greets me. "Hi, Jonah! Who's your friend?"

Quilene speaks up. "Oh, hi, little girl. My name's Quilene, and I'm a friend of theirs."

Jonah side-eyes Quilene as if he's suspicious that Quilene introduced him as merely a friend.

"Cool," Lara says. "How do you know each other?"

"Quilene and I are roommates at Rutgers," I reply. "She knows Jonah through the Internet. They're actually in love."

Lara nods to show she understands. "Ah, okay. She's really pretty."

Quilene smiles. "Thank you. What's your name?"

Lara wastes no time in introducing herself. "My name's Laramielyn Barriga, but I go by Lara for short." She gestures at Lars and Esmeralda. "These are my mom and dad."

"Oh." Quilene extends her hands out to Lars and Esmeralda. "You guys must be Mr. and Mrs. Barriga. Hope has told me a lot about you guys, including your history with her family."

"She sure has," Lars says. "Did she tell you about that time I overdosed and Steven and the Off-Colors took me to the hospital?"

"Uh, I think she did. She told me a lot of stuff about her family during our first semester together, including all that stuff about her Aunt Petunia."

"Okay, that's what I figured. Hope's family has been really... interesting to talk about, to say the least."

Quilene crosses her arms. "Oh, I bet, especially when it comes to the likes of the Diamonds. I can't imagine what it must have been like to personally know Whitney frickin' Diamond herself."

"So where are you heading off anyway?" Esmeralda asks curiously. "You guys seem like you were having fun."

"Oh, we're just heading for home," Jonah replies. "We went out and had a bonfire, then went by the Funland Arcade, and then had a bite to eat at Fish Stew Pizza."

"Ooh, that all sounds fun!" Lara exclaims. "I wanna have a bonfire!"

Lars chuckles and pats Lara on the head. "Not until you're older, sweetie."

Lara can only pout and cross her arms. "Aw man, this sucks..."

We finally head for home at around five-thirty in the afternoon. Mom leans against the frame of the door with her arms crossed and a relaxed smile on her face.

"Did you three have fun on your double date?" Mom asks us. "I bet you did."

"We sure did, Mom," Jonah replies. "We had a bonfire and sang songs and everything."

"What else?"

"We played games at the Funland Arcade. We took turns on that Meat Beat game you like so much."

Garnet chuckles. "Oh yeah, I definitely had a lot of fun playing that game while I was younger. No one could beat my high score."

Jonah and Quilene and I try to suppress our giggles. We can't help but think about how inherently funny it is that Jonah called "Meat Beat Mania" the Meat Beat game, which immediately brings up the image of someone masturbating to mind. I also can't help but think about how Mom was so good at the game that no one could beat her high score. Supposedly, according to Uncle Steven, Mom is actually able to play this Japanese arcade game flawlessly because she inherited Grandma Sapphire's sixth sense and thus can accurately predict the next parts of the pattern and rhythm. Mom's pretty cool like that.

"We also ate some food at that Fish Stew Pizza place," Quilene interjects. "That place is so good, I swear."

"So then you're not hungry?" Mom asks, somewhat disappointed by the sound of it.

Quilene shakes her head. "No."

"That's too bad. I was hoping to help Pearl make some eggplant parmigiana for dinner and serve it to you guys."

"Sorry, but we're full," Jonah replies while dragging out the word "full." "We got some pizza to go if you want some later."

"Well, thank you, Jonah. That's actually very thoughtful of you guys."

"No problem, Mom."

"Why don't you come in? We've just hooked the Nintendo GameCube up to the living room TV and are about to play Mario Party 4."

My face beams up. "Oh, okay! That sounds like fun!"

"Yeah, I wanna play!" Quilene chimes in.

Later that night, Quilene and I go off into different rooms and decide to turn in for the night. While Quilene heads off to sleep with Jonah in his bed, I decide to crawl under the covers in bed and do a FaceTime call with April just before I'm supposed to sleep.

"How are you tonight?" I ask April.

"I'm alright," April replies. "I really missed spending time with you."

"Me too. Thank God for spring break, huh?"

"Yeah." April clears her throat. "So what now? I can't wait until you graduate in 2050 so we won't have to do this long-distance thing anymore. The question is, can we actually make it to 2050?"

Is April expressing doubts about our relationship, and maintaining it over several hundred miles no less? It would've been nice if she'd brought this up while I was taking her home, but dropping this on me now? I'm not sure what to say to that. Truth be told, I've been having similar doubts. University life is hard. A long-distance relationship is hard. Doing both at the same time is even harder. I want to have faith in our relationship surviving hundreds of miles from Beach City to New Brunswick, but there are days where I wonder if it would be easier to break up and spare each other any more waiting time. As tempting as that sounds, I wonder if it would be even more unfair to break up than to keep going. After all, we've been together since last summer. Would it be a good idea to break up now when we haven't even experienced the worst of a long-distance relationship?

"Hope?" April asks me. "Are you still there?"

I snap out of my train of thought. "Oh yeah, sorry, my mind was wandering off. Yeah, we can make it to 2050, totally. If we're going to do that, though, we'll have to make an effort to contact each other at least once a day and remember to send an occasional package. We'll also need to make sure to talk through our problems effectively."

"That sounds like a good idea. And we'll definitely visit each other when given the chance, right?"

"Of course. Just don't forget how much I love you, okay?"

"Okay. And don't forget how much I love you."

"I won't, April. I promise."

"Thanks, Hope. That means so much to me. Okay, good night. I hope to see you again tomorrow."

"You too." I kiss her through the phone.

April does the same before hanging up. I flop back in my old bed and sigh dreamily. Damn, I love that woman so much. I just need to have faith that we will be together forever. I don't know what I'd do without her.