In which the passage of time is charted by flights of fancy.


When they were five, he stuck a spider down the back of her shirt.

When they were six, she snuck rocks into his daily tub of blueberries.

When they were seven, he locked her out of the house during a playdate.

When they were eight, she stole his gym shorts and flew them up the school flagpole.

When they were nine, he detuned all the keys in her favorite piano.

When they were ten, she swapped his Optimus Prime figure with a Bratz doll during the ride to school.

When they were eleven, he read part of her diary over the school PA system.

When they were twelve, she let everyone know about his secret crush on Jin Mai Xio.

When they were thirteen, he hacked her phone to randomly turn on and make farting sounds.

When they were fourteen, she covertly and randomly swapped lunches with him throughout the year, especially when she got food she knew he hated.

When they were fifteen, he swapped all her tampons with sugar packets. When she had her period later that week (and was forced to ask Suki for supplies), he apologized by getting her three giant bars of Hershey's Cookies 'n Cream.

When they were sixteen, she surprised herself by offering to sleep with him, and he surprised himself by saying yes.

When they were seventeen, he rigged her bookshelf to collapse (safely, of course). She returned the favor by posting a photo of his personalized copy of Twilight to Facebook.

When they were eighteen, she decided to skip college and travel the world. He wanted to try sex one more time before she left. She said yes.

When they were nineteen, he sent a photo to her Peace Corps station depicting her in front of a gargantuan mansion and surrounded by burly young men. She did not appreciate the lame photoshop.

When they were twenty, she sent him two bottles of über-pure Russian vodka with the note "Dare you." He later regretted trying to chug the whole thing at once.

When they were twenty-one, he took a leave of absence from college, abandoning his pre-law studies in order to follow her around the globe.

When they were twenty-two, she made him go bungee jumping in New Zealand.

When they were twenty-three, he snuck her into the Louvre after hours and they made love underneath Mona Lisa.

When they were twenty-four, she declared it was time to go home. He didn't argue with her.

When they were twenty-five, he surprised himself by asking her to marry him, and she surprised herself by saying yes.