Chapter 15

CHAPTER

15

FOURTEEN YEARS AGO

“What do you think so far?”

I thumbed the corner of the page, trying to decide how I wanted to phrase my thoughts. We were lounging on the hill overlooking the Inner Harbor, boats meandering past the Baltimore skyline on the other side of the water. It was a cool and gray spring day—not ideal for a picnic, but we had stopped by a local café to grab a couple sandwiches to go. Now, post-lunch, we sprawled on a rough, key-patterned blanket on the grassy knoll behind the park benches, swapping books.

Teddy nudged my foot with his, trying to get my attention. He was lying on his back, my own battered and annotated copy of The Wars of the Roses fanned across his chest.

“It’s good, but it feels…” I hesitated, not wanting to hurt his feelings. He’d recommended the book, after all. “I don’t know. Reductive? I just feel like history is more complicated than the author’s making it out to be.”

He marked his page in Gillingham with a finger before propping up on an elbow to look at me, squinting one eye against the blinding gray overcast. “It’s more enjoyable if you remember that it’s sort of interdisciplinary,” he said. “It’s not written for historians so much as for the average reader. Someone who wouldn’t normally pick up a history book.”

“No, I get that,” I said. “It’s just that—well, it’s really broad. I don’t necessarily disagree with him, but…”

“… but it’s maybe not your favorite approach to history?”

I gave him a weak smile. “Maybe not.”

He leaned back against the blanket, folding an arm behind his head. “I’ve thought a lot about what you said that one time. About how you like history because people have always been people.”

“Did I say that?” I flipped onto my stomach so that I could read more comfortably.

He nodded. “I think I like it because they’re all dead.”

“Wow. That’s dark.”

He chuckled under his breath, casting a sidelong glance at me. “I just mean… you can spend your whole life trying to figure people out and they’ll still surprise you. You never know for sure what they’re going to do next. But everybody in here”—he tapped the cover of The Wars of the Roses with his index finger—“their whole lives are behind them. And we’ve got it all in front of us, charters and log books and love letters, and it’s all down to what we make of it. How we choose to interpret it.”

“Makes sense,” I said. “But even dead people can surprise you.”

He hummed thoughtfully. For a moment, we fell silent. A light breeze swept over the hillside, whispering through the budding trees and rustling the pages of my book so that I had to hold them down with a finger.

“I’ve been thinking that might be what I want to study.”

“Dead people?”

“History,” he said, with a slight tilt of his head, like he was conceding that it was more or less the same thing. “I’ve done a year of general ed, I’m overdue to pick a major. And it’s the only thing that really interests me.” He paused again, contemplating. I tried not to feel too flattered that my passion for history had rubbed off on him, but it was almost impossible. “And if I focus on research, I might not have to deal with all that many people,” he said finally.

“Living people, that is.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know why you worry so much,” I said with a sigh. “You get along with me just fine.”

“I’ve told you.” He shifted onto his side again, closing his book and setting it on the blanket between us. He rested his hand there, firmly on the book but mere inches from my waist. “You’re different.”

“I know you’ve said that.” I licked my lips and his gaze dropped to my mouth. “I guess I’ve just never really known what you mean by it.”

“Sort of like—” He hesitated, then groaned and rolled onto his back. “Never mind. It’s going to sound ridiculous.”

“No. Tell me.”

He sighed. “Do you think it’s possible that you’re meant to meet someone?”

“What, like fate?” I asked.

He was quiet for a long moment, head angled toward me, eyes searching my face. My heart was pounding, though I wasn’t sure why. “I don’t know,” he said softly. “Maybe.”

With most things, I was a skeptic. I didn’t believe it until I’d googled it, read everything I could find on a given subject. But maybe I wasn’t so skeptical about fate. After all, maybe it was fate that we met in the cafeteria that rainy day, fate that we drew the same number during the three-legged race. Fate that our birthdays were a day apart, as though Teddy was born and the universe realized the next day that it had almost forgotten his twin flame.

I didn’t mean to leave him hanging. But him staring at me like that was making me feel all sorts of things I shouldn’t have been feeling, so I forced myself to look down at the book, still splayed open in front of me. “Blueprints and Borrowed Letters,” the chapter title read—and beneath that, the page was freckled with water. I looked up at the sky, flinching when a drop landed on my cheek. “Looks like it’s starting to rain.”

Teddy glanced skyward. “Huh.”

And then, before either of us had a chance to react, the sky opened up, like it had only been waiting for acknowledgment.

I squealed as we gathered everything haphazardly in our arms, books and crumpled-up sandwich wrappers. Teddy canopied the blanket over our heads and I ducked in close, the scent of him mingling with the earthy smell of rain. We made a beeline for the Volvo. At the driver side door, I fumbled with the keys. Teddy waited until I was inside the car to hurry around to the passenger side and then collapsed into his seat.

We looked at each other, breathless and laughing. I remembered two things at once: first, a similar sprint to shelter, one I took with Izzy three years ago, the day Teddy and I first met; second, that he had asked me a question just moments ago, and in our bid to outrun the rain, I hadn’t answered.

“Yes,” I panted.

His grin faltered. His eyes darted to my lips and back up again. “What?”

“Yes, I believe in fate.”

He held my gaze for a beat, his damp hair curling at the ends and glasses flecked with water. The rain beat against the roof of the car, streaked down the windows, shielding us from the outside world. Then he leaned across the center console, took my chin in his hand, and pulled me toward him, lips meeting mine in the middle.

It was only awkward for a second, finding our bearings, but his mouth was warm and inviting, and so I melted into the kiss. His tongue parted my lips, sending a wave of heat crashing through me. I’d never been kissed before; I’d tried to imagine it countless times, but this was so much more real.

And that terrified me. I broke the kiss, drawing back a little. His eyes searched my face, thumb still tracing my jaw.

“Sorry,” I whispered. “It’s just—”

“No, I’m sorry.” He sighed and leaned back in his seat, hand sliding from my face. “I shouldn’t have done that.”

“No, it’s—” I shook my head, reaching for his hand and interlacing my fingers with his. “I’m glad you did it.” There were a million thoughts buzzing around my head, emotions that I didn’t know how to name. But we were only seventeen. I remembered what Teddy had said last year about not letting anyone stand in the way of his goals. I pictured my future the way Teddy talked about the past—primary sources spread across a desktop, tattered books and text messages and half-finished applications to Ivy Leagues. I couldn’t afford to feel this way, because it could only mean one of two things: either we’d suffer through years of long distance, or one of us would have to compromise. Kissing dream schools goodbye for the sake of living closer to one another, one of us working a dead-end job while the other earned a degree they might never use. Like my parents. Like his parents. The thought of it was suffocating.

That didn’t mean I wanted to let go of whatever this was. But Teddy was my best friend. And I needed a friend right now, more than I needed a boyfriend. I took a deep breath. “Teddy, I—”

“I’m leaving for Greece,” he blurted. I snapped my mouth shut, stunned into silence. “As soon as the semester’s over. To visit my aunt and uncle for the first week, but then my lab partner invited me to go backpacking around Europe with some friends.”

I should’ve been relieved. And I was, in a way—relieved that he wasn’t asking anything of me, wasn’t making any grandiose promises that neither of us would be able to keep in the long run. But equally, I was sad. A sort of premature loneliness washed over me, knowing that I wouldn’t see him for a while. I wouldn’t be able to text him that I needed a distraction and have him show up at my door the next day, a folded blanket tucked under his arm and his backpack crammed with used books.

The rain outside had lessened, but water still streaked down the windshield so that Federal Hill Park looked like an Impressionist painting.

“Just for the summer,” Teddy clarified. “I’ll be back in August for school.”

“I guess that means we should maybe put a pin in the whole conversation,” I said quietly. “If I’m not going to see you for a few months.”

After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded once, decisive. “Okay. We’ll wait.”