Chapter 20 Neil

"YOU LOOK… HOLYshit," I say when she opens the door to her parents' hotel room. Then I crane my neck to see around her, waving to Ilana and Jared. "In fact, I'm not sure I should finish that sentence with your parents in the room."

Rowan grins her lovely, magnetic grin. Nudges my arm. "You are amazing for my self-esteem."

A familiar warmth spreads all the way down to my toes, that full-body glow I can never get enough of when she's around. She's in a vintage black dress that seems tailor-made for her curves, with a tight bodice and flared skirt, lace sleeves, and a hint of shimmer. With her wavy hair pinned to one side and a swipe of red across her lips, she could be a 1940s starlet on her way to a movie premiere. Rowan has made me speechless a fair number of times in my life. I used to lament the fact that we were never able to attend any high school dances as a couple, but it was probably for the best: I wouldn't have been able to keep my jaw off the floor. The past week has been a study in patience. That mix of exhaustion and dread has followed me around, trailed me like a shadow. All I've wanted is to get to today, and yet my classes have felt endless.

School must have you pretty busy.

Miss you, buddy.

Maybe the worst of it is that in any other context, his words would be wholly innocuous.

Even after discussing it with my mom, I haven't been able to get the letter off my mind. Skyler hasn't said anything about it; in fact, he and I have exchanged only pleasantries lately. I can't tell if he's tiptoeing around me or if we've both made a silent agreement not to acknowledge it. Again and again, I've told myself that everything will be okay the next time Rowan and I see each other.

It has to be.

She got to New York late last night and stayed at the hotel with her parents, and we planned a fancy date night before the book event. This rooftop Italian restaurant in Chelsea has spectacular views, city lights just starting to blink on at dusk, and it's early enough in the evening that we were able to snag a reservation. Although I don't have to force smiles with nearly as much effort as I do with everyone else, it feels like we're dining with an uninvited third guest. One Rowan can't see but is all too real to me.

As soon as we're seated, a blond girl passes our table—and then doubles back. "Hey!" she says. "I swear, this city really does feel like a small town sometimes."

"Hey," I say. "Rowan, Zoe. Zoe, this is my girlfriend, Rowan."

Zoe's face lights up as she bends to give Rowan a hug, lifting her eyebrows at first as though to ask if Rowan's a hugger. Rowan smiles, accepts the hug. "Rowan! I've heard so much about you. Amazing to meet you."

"You too," she says. "A little preview of tomorrow?"

Zoe laughs. We all had plans to hang out tomorrow so Rowan could meet everyone. "Guess so. Your scavenger hunt was a blast, by the way."

This makes Rowan beam. "I'm so glad. It's funny, I used to hate losing to him in high school, but I don't mind it as much anymore."

"Probably because I gloat a lot less?"

"It's true. He was so sneaky about that last photo, it took us a moment to realize the game was even over." Then Zoe gestures to a table with a few other girls I don't recognize. "I better get back before they finish all the burrata."

We exchange goodbyes as she hurries to her table.

And then, because I am a massive idiot, I say: "She has a boyfriend."

Rowan pauses while reaching for a slice of focaccia. "Okay," she says, drawing out the two syllables. "You're allowed to have friends who are single girls. I don't know why you needed to say that so quickly."

"Sorry." I fidget with the edge of a cloth napkin. Idiot, idiot, idiot. "It's just—this is stupid, really silly, and I should have told you when it happened. But back in the fall, I was at a party with Skyler, and she asked if I was single. Which… I'm obviously not. And then she started dating Steve, so. No big deal."

"Oh." She places the bread back in the basket. "Did any part of you… wish you were? Single?"

"No," I say emphatically. "Not once. I swear to you, that's never crossed my mind."

"Maybe we should talk about this. It's okay to admit that you find other people attractive. I'm not expecting you to go through your life with tunnel vision."

I shake my head, letting my shoe tap hers beneath the table while I wrap a fist around the napkin in my lap, my thumb warping the fabric. I've already screwed up my psych grade and my friendship with Skyler—I can't screw things up with her, which includes making her feel anything less than fully adored. I'm still kicking myself for how I reacted in Boston when she mentioned my dad. She shouldn't have ever had to see that mask slip.

"Artoo… I don't know how to say this in a way that doesn't make me sound completely lovesick, but I suppose that's what I am." A warmth creeps onto my cheeks as I lower my voice, reaching a hand across the table to link my fingers with hers. It nearly breaks me, imagining her feeling at all insecure when she looks this fucking radiant—as made up as she is tonight or as soft as she is first thing in the morning. "No one else has ever affected me the way you do."

"Even though you're in a city of eight million people?" She rubs her thumb along my index finger, a gentle brush that's all too easy to relax into. She's not upset. I should have told her about Zoe earlier, but she's not upset.

"They're all swamp hags."

"They're most definitely not," she says with a laugh, the sound loosening the pressure in my lungs, "but okay."

The food arrives, the slight disagreement forgotten as we lose ourselves in eggplant parmesan and delicate spinach gnocchi.

"I may have had a breakthrough in creative writing," she says between bites, and tells me about an epiphany sparked by her professor's advice to write badly. I just blink at her for a few moments after she says this. "Is your overachiever brain short-circuiting? Because mine did when she first mentioned it."

"A little, yes."

"I swear to you, it works. It might be the best worst thing I've ever written," she says. "But most importantly, I'm having fun with it."

I'm happy for her—of course I am. She deserves to be optimistic about her writing, for it to bring her joy.

At the same time, I can't deny there's a shred of envy at seeing her so settled. At Emerson, with her major, in Boston. Maybe it's a remnant from all our years of competition, or maybe it's something entirely new, but whatever it is, it feels vile and deeply unwelcome.

"You'll show me?" I ask, locking all of that in the box of things I cannot talk about, the one I wish had a tighter lid. The cloth napkin in my lap is a wrinkled wreck. "When you have something you're ready to share?"

"I may be enlightened, but not enlightened enough to show you this garbage. Yet." Still, she finds my hand again, brings it to her mouth to drop a kiss onto my knuckles. "Soon, though. Hopefully."

As I reach for the check, Rowan suggests splitting it.

"You don't have to be chivalrous," she says. "You know I don't care about that stuff."

"I know. I just—we never go on dates like this." I slide my credit card into the billfold, having prepared for this after what happened in the sushi restaurant. "I want to treat you."

"Fine, but I'm getting it next time."

The bookstore is a ten-minute walk away, and it's an unseasonably warm evening. With each step, my body loosens up a bit more. A magnificent relief—I only want to be my best self when I'm with her.

"Imagine if we lived here," I say, hand threaded with hers as we pass a quartet of musicians, a guy with a cello strapped to his back trailing three violinists. "If we could go back to our apartment at the end of the day and crawl into bed together. Not just once in a while like this, but every night."

The way that vision aches. The times we've talked about the future, it's always seemed so far away, with so many classes and exams and flights and train rides in between. But we've almost made it through this year. It's impossible not to think ahead in a long-distance relationship—to the time you'll finally be in the same place.

"Maybe we could. After graduation. Of course, the rent would be so astronomical that we'd never be able to afford a meal like this again." She turns her face toward mine. "Speaking of… we really need to book those tickets. Flying into London and out of Rome, right?" That was what we discussed during our last call about it.

Two weeks ago. Before the letter arrived.

"I know, I know." The anxiety starts its slow ascent up my spine again. "We will. Tomorrow."

Because here is what I've decided: I don't know if I can go on that trip.

I've saved up, and I still have a decent chunk of the Howl money. Truthfully, I can't imagine anything else I'd rather spend it on. But that's not the reason, even if it's the one she's likelier to understand.

Ever since that goddamn letter arrived, it's been impossible to imagine the two of us traipsing around Europe, a vacation that should be joyful and illuminating and wildly romantic. I'd be this storm cloud following her around, a heavy weight on her back.

I wish I could picture myself happy there with her, and I don't know what it means that I suddenly can't.

Though he went to prison long before I showed any real interest in girls, somehow my thoughts take on my father's voice.

What a fucking loser. Can't even keep your girlfriend satisfied.

He is always there, a ghoulish reminder of the family I once had, the pain my mom tried to hide from the rest of us. I must be doomed never to move on when it's what I want more than anything in the world.

"My parents looked through our itinerary," Rowan continues, and I will myself to remain in the moment. "They thought we should spend one less night in Dublin so we could spend more time on the coast, but that should be easy enough when we book the hotels."

"Right." The single syllable sounds so foreign, I'm not even sure my mouth is moving. I'm about to disappoint her. Ruin her summer.

The sleeves of my suit are too tight, the collar of my shirt too stiff. These clothes are choking me, and suddenly it all feels like too much. A swirl of confusion and worry, all trying to yank me back to that dark place where I couldn't get out of bed.

Another thought, entirely unbidden:

She deserves better.

I'm not sure if this one's in my dad's voice or mine.

She keeps talking about Europe but I can barely process any of it, which makes me feel even guiltier. There must be guys at Emerson who have money, guys who could take her out and not balk at the size of the bill. Guys without family baggage. Guys who don't have to try so hard to be happy when they should be having the time of their lives.

True, she chose me once. But that version of me seems more and more like a stranger, and there may come a time when I've changed too much, become too unfamiliar. Someone to be pitied—no longer an equal, the way we were through high school.

A sharp pain in my chest makes me stop abruptly on the sidewalk. Suddenly I can't catch my breath, my lungs tightening and my throat closing up and—no. I have to stay in control.

"Hey, you okay?" Rowan's expression is unlike any I've seen before. This pure and genuine worry, one that she shouldn't have to feel.

I thought I could keep it away while she was here. Keep that monster hidden.

Because as soon as I acknowledge any sliver of it, I know it's all going to tumble out. The fear and insecurity and loneliness and loathing. Proof I am becoming a poor facsimile of the person she loved.

Everything is burning, sweat dripping down my back, and is this what a heart attack feels like? Have I been too dismissive of the signs, and this is what it was all barreling toward? My hands fly to my neck. This tie. Why did I wear a fucking tie?

"Of course. Sorry. Just, uh—too warm, I guess," I say, my thumbs stumbling over the knot at my throat.

She steps closer, lamplight casting her features in a delicate glow. "Let me?" she asks, leaning in so that she can undo the tie.

Instant relief—that's what it is. Her words are so steady. Calming. I cling to this feeling like a life preserver. Then she flicks open the top button of my shirt, kissing me lightly. I can finally drag in a full breath, my shoulders sinking back into place. I refocus on this gorgeous, clever girl who somehow chose me. The girl whose ambition I admired long before I could decipher my true feelings, the girl who challenges me in all the best ways.

I am so fucking lucky, and tonight I'm going to make sure she knows it.

I dip my head until my lips brush her ear. "What I wanted to say earlier was that you look incredibly hot in that dress. I've been having some very indecent thoughts."

"And you know how I feel about you in a tie."

"You might have to tell me a few more times."

"I will," she says. "All night, probably, while we act out your indecent thoughts." God. I may not make it until then. An innocent smile, and then she gives my collar a tug. "Now. Onward to make fools of ourselves in front of several dozen small children."