Epilogue Three Years Later

HE KNOWS SHE'Sout there in the crowd somewhere, but it's all a blur of violet.

Admittedly, the ceremony isn't the most thrilling. He has always been a rule-follower, though, so he tries his best to pay attention. There's an overwhelming swell of emotion in his chest amid all the pomp and circumstance, one he didn't expect, and he's grateful for it, even if endings are complicated.

When his name is called, he crosses the stage, accepts his diploma, tries not to trip over his gown. Glances toward the stands again—and there. He's certain he sees her now, on her feet and clapping, the sun glinting off her new short hair as she holds her hands to her mouth and yells out what must be his name. The same way he did at her graduation last week.

After he's exchanged hugs and posed for photos with everyone he's ever interacted with at NYU, plus at least a dozen he hasn't, she finds him on the field. His mom and stepdad and sister are close behind, but she gets to him first.

"Welcome to semi-adulthood," she says before throwing her arms around his neck, kissing the space beneath his ear. Later, she'll assert that her school's commencement speaker was much more engaging than the one at his ceremony. A friendly competition, because that's something they've never quite outgrown.

At dinner, they answer about a hundred questions from his parents about their future plans, half of which they've answered already. Somehow, it's almost time for his sister to start thinking about colleges of her own, which seems outrageous because what is time.

Then, when everyone's deposited at their hotels for the night, the two of them hop the B train and make the increasingly familiar trek to Brooklyn.

The Flatbush walk-up isn't much to look at. Ivy snaking up the brick, a troublesome stair that the landlord swore he was going to get fixed before they moved in and then proceeded not to. It's their first apartment, and it is, in most basic terms, a shithole. But it's their shithole, with its closet-size bathroom and peeling linoleum, and that makes it perfect.

The centerpiece of the tiny living room is their overflowing bookshelf, standing proud in a sea of boxes they haven't unpacked yet.

"We might have to knock down this wall just to make room for all the books," she quips when she stumbles into a stack of Nora Roberts and quickly rights them.

"Not sure how our neighbors would feel about that."

There's a beautiful simplicity in that statement: our neighbors. They've only lived together for a week, since she graduated and hauled her stuff to New York, and yet the novelty of it refuses to wear off. She hopes it never does.

She drapes her cardigan over the back of a chair, docks her phone to play some music, and pats the Craigslist couch for him to come sit next to her.

Not yet.

It might be his graduation, but he has a surprise for her that he picked up from the frame shop last week, wrapped in brown paper.

She eyes it suspiciously when he digs it out from underneath their bed. "I thought we said we were going to make all decor decisions together. If this is Star Wars related, I might have to exercise veto power."

He swipes a hand through his hair, laughs. "Just open it."

As she tears away the paper, he watches her eyes land on the confession he wrote for her all those years ago on the last day of high school, now preserved behind glass. He blushed when the saleswoman definitely didn't try hard enough to avert her eyes, flicking over his eighteen-year-old penmanship. It's mounted alongside the piece of writing she mailed him freshman year of college, two precious artifacts of their relationship.

And now they'll get to see them every day.

"My heart is about to give out, I think," she says, dragging a fingertip along the walnut frame. His heart might be, too, seeing that expression on her face. "This is beautiful." She tugs him down by his tie, mouth meeting his in an urgent, dizzying kiss. They make sure the frame is safely out of reach before he slides his body on top of hers.

Monday will be her first day as a marketing assistant at a publishing house, one that's put out some of her favorite romance novels, and she'll continue to work on her own in her spare time. He'll take the next couple months off before starting grad school in the fall, the next step on his psychology journey. They finally made it to Europe last summer, a three-week backpacking trip that turned into four because they had to do just one more country. And then one more after that. They hiked the Swiss Alps, fed sheep in the Scottish Highlands, kissed on canal bridges in Amsterdam.

Even though their story that began eight years ago has now taken them across the world, the best part is when his face is the first thing she sees when she wakes up and the last thing she sees before falling asleep. The soft warmth of his gaze and the glow of his freckles, the way he loves her smile and her nose and her hair at any length—and never stops telling her.

One day, maybe he will get down on one knee and make all of this permanent. Or maybe she will; they've never cared much for traditional gender roles. Maybe it will be a day like today, attached to some major life event. Maybe it will be planned out months in advance, every detail meticulously crafted, or maybe it will be a quiet moment in bed, just the two of them, a whispered question and an emphatic, confident answer.

But tonight, they have this: the future they fought for and the promise they continue to make every single day.

A promise that started with two stuck-together pages in the back of a yearbook.