The last one I put away says:

Below it is a date from almost fifteen years ago, which would have been right around the time I met Kate. Then right below that is the date Kate came to the University of Iowa.

As I’m putting the last of the notes in the box, the door swings open. “What are you doing with those?” Kate asks, hurrying across the room.

“I was just putting them away for you,” I answer, watching the panic wash over her face.

She glances at the one I hold in my hand, and her eyes shoot to mine. “You were the first person I gave my heart to and the last.”

“And I thank God every day for that.” Grabbing her hand in mine, I kiss each of her fingers before placing the napkin in her hand. “You’ve had mine for a long time, and I’ve never asked to have it back. It’s yours to keep.”

“That’s one of the reasons I love you, Beau Bennett,” she says as a single tear rolls down her cheek. “You loved me when I pushed you away. You loved me when I was lost. You loved me when you didn’t even know if you were going to get a chance with me. It takes true love to do that.”

There’s something I’ve been dying to ask her since the day she came back to me. I’m not sure why I even want to know, but I do, even if the answer kills me. “If Asher was still here, would I have ever had a chance with you?”

She watches me with her mouth hanging wide open. I wish she could feel how fast my heart is beating right now. In a way, I’m asking her if she’s settling for me, and it’s so f**king unfair.

“Wait, don’t answer that. We’re supposed to be moving forward.”

She catches me off guard by wrapping her arms around my neck and resting her forehead on mine. “Do you ever give much thought to coincidences?” she asks in a hushed tone.

“No,” I whisper.

“Like, if my mom hadn’t decided to move to Carrington, I would never have met you. If she hadn’t picked the house next to yours, we wouldn’t have been so close. Life is mapped out by a series of choices and coincidences … miracles and fate are figments of a dreamer’s imagination.”

I stare at her, trying to draw the lines between her words. I hear what she’s saying, but I’m not sure where she’s going with it.

She continues, “If Drew hadn’t hurt me, I think we’d be together just like we are now, but I appreciate you so much more because of the journey we took to get here. If Asher hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer, he wouldn’t have come to Carrington, and I would never have met him. It was our situations that brought us together so to answer your question, I don’t think it was ever possible for Asher to be my forever. That’s not the map that was laid out for either of us … I honestly believe he was meant to lead me back to you.” She pauses, kissing me softly. “I was always meant to be with you.”

I let her words sink in and then wrap my arms around her, lifting her to sit on my lap. Burying my head in her neck, I smell her sweet perfume. “I couldn’t love you any more than I do right now.”

“Yes, you can. I’ll prove it to you.”

“How are you going to do that?” I ask, kissing her forehead.

She bites that pink lower lip of hers, which always driving me freaking crazy. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

We sit quietly for several minutes, listening to the rain hit the window. Her head rests against my chest as I rub my hands up and down her back. When she sits up, a slight smile highlights her face.

Holding her face in my hands, I run my thumbs along her jaw line. “Are you okay?”

She nods. “The rain always makes me smile.”

I smile back at her. “Are you ready to get French fries and ice cream?”

“Yeah,” she answers sweetly, “I am.”

Chapter 8

Four Months Later — May 2013

A YEAR AGO, IF YOU HAD TOLD ME I’d finish my first year of college, I would have laughed. Actually, I probably would have cried because that was the point I was at in my life.

Today, though, I’m doing just that. Beau’s packing the last of his things into his truck and then coming here to pick up some of mine. One of the perks of having an apartment is getting to leave a bunch of the big stuff behind.

This second semester has been bittersweet. Everything is going great with Beau and me. I was finally able to make some girlfriends I could talk to about things, but then Emery unexpectedly left. She’d started dating Drake not long after the party that Beau and Cory threw in their apartment. They’d had their ups and downs, but I think that’s normal when two passionate people come together.

I’d walked into our dorm room one Friday, not too long after my meltdown on the anniversary of Asher’s death, and found her packing a bag. She didn’t have a trip planned that I was aware of, and the sadness in her eyes told me she hadn’t had a good day.

I throw my backpack on my bed and begin to unlace my tennis shoes. I don’t notice at first, but Emery is throwing clothes into a duffel bag and when she faces me, her cheeks are covered in tear stains. She had told me she was visiting Drake today, and I can only imagine that he’s the cause of all this.

“Hey, what’s the matter?” I ask, closing the distance between us.

She stops for a few seconds before picking up some more clothes. “I need to go home this weekend.”

“Did something happen?”

“Of course something happened, but I knew it would. You warned me, but I didn’t listen.” Her shoulders shake with sobs as she covers her face with her hands.

Wrapping my arms around her waist, I say, “What did he do? I swear to God if he hurt you, I’m going to kick his ass.”

“He did exactly what I was afraid he’d do.” She pauses, shaking her head. “You know, I never completely opened myself up to my high school boyfriend because I knew it wouldn’t last. I was going to college, and he didn’t have any dreams about getting out of our small town. Drake’s different. He has dreams, and he keeps me honest. I never thought he’d be the one to break my heart like this. He lied to me.”

“What do you mean?”

She wiggles from my hold and goes back to throwing more clothes into her bag. “I don’t want to talk about it right now. I’m going to go home this weekend and when I get back, we’ll talk.”

“Okay,” I reply, giving her some space. I hate seeing her like this, but I’m not surprised that Drake caused it. The two of them are so stubborn; I knew their relationship wouldn’t be easy.

I just hoped for her sake it wouldn’t be like this.

Emery never came back after that weekend, and when I finally found out why, it took everything I had not to go after Drake. He hurt her, and I think he knew it because he left school, too. Both of their lives are changed forever because of what happened to him, what happened to her, and what they’re trying to face without the support of each other.

And she’s making me keep a secret … one that I don’t think she should be holding on to. I’m hoping she gets things figured out soon because it’s not something she should be carrying on her own. Maybe someday things will fall into place for her, and she’ll be able to come back to school. I’m really missing her.

As I pack a picture of the three of us together from a few months ago, I hear my phone ring in my purse. I fall back onto my bed and grab it, quickly answering before it goes to voicemail.

“Hello.”

“Hey, beautiful, are you ready for me?” It’s the sexy, deep tone Beau saves just for me.

“I’m always ready for you.”

He laughs at my insinuation—that’s really sexy, too. “Your first year of college really changed you from my sweet, innocent Kate to my naughty little tigress. I can’t wait to see what next year will do to you.”

Rolling my eyes, I flip onto my back. “I don’t know if you’ll be able to handle what next year does to me, Beau.”

“Don’t worry about me. I can handle anything.” He’s not lying when he says that. There’s nothing I can really throw at him that will be worse than he’s already dealt with.

“Are you on your way over?” I ask, staring up at the dorm room ceiling. Surprisingly, this is the first time I’ve paid much attention to it, but I’m glad; it’s just a bunch of square tiles with a few coated in water stains.

“Yeah, I’m just going to say goodbye to Cory, and then I’ll be there. Do you need me to bring anything?”

“If you have an extra box, I could use it.”

“I’ll see what I can do. See you in a little bit,” he says.

“Okay. I’ll be lying in bed thinking about you,” I tease running a few strands of hair between my fingers.

He groans into the phone, which makes me grin. “You’re in trouble, Kate.”

He doesn’t wait for my response before hanging up the phone. I’m very excited to see what kind of trouble he means.

I lie on top of the navy blue comforter and glance around the brightly lit room. Little pieces of Emery still linger; she let me keep a few pictures she brought from home. They’re black and whites of New York City. She wants to live there after she gets out of school, and I hope that’s something she can still make her reality. I get up from the bed and start taking them down one by one.

A knock at the door halts my thoughts. As I open it, I find Rachel’s smiling face looking back at me. “Hey, I thought you left already,” I say, returning her smile.

“It’s nice to see you, too,” she teases, walking past me.

“That’s not what I meant and you know it.”

“Have you heard from Emery? I tried to call her a few days ago, but she hasn’t returned it yet.”

I sigh, remembering the last conversation I had with Emery. Her life’s been flipped upside down, a complete one-eighty from where she thought she was going at the beginning of the school year. “I talked to her a couple days ago. I guess he came to see her last week out of the blue, and it didn’t go well at all. She didn’t have much time to talk because she had to get to work so I didn’t get the whole story. Maybe we should go visit her this summer to cheer her up.”