Every Day

“You’ll find the things in him that you find in me,” I tell her. “Without the complications.”

“I can’t just switch like that.”

“I know. He’ll have to prove it to you. Every day, he’ll have to prove he’s worthy of you. And if he doesn’t, that’s it. But I think he will.”

“Why are you doing this?”

“Because I have to go, Rhiannon. For real this time. I have to go far away. There are things I need to find out. And I can’t keep stepping into your life. You need something more than that.”

“So this is goodbye?”

“It’s goodbye to some things. And hello to others.”

I want him to remember how it feels to hold her. I want him to remember how it feels to share the world with her. I want him, somewhere inside, to remember how much I love her. And I want him to learn to love her in his own way, having nothing to do with me.

I had to ask Poole if it was really possible. I had to ask him if he could really teach me.

He promised he could. He told me we could work together.

There was no hesitation. No warning. No acknowledgment of the lives we’d be destroying.

That’s when I knew for sure I had to run away.

She holds me. She holds me so hard there’s no thought in it of letting go.

“I love you,” I tell her. “Like I’ve never loved anyone before.”

“You always say that,” she says. “But don’t you realize it’s the same for me? I’ve never loved anyone like this, either.”

“But you will,” I say. “You will again.”

If you stare at the center of the universe, there is a coldness there. A blankness. Ultimately, the universe doesn’t care about us. Time doesn’t care about us.

That’s why we have to care about each other.

The minutes are passing. Midnight is approaching.

“I want to fall asleep next to you,” I whisper.

This is my last wish.

She nods, agrees.

We leave the tree house, run quickly through the night to get back to the light of the house, the music we’ve left behind. 11:13. 11:14. We go to the bedroom and take off our shoes. 11:15. 11:16. She gets in the bed and I turn off the lights. I join her there.

I lie on my back and she curls into me. I am reminded of a beach, an ocean.

There is so much to say, but there’s no point in saying it. We already know.

She reaches up to my cheek, turns my head. Kisses me. Minute after minute after minute, we kiss.

“I want you to remember that tomorrow,” she says.

Then we return to breathing. We return to lying there. Sleep approaches.

“I’ll remember everything,” I tell her.

“So will I,” she promises.

I will never have a photograph of her to carry around in my pocket. I will never have a letter in her handwriting, or a scrap-book of everything we’ve done. I will never share an apartment with her in the city. I will never know if we are listening to the same song at the same time. We will not grow old together. I will not be the person she calls when she’s in trouble. She will not be the person I call when I have stories to tell. I will never be able to keep anything she’s given to me.

I watch her as she falls asleep next to me. I watch her as she breathes. I watch her as the dreams take hold.

This memory.

I will only have this.

I will always have this.

He will remember this, too. He will feel this. He will know it’s been a perfect afternoon, a perfect evening.

He will wake up next to her, and he will feel lucky.

Times moves on. The universe stretches out. I take a Post-it of a heart and move it from my body to hers. I see it sitting there.

I close my eyes. I say goodbye. I fall asleep.

Day 6034

I wake up two hours away, in the body of a girl named Katie.

Katie doesn’t know it, but today she’s going far away from here. It will be a total disruption to her routine, a complete twist in the way her life is supposed to go. But she has the luxury of time to smooth it out. Over the course of her life, this day will be a slight, barely noticeable aberration.

But for me, it is the change of the tide. For me, it is the start of a present that has both a past and a future.

For the first time in my life, I run.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For most of the novels I’ve written, there’s been a definite starting point—the spark of an idea that turned into the story. Usually I remember it. But for this book, I must admit I don’t. But I do remember three pivotal moments that pushed me into writing it. The first was a conversation with John Green while we were on tour. The second was a conversation with Suzanne Collins while she was on tour. And the third was an afternoon at Billy Merrell’s apartment, where I read him the first chapter (all that had been written at that point) and paid very careful attention to his reaction. I’d like to thank all three of them for giving me fuel for the fire. And I’d like to thank the man who was driving me and John, for keeping his promise not to steal the idea and publish it first.