The deeper I go into the box, the more I recognize things I haven’t seen in years. A concert ticket from a Bruno Mars show he took me to for my birthday （and got us backstage passes to, which he pretended to randomly find on the sidewalk because I never allow him to buy me extravagant things）。 Toward the bottom, I find a gum wrapper with my phone number scribbled on it from high school. I remember this day like it was yesterday. We had run together for the first time that morning before classes. That afternoon in homeroom, he asked me if I’d want to run together again sometime. Of course I said yes, and we exchanged numbers. I didn’t save the slip of paper he gave me with his number, though, and now I feel like a horribly unromantic monster!
Once I’ve gone through every single item in this box and spread it all out on the bed around me, I meet his gaze. He finally comes near me and plucks the scrunchie I’m clutching like it’s a million-dollar bill out of my hands. “This smelled exactly like your hair. Coconut. I should have given it back to you, but I couldn’t.” He tosses it in the box. I’m never getting that scrunchie back. Next, he grabs my hands to tug me up to stand with him. “Do you see now? You’re always giving me things that remind you of me, but I’m over here stealing things that remind me of you. I’m not humoring you, Bree. I’m not taking this lightly. I’m so devastatingly in love with you, it hurts sometimes—and I have been since high school.”
Hope, hope, hope. I hear it beating in my ears.
“I’ve been dying for you to love me back—but I never thought you would. Remember when you found out I’m celibate and I told you it was to help my game? That was a complete lie. I’ve been celibate because I am so gone for you I couldn’t even stomach the thought of another woman anywhere near my bed. She would never be you.” He cradles my face. “I love you with everything I am, and that’s never going to change for me. I think I should be the one making sure you’re not just humoring me.”
I can’t take the space between us anymore. I rise up on my toes to lay one soft kiss on his lips, feeling like this has to be a dream and I can do anything I want in my dreams. “I’ve loved you since the day you tied my shoe on the track. You didn’t tell me it was untied, you just tied it.”
The muscles in his jaw jump like he’s swallowing back tears. “Bree, that was the first day we met.” His tone says, Don’t toy with me, woman.
“I know. That’s the day it all started for me.”
His massive shoulders rise and fall in one huge breath, and then his eyes shut like he’s in pain. “Do you mean to tell me…we’ve both loved each other all this time and never said anything?”
I laugh even though it’s not funny at all. I run a finger over one of his eyebrows. “Yes. I think so.”
“But what about college? You completely pushed me away then. I thought I did something wrong.”
Oh. That.
I smooth a hand down the front of his shirt, suddenly very concerned about wrinkles. I guess while we’re emptying our emotional tanks, I might as well go ahead and squeeze a little more out. “I’m so sorry, Nathan. I pushed you away because I was terrified. I could see the way you were thinking of turning down your UT scholarship to stay home with me, and although I never told you, I was really depressed after the car accident. I was afraid you were about to completely give up your dreams for me, and after hanging around me in my mopey, angry, defeated state, you’d realize I wasn’t worth your time anymore and resent me. I was scared you’d see me low and heartbroken and not want me like that. So I pushed you away. I’m sorry, Nathan. I Old-Yellered you.”
His hand tenderly cradles my face. “I never would have felt that way. I’ve always just wanted to be the one to take care of you.”
“I know that now. But back then, depression told its own story, and it was hard to hear the truth through it.”
He dips his head and sighs against my throat. “Well, hear me now: I adore you, Bree. When you’re happy or sad, I love you.” Nathan lays a slow, open-mouthed kiss on my neck and climbs up to my mouth.