And this was the sad truth. “I don’t think there is.”
Maybe, if they’d had more time. But not going off to different states, different parts of the country like this. They’d see each other a couple of times a year if they were lucky. Once they graduated, they might be able to figure something out, but that was a long, long ways away.
Except then his shoulders squared. “I don’t accept that.”
“Well, you don’t exactly have a choice about it.”
“I’ll convince you. Somehow. I just… I…”
Oh no. She could hear it on his tongue.
She put her hand over his lips. “Don’t say it.”
Didn’t he see? It would only make this worse.
Catching her wrist, he tugged her fingers from his mouth and clutched them tightly between his palms. “But it’s true.”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It’s the only thing that matters.”
It wasn’t. It couldn’t be. Not if the last twenty-one years of her life had been worth a damn.
As if registering the panic in her eyes, he loosened his hold, but he didn’t let go. “I… let me say this. I…” His posture deflated by a fraction, and he chose his words with what looked like care. Softened them. “I care about you. So much. I know the idea of being apart for a year is scary. I don’t have time to prove myself to you. But haven’t I earned something from you?”
After everything he’d done, he’d earned the world. But… “That’s not what this is about.”
“We can apply to the same graduate schools. If we were going to the same place, would you be willing to try?”
In another world, another life.
Then again, if there’d been a chance of something permanent from the beginning, would she even have risked a kiss?
“Did we ever have a chance?” he asked.
She looked down at their joined hands. “I don’t know.”
“Can you give me something? Anything?”
“I don’t know what you want me to say.”
He ducked his head, evening out their heights. Crooked a finger under her chin to raise her gaze. “Do we need to role-play this out?”
She couldn’t help but laugh. “Oh God no.”
“Come on. I’ll help you start. Just repeat after me.”
She blinked the dampness from her eyes and waited. His smile cracked, and her throat went tight, her vision mistier.
“Adam,” he said, then lifted his brows in expectation.
“Adam.”
“I care about you.”
Fuck. The words clawed like fire from her lungs. “I… I care about you.” It was the understatement of the century, and forcing even that much out felt like she’d taken her skin off, and he could see straight inside. “More than I can tell you right now.”
The brittle edge to his smile melted away. “And maybe someday, if the stars align…”
This was serious, but a twisted huff of a laugh escaped her mouth. “We’re astronomers. We can’t say that shit.”
“Humor me.” He lifted one hand to touch her cheek. “It’s a metaphor.”
“I was never good at English class.”
“I know. That’s why I’m feeding you your lines.”
Her lip wobbled, and her throat bobbed. She squeezed the palm still gripping hers. “Maybe someday, if the stars align…” And then she went off script. “But right now, they’re not.”
“Right now, they’re not,” he repeated after her.
And then it was out there, in the universe and surrounding them. He pulled her into him, and she went as easy as could be, pressing her face to his chest and letting his arms surround her.
“Did we just break up?” she asked, suddenly cold.
“I don’t know. Did we?”
She lifted her head enough to look at him. “I don’t want to break up.”
“Then we didn’t.” It came out in a breath and sounded like relief.
“But we agreed we will? When this is over?”
When he nodded, she dropped her face into the warmth of his embrace. They stayed like that for what felt like hours. Water lapped at their feet, and around them the world turned. The constellations kept mapping out their constant sweeps across the sky.
He squeezed her tight and let her go, taking her hand. “Well, I say we make the most of what time we have left.”
They walked the beach until their feet grew tired, and then they lay down in the sand. With her head pillowed on his shoulder, she stared upward. The sky was dark and clear, the Milky Way a shimmering band shining down on them.
“I got you a present,” he said, his voice quiet in the night. He reached into his pocket. When he pulled it out, his hand was curled around something.
She frowned, but he pressed whatever it was into her palm. She lifted up a string of beads. In the darkness, it was hard to make out the carving in the center of it. But then she ran her thumb over the spiral of stars she knew by heart.
“Scorpius?”
His shrug jostled her. “Something for you to remember”—he hesitated, licking his lips—“the summer by.”
Something to remember him by.
“I love it.” It was the closest she could come to saying what she meant. She rolled over to lie on her stomach, bracing herself on her elbows. “I love it.”
“You can’t even see it.”
“Doesn’t matter.” She sat up the rest of the way, putting her back to him. “Put it on me?”
With steady hands and with a silence that bore down on them, he took the necklace from her and strung it across her collarbones. He fastened the clasp at the nape of her neck. Touching the pendant, she rubbed the polished wood between her forefinger and thumb.
She turned to him and kissed him, still holding on to this memento, this trinket.
As if there were any chance that she could ever forget.
It was late by the time they got back. The bar was closed, and the hallways were all empty. Exhausted from everything, Jo wanted nothing more than to wash off the sand and salt from her skin and fall into bed beside this man she’d already said goodbye to. To sleep safe inside his arms.
They turned down the corridor toward the block of rooms where they were staying.
And sitting on the floor in front of Jo’s door was Kim. She was curled up in a ball, arms wrapped around her knees and face buried against them. Jo and Adam stopped short there in the middle of the hall.
Kim looked up, and her cheeks were red, her eyes wet. “I can go sleep on the floor in one of the other rooms if you want.” She pointed across the way at the room she and Jared had been planning to share. “But I can’t stay in there.”
Adam’s arm tightened around Jo’s waist. She glanced up at him.
And it wasn’t fair. After a night like tonight, she should get that small amount of comfort, that chance to be held while she slept, because she wouldn’t get to have it many more times. But it looked like Kim had had an even worse night than she had.
Releasing Jo, Adam stepped away.
“No,” Jo said, though it killed her. “It’s fine. Right?”
Adam echoed her. “Right.”
The expression on Kim’s face radiated gratitude. “Thank you.” She let herself into the empty room, while Jo turned to Adam.
Cupping her face softly, Adam pressed his lips to hers. As he pulled away, he trailed his fingers down her throat until they lingered on her necklace. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
“Yeah.”
Then they’d pack up, and then they’d leave. They’d finish the work they’d come to this island to do.
And it was decided. When it was over, she’d let him go.
Chapter Twenty-Four
The ferry ride back to the mainland was subdued, half of them hung over, Kim and Jared not speaking to each other. Adam unsure of what to even begin to say now that Jo had made her choice. The worst of it was that he could hardly blame her, considering how he’d acted those first few weeks. Considering all the lessons life had taught her long before they’d even met.