Atoning (Darkness Rising 3.1)

"You don't whine."

"Yeah, I kinda do. But that's just the excuse, and I hope you know that. Sure, I don't like the idea of Changing without you there, but I don't like the idea of you not being there a whole lot more. I don't want to go to school without you because I don't want to go to school without you. But I can't say that to my dad, or he'll start worrying we're getting too serious."

"Has he said--?"

"No, he doesn't say it. Neither does your dad. But that's because your aunt does it for all of them. If I admitted I just don't want to leave you, I'd get a talk on how if we're meant to be together, we'll be fine, and a little distance isn't a bad thing. Dad knows you're the best damned thing that ever happened to me, and he doesn't want to interfere with that. But he's still a dad. He worries. In this case, he worries that I'm going to suffocate you, and you'll back off, and I'll get hurt."

"That won't happen."

"But he thinks it. He makes little comments, like wondering if you're spending enough time with Maya, reminding me it's important for you to have other friends. I know that, and I don't think I get in the way of that, and if I do, tell me."

"You don't."

"But it's my nature, to keep you close, and he understands that. So he worries. That's why I make excuses for staying home from college an extra year."

"But you don't have to. You shouldn't--you're already so far ahead, and you're bored."

"And my girlfriend has to work extra hard so I won't get bored?" He put his fingers to my lips. "Don't tell me you aren't working that hard. When's the last time you read a book that wasn't a text?"

"I'll have a whole summer to relax after I get into college. A whole summer."

"Great. And I hope you can cram a whole lot of aikido and archery lessons in, too, because you've been cutting those and skimping on your practice time, and, yeah, you did great this weekend, but I think that showed how important those lessons are. We can't go to college if we aren't ready that way, too."

Before I could comment, he went on. "Let me suggest something, okay? A compromise. You slow down. Take the full two years. Let me try to get in a semester early. I'll start in the winter term, come home for summer and we'll both go that fall. Which is four months of me living in Toronto and you being up here, but I'll come back every weekend and holiday. That means you get time to finish high school at a reasonable pace while I start college earlier, and we both get to show our families that we can be apart."

He didn't say our relationship would survive a term apart. There was no question of that. The adults in our families might worry that we were too serious, that one of us would get hurt. Aunt Lauren likes to remind me that the guy you meet at fifteen usually isn't the one you end up with. But sometimes it is. It just is, and there's no question of that. Not for me.

"You aren't the only one who doesn't want to be separated," I said.

"I know." He kissed me, starting as just a quick press of the lips before turning deeper, arms going around each other, moving as close as we could, as if already thinking of that parting. When he finally eased off, he said, "But would it be okay? As a solution?"

"It would," I said, and pulled him back into a kiss.