Page 99 of This Is How It Started

My heart drops, and I’m paralyzed by loss. While Mr. Scott gets me a soda, I stare out the big picture window that looks onto the street. Even though it’s not far from the bustle of San Francisco City College, it’s a quiet neighborhood. Many of the modest turn-of-the-century cottages have been jacked up to two-story luxury homes, but the flavor of old working-class San Francisco is still here.

This is where Campbell grew up and where Mr. Scott chose to stay long after his landscape company grew prosperous. It’s a good place. Safe and friendly, where the streets are thick with trick-or-treaters on Halloween, and everyone knows their neighbors.

A man comes up the sidewalk, his gait so achingly familiar that I know it’s Campbell before I can even make out his face. I don’t wait. I bolt out the door and run to him.

He catches me in his arms. “Hey, what’s this?” He cups my cheeks with both hands and looks at me, studying each plane of my face. “What’s wrong?”

“Your father said you were gone.”

“I just went to the corner market.” He raises the small bag, the handles wrapped around his wrist.

“I thought you’d left without saying goodbye.”

“No, not yet.” He runs his thumb over my wet cheek, then cocks his head to one side. “I thought we already said our goodbyes.”

“What if I don’t want to say goodbye?”

He looks at me again, this time with a mixture of confusion and wonder, then wraps me tightly in his arms. So tightly that I can feel his heart beating. And then his mouth is on mine, making my body tremble.

It’s nothing like the impulsive kiss we shared in the little Craftsman on Liberty. Nor is it like the thousands of innocent kisses we stole from each other as love-struck teenagers. It’s breathless and frenzied and filled with yearning.

He sighs my name, and I look into his moss-colored eyes, and I see it. Our future. Together. This is how it starts.