Page 133 of Almost Yours

“I mean, really think about it? How young we were. How…big everything felt.”

He nods. “Still does.”

He’s right. Love still feels impossibly vast. But it also feels just like this—quiet mornings, dogs in the yard, kisses that taste like cinnamon. Rowan’s love is like roots stretching deep into the earth.

I glance down at where our hands rest together, fingers laced across the soft swell of my stomach.

It’s a girl.

I can still see Rowan’s face when the doctor told us. The way his eyes glistened like he was trying not to cry but couldn’t stop himself.

“She’s perfect,” he whispered as he watched the live sonogram. “And she’s ours. All ours.”

“You think we’re ready for this?” I ask.

Rowan doesn’t even hesitate. “With you? I’m ready for anything.”

I close my eyes, and for a moment, I see the shy high school girl who never said what she wanted and the boy who ran because he thought he had to. I want to reach back in time and tell them to hold on. That the timing might be terrible, and the hurt will come, but so will healing. So will joy.

Because if you’re lucky, love is one person. One person who breaks your heart and then learns how to hold it right. One person who leaves and comes back, not because they had to, but because they chose to. One person who grows with you, not beside you, not around you, butwithyou.

Love is a thousand little choices, and some people, no matter how far they drift, are always meant to find their way back home.