Page 88 of Past Present Future

Jon drapes an arm around her shoulders as they wave me off, and a different kind of hope blooms in my chest. I head for the T station, digging my hands into the pockets of my corduroy jacket, fingers grazing a scrap of paper. Assuming it’s a receipt or straw wrapper, I pull it out—and what’s on it roots me to the sidewalk.

Forelsket (Norwegian): the euphoria you experience as you begin to fall in love; or, how I feel whenever I’m around you.

I swear time stops for a moment. Traffic freezes and birds pause mid-flight while I try to catch my breath, pressing the note to my heart.

I haven’t worn this jacket since… I was in New York with Neil the first time. It was stuck in the back of my closet, impractical for a Boston winter. He must have slipped the note inside at some point before I left. Naturally, I can’t not think about the time I found my name in the pocket of his hoodie during Howl, and I imagine he was thinking about it, too.

Even though this was from months ago, I wonder if I found it at exactly the right time.

I read it again and again, memorizing the word, my knees quivering and my pulse pounding like I’m thirteen years old and just learning a boy has a crush on me. Maybe everything I experienced tonight, from Miranda and Jon to the appearance of this note, isn’t unlike what Neil observed between my parents during Hanukkah: couples who love each other in quiet and constant ways, where small gestures feel like the purest form of affection.

All this time, I have been surrounded by the kind of romance that most of my books never talk about. I’ve gotten so good at ignoring it—but now, with forelsket in my palm, I think I’m finally starting to get it.

ROWAN

hey… didn’t know if it was okay to text you.

NEIL

Of course it is.

Hey.

ROWAN

hey.

just wanted to say that I’m thinking of you. and that I’m here whenever you’re ready

NEIL

Thinking of you too.

Always

24

NEIL

DR. CLARK’S OFFICE is cheerily but sparsely decorated: plush couch, patterned rug, four succulents thriving on the windowsill. The first time I was here, my eyes snagged on the box of tissues in one corner, and I wondered how frequently she had to replace it. Whether psychologists have a budget for this kind of thing.

It took a couple false starts to get here, including one where I made it all the way and then doubled back because I couldn’t fathom finding the right words for how I was feeling. But I finally made it, right words be damned. Our third session in two weeks, not because I’m determined to do this as quickly as possible—I understand that one cannot get straight A’s in therapy—but because I have had a lot to say.

“Good to see you again,” my therapist says after reminding me that I can call her Audrey.

“You too,” I say. Meaning it.

Maybe there’s some parallel here that my interest in psychology comes at the same time as my own mental health crisis. I want to understand my own brain better, and more than that, I want to arrive at a place of peace with it. Maybe that means more therapy and maybe that means medication, too—whatever it is, I’m keeping an open mind. Literally.

Unpacking my history in front of this stranger isn’t easy, but I’m doing my best. During our first session, she told me to start wherever I wanted—“wherever feels right.”

So I’ve told her about my parents. My dad. The ways he spoke to me and the rest of my family—and maybe even more than spoke. The trauma that I’ve been unable to excavate until now.

Everything I’ve repressed.

I’ve told her about school. About how I forced myself to become an overachiever because I thought it was the only way people would forget my background.

About Rowan.

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