Page 3 of Worth the Wait

"Not forever," he insists, his forehead coming to rest against mine. "Just for now."

His breath mingles with mine, warm and intimate in the space between us. I memorize this—the precise pressure of his hands at my waist, the subtle woodsy scent that clings to his skin, the exact shade of his eyes in morning light. These are the details I will hoard in the coming months, retrieving them during lonely dorm room nights when his voice on the phone isn't enough.

"I had it all planned," I confess, my fingers curling into the soft fabric of his t-shirt. "How we'd decorate our dorm roomswith the same photos. How we'd meet between classes at that coffee shop we found during orientation. How you'd help me navigate campus when I inevitably got lost."

His laugh is soft but pained. "I'll still help you. Just via FaceTime." His thumbs trace small circles against my hip bones, a gentle caress that makes my breath hitch despite the heaviness in my chest. "And I'm going to drive up as often as I can. Every few weekends. And you'll come home for breaks."

"It won't be the same," I say, voicing the fear that's been gnawing at me since that day in the daisy field. "We won't be the same."

"No," he agrees, surprising me with his honesty. "We'll be better. Stronger." His hands slide up to frame my face, thumbs brushing across my cheekbones with a tenderness that threatens to shatter me. "Distance doesn't change how I feel about you, Tarryn. Nothing could."

His kiss is devastating in its gentleness, a slow exploration rather than the desperate claiming of our recent encounters. He tastes of coffee and promises and heartache, his lips moving against mine with a reverence that makes tears prick behind my closed eyelids. His hands hold me as if I'm something precious, something irreplaceable, and I press closer, trying to absorb the feel of him into my very cells.

When we part, I'm shocked to see moisture glistening in his eyes—Jackson Hayes, who remained stoic when he broke his arm in three places during junior year football, who didn't flinch when he got stitches that left a small scar above his eyebrow, is fighting tears.

"I hate that I'm not going with you," he whispers, his voice cracking on the confession. "I hate that I won't see your face every day, that I won't be there for all your firsts."

"I know." I brush my thumb across his lower lip, committing its fullness to memory. "But you'll be saving your dad's company. Those thirty-seven people. That matters too."

He catches my hand, pressing my palm against his cheek in a gesture so tender it makes my heart contract painfully. "When did you get so wise?"

"I've always been the brains of this operation," I tease, attempting lightness despite the heaviness pressing against my ribs.

His smile is fleeting but real. "True." He hesitates, something vulnerable flickering across his expression. "Tarryn, I need you to know, if there was any other way?—"

"I know," I interrupt, unable to bear his guilt on top of my own pain. "I know, Jack."

My parents emerge from the house, their expressions carefully neutral but eyes full of understanding. It's time to go. The realization hits me with physical force, making my knees weak and my lungs constrict.

Jackson pulls me into one last fierce embrace, his arms bands of steel around my waist, his face buried in my hair. I feel his chest expand with a deep inhale, as if he too is trying to capture my scent, preserve it against the coming absence.

"Tarryn," he whispers, his lips brushing the shell of my ear, sending shivers cascading down my spine despite the sorrow pressing against my ribs. "Wait for me?"

The question hangs between us, loaded with more meaning than its simple words suggest. Wait for me to join you. Wait for me to fulfill my family obligation. Wait for our real life to begin.

I pull back just enough to look into his eyes—those eyes I've gazed into since we were fifteen, that I know better than my own. "Always," I promise, the word both a vow and a prayer.

He kisses me one last time, a kiss that tastes of goodbye and promise and something dangerously close to desperation.Then he's helping me into the passenger seat of my parents' car, closing the door with a soft click that somehow sounds like the period at the end of a chapter.

As we pull away, I watch him through the rear window, standing in the middle of the driveway with his hands shoved deep in his pockets, shoulders slightly hunched as if bearing an invisible weight. He grows smaller with each passing second, diminishing in my vision even as the ache of his absence expands within my chest.

I keep watching until he's nothing but a speck, then nothing at all—swallowed by distance in a cruel preview of what the next two years might hold. Only then do I allow the tears to fall freely, silent rivulets tracing paths down my cheeks as familiar streets give way to highway, to the first steps toward Northwestern, toward a future suddenly bereft of its most essential component.

In my lap, I clutch the single daisy he pressed into my hand before closing the car door—not part of the crown that symbolized our broken promises, but a fresh bloom, picked this morning. A physical reminder of his words:Not forever. Just for now.

I press it between the pages of my journal, wondering if promises, like flowers, can be preserved against the ravages of time and distance. Wondering if, when he finally joins me at Northwestern two years from now, we'll recognize the people we've become in the absence of each other.

Six months…it’s been six agonizing months of waiting on the edge of my seat night after night, praying… hoping he calls. But he doesn’t.

My lip trembles, my chin starting to quiver as I replay our last phone call, of the email I sent him just days ago saying I can’t do this anymore.

I sit in my darkened bedroom, phone clutched in my trembling hand. The blue glow illuminates the tear tracks I can feel cooling on my cheeks as I scroll to Jackson's name one last time.

My thumb hovers over the call button, a war raging inside me. Pride battles longing, fear wrestles with hope. Outside my window, lightning splits the sky—a perfect match to the fracturing I feel in my chest.

"One last time," I whisper, my voice breaking on the final syllable. "Just to hear his voice."

I press call, each ring resonating through my body like physical pain. One. Two. Three. My breath suspends, lungs burning with the air I can't seem to release.

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