Page 115 of Here's to Yesterday

“Are we, Tucker? Are we anus?”

He reaches his hand out, entwining our fingerstogether.

“We’ll always be anus, Maura. You can’t erase ouryesterdays.”

“But you can’t predict our tomorrows, either,” Ipush.

“No, we can’t. But I sure as shit can stick by you through them. We’ll brave it all. Together. As anus.”

I look up at the sincerity in his voice. There’s something in his words that strikes against my heart, igniting it, bringing a spark of hope and forever withTucker.

“I love you,” I blurt out. Tucker laughs as I bury my face in my hands. “Stopit!”

He pulls my hands down and forces my gaze to his. “I love you too, Maura. Ihaveloved you for a long damn time. I swear the second I saw you sitting alone at Perk last year I fell in love with you. I just wish I hadn’t been such a baby and had said somethingthen.”

“Me too,” I say, not even thinking aboutit.

“Gee,thanks.”

“Oh, hush. You know what Imeant.”

He laughs that deep laugh of hisagain.

“So. You in? You want to do this? For real this time?” he asks with a gleam in his eye that promises happiness and undying love for a lifetime if I sayyes.

Myresponse?

I kisshim.

“I guess that’s a yes,” he teases, breaking ourkiss.

“More of a ‘hell yes,’ but yes. I love you, Tucker. I never see that changing. You’ll always be that guy for me. You’re my ‘TheEnd.’”

Tucker plants another kiss on my lips, understanding what I’m tellinghim.

I snuggle into his arms, and we sit quietly in the night. I woke up this morning hoping to see Tucker but unsure if he wanted to seeme.

This moment, here with him? It’s way more than I could have ever askedfor.

“I don’t think I want to erase our yesterdays,” Tucker says softly, breaking me from mythoughts.

“Hmm?”

“They’re there for a reason. Hudson’s always told me that everything happens for a reason, and I’ve never taken him seriously before. But now I getit.”

Sitting up, I ask him toexplain.

“When I saw you last year at Perk, you seemed lonely, afraid almost. I could see that mask of yours even then. I walked away, letting you continue to wear it. Then Rae and Hudson happened, and with that came you and Tanner. I have to admit, it broke my heart at first to witness you two together. When I thought I had accepted it, we became friends, and that whole ‘accepted’ thing flew out the window because I quickly realized that I could never just be yourfriend. I would always want more. And we had that for a while.” Tucker smiles, I’m sure thinking of the short amount of time we had together before and how good it was. “But I think that if we had continued it without taking a break, we would have ended up running one another off. We needed to rid ourselves of our masks once and for all. And we did. So I’m grateful for the yesterdays. Grateful for them, but still excited as hell for our futuretogether.”

Truth. I think deep down we knew we wouldn’t have lasted if we’d kept playing at being false versions of ourselves and skating around our history with Tanner. The break mended all that because we only focused onourselves.

We finally took off our masks and became who we always wanted tobe.

Us.

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