How to Love

know where this is headed. Like maybe we sort of always have. “Gonna start in Seattle.”

Sawyer nods his approval. “Seattle is nice,” he says mildly. His tan fingers curve around the window frame. “When are you leaving?”

“Right now.”

Sawyer doesn’t say anything for a moment, then: “Wow.” He’s looking at me like he’s known me forever. He’s looking at me like I surprise him every day. He straightens up in the window, tall and familiar; the cup is damp and heavy in my hand. “I mean. Can you wait five minutes for me to put clothes on?”

I laugh out loud and sudden, like there’s something fizzing and effervescent inside my veins. I didn’t realize until right this second that I was holding my breath, but letting it out is hugely relieving, years and years’ worth of tension draining away. “I think so,” I say, still giggling—giggling, seriously, like I haven’t done in forever. Like Allie and I used to when we were little kids playing outside. “That sounds fine.”

“Good,” Sawyer says, and starts to tug the window down. “Stay put. I’ll be right there.”

“Okay,” I tell him, then: “Hey, Sawyer?”

He stops, peers back out at me. “Yeah? What’s up?”

I stand there. I gather my courage. I take a breath so deep it feels like it comes from the ground underneath my feet, and then I jump: “I love you, you know that?”

“I—” Sawyer breaks off, grinning hard and bright and happy. He looks like a little kid himself. “I do know that, actually,” he says after a moment. “But—Jesus, Reena.” He laughs a bit, disbelieving. “It’s nice to hear.”

It’s nice to say, I want to tell him, then realize I’ve got a whole country to say it. I’ve got a whole continent. I’ve got the whole world. The sun is rising, orange, a glowing circle in the sky.

“Come on,” I call, tilting my chin up. “I’m driving this time.”