Chapter One
I was twenty-four years old when I decided that my life was finally going to begin. It was a strange thought to have while sitting alone at the small wooden desk beside my bedroom window, surrounded by half-folded clothes, unopened mail, two empty coffee cups, and a suitcase I had bought three weeks ago but still hadn't used. Outside, the city was slowly changing from afternoon to evening. The sunlight had softened into a warm golden glow, stretching between the buildings and reflecting against the windows across the street. Cars moved steadily below me, their headlights beginning to appear one by one, while distant voices floated through the open window before disappearing into the familiar noise of the city. Normally, I would have noticed all of it. I had always been the kind of person who noticed little things—the smell of rain before a storm, the sound of someone's footsteps behind me, the way sunlight changed the color of a room—but that evening, I barely noticed anything. My attention was fixed entirely on the piece of paper lying on my desk.
It was an old piece of paper.
Not old enough to fall apart, but old enough that the edges had softened from being folded and unfolded too many times. There was a faint coffee stain in one corner and a long crease running through the middle. I could still see the tiny stars I had drawn beside certain sentences and the three ridiculous little hearts underneath the title. The handwriting was mine, but it didn't look like my handwriting anymore. The letters were rounder, messier, more confident in a way that made me almost jealous of the girl who had written them. At the top of the page were four words written in thick black marker.
THINGS I WILL DO.
I smiled when I saw it.
I remembered writing that list when I was seventeen. I had been sitting cross-legged on the floor of my childhood bedroom while rain hit the windows so loudly that I could barely hear the music playing from my old speakers. At seventeen, I had believed twenty-four was practically ancient. I remember thinking that by the time I reached twenty-four, I would have everything figured out. I would have a successful career, my own beautiful home, enough money to travel whenever I wanted, a passport full of stamps, and a wardrobe that made me look like I belonged in the pages of a magazine. I would wake up early, drink coffee without spilling it on myself, exercise every morning, learn another language, visit countries I could barely point to on a map, and somehow become the kind of woman who never questioned whether she was doing enough with her life. Seventeen-year-old me believed dreams were simple. You wrote them down, worked hard, and eventually they became reality. I hadn't yet learned that life could take the most carefully written plan you had ever created, tear it into pieces, and leave you standing in the middle of the road wondering which direction you were supposed to walk.
I ran my fingers over the first line.
Travel somewhere I've never been.
Done.
I moved to the next.
Build a career I'm proud of.
Almost done.
The next one made me smile.
Buy my own home.
Not yet.
Then:
See the ocean from another country.
Done.
Learn another language.
Still working on it.
Go somewhere completely alone.
That one was circled three times.
I remembered why. I had always wanted to know what it felt like to wake up in a city where nobody knew my name. Somewhere I could walk through the streets without being someone's daughter, someone's friend, someone's employee, someone's ex-girlfriend, or the girl everyone felt sorry for. Somewhere I could simply be Ava.
I continued reading until I reached the final sentence.
Be happy with the life I create.
My smile disappeared.
I stared at those words for a long time.
It was strange how four simple words could hurt more than an entire page.
Be happy.
When I was seventeen, I had written that sentence without hesitation. I hadn't considered happiness something I would have to work for. I had assumed it would arrive naturally, somewhere between graduating, getting a career, traveling, falling in love, and becoming an adult. I had assumed happiness was part of growing up.
I know better now.
Happiness isn't always something that arrives.
Sometimes you have to search for it.
Sometimes you have to build it.
Sometimes you have to find it again after something destroys the version of it you once knew.
I folded the paper and put it inside the drawer.
Then I stared at the closed drawer for a few seconds before opening it again.
I took the list back out.
I didn't know why.
Maybe some part of me wasn't ready to put it away.
Maybe I was afraid that if I closed that drawer, I would also be closing the door on the girl who had written it.
So instead, I folded the paper carefully and placed it inside the front pocket of my planner.
"One thing at a time," I whispered to myself.
My phone vibrated on the desk.
I picked it up and saw several notifications waiting for me. Someone had liked my latest photograph. Someone else had commented. Another person had followed me. I opened the app and stared at the photograph I had posted the previous weekend. I was sitting outside a little café beside the river, wearing a cream-colored sweater with my hair loosely tied behind my head. I was smiling at something outside the frame, and beneath the photograph I had written:
Another dream in progress.
Hundreds of people had liked it.
It was strange how easily people could believe they knew you because of what you allowed them to see.
They saw the coffee.
They saw the airport.
They saw the hotel rooms.
They saw the new clothes, the restaurants, the photographs of places I visited, the career achievements, the birthday dinners, and the smiles.
They saw the life.
They never saw what happened after the photograph was taken.
They didn't see me sitting alone in my bedroom at midnight because sleep wouldn't come.
They didn't see me staring at old photographs I had promised myself I would never look at again.
They didn't see the way my heart still tightened whenever I heard a particular song.
They didn't see how quickly happiness could disappear when I remembered that there was someone who was supposed to be part of my future and suddenly wasn't.
His name was Daniel.
I rarely said his name anymore.
I didn't need to.
Some names don't disappear just because you stop speaking them.
They settle somewhere deep inside you instead.
Two years ago, I had lost him in a car accident.
I still remembered the phone call.
I remembered where I had been standing. I remembered the glass of water in my hand. I remembered the sound of the voice on the other end of the phone becoming distant while the words somehow became clearer.
There had been an accident.
He was gone.
I had asked them to repeat it.
Then again.
Then again.
As though hearing the sentence enough times would eventually make it make sense.
It never did.
People told me that grief would become easier.
They were wrong.
It became quieter.
That was different.
I learned how to live around it. I learned how to smile when people looked at me. I learned how to answer, "I'm okay," without allowing my voice to shake. I learned how to attend dinners and birthdays and parties without suddenly leaving because someone had mentioned relationships. I learned how to scroll past photographs of couples without staring at them for too long. I learned how to keep old memories buried beneath newer ones.
But I never learned how to forget.
And somewhere during those two years, I made myself a promise.
I would never fall in love again.
Love had given me the happiest memories of my life.
Then it had taken everything from me.
So I decided I didn't need it.
I didn't need another person.
I didn't need another relationship.
I didn't need another reason to worry every time someone's phone didn't answer.
I didn't need another person whose absence could destroy me.
I needed myself.
That was enough.
At least, that's what I told myself.
I stood from my desk and walked toward my closet. My suitcase was still sitting open on the floor, completely empty.
I laughed quietly when I saw it.
I had bought a suitcase for a trip I hadn't even booked yet.
That was the problem with me.
I planned everything.
I planned where I wanted to go.
I planned the career I wanted.
I planned how much money I needed to save.
I planned the house I wanted to buy.
I planned the countries I wanted to visit.
I even had a folder on my computer filled with photographs of kitchens because I already knew what I wanted mine to look like.
But I couldn't plan the things that mattered most.
I couldn't plan grief.
I couldn't plan loss.
And I certainly couldn't plan love.
That was probably why I had decided to stop looking for it.
I picked up my phone again when it vibrated.
This time, it was a message from my mother.
Dinner Sunday. Don't make an excuse this time.
I smiled.
My mother knew me too well.
I typed back.
I won't. Promise.
I put my phone down and looked at myself in the mirror.
Twenty-four.
I studied my reflection for a moment.
I wondered what seventeen-year-old me would think if she could see me now.
Would she be proud?
I hoped so.
Would she be disappointed?
Probably.
Because she had expected me to have everything figured out by now.
Instead, I had a list.
A career that was still growing.
A suitcase waiting for a trip.
A future I hadn't completely imagined.
And an empty space in my heart that I had convinced myself I could live with.
I didn't know then that sometimes the things you leave off your list have a way of finding you anyway.
---
Three days later, I was walking out of a bookstore when I heard someone say my name.
"Ava?"
I stopped.
For a second, I thought I had imagined it.
Then I turned around.
And there he was.
Ethan Brooks.
My childhood best friend.
For a moment, I couldn't say anything.
There are some people you can go years without seeing, yet the second they appear in front of you, your mind immediately remembers everything. The sound of their laugh. The way they used to pronounce your name. The stupid jokes they made when you were teenagers. The afternoons you spent together. The arguments. The secrets. The memories you thought you had forgotten.
Ethan looked different.
Older.
Of course he did.
We were both adults now.
But somehow, I could still see the boy I had known when we were children.
The boy who used to steal fries from my plate.
The boy who would walk me home when it got dark.
The boy who knew exactly how to make me laugh when I was angry.
"Ethan?"
He smiled.
"Hi."
I laughed softly because I suddenly didn't know what else to do.
"What are you doing here?"
He glanced toward the bookstore behind me.
"Buying a book."
I looked at his empty hands.
"You don't have a book."
He looked down.
Then back at me.
"I was going to buy one."
I laughed.
"You're still terrible at lying."
"And you're still terrible at pretending you believe me."
For the first time in a long time, I laughed without thinking about it.
Not the polite laugh I gave coworkers.
Not the smile I gave strangers.
A real laugh.
The kind that came from somewhere underneath all the things I had spent the last two years protecting.
Ethan looked at me for a moment.
There was something in his expression I couldn't quite understand.
Then he smiled.
"How have you been?"
The question was simple.
But somehow, it didn't feel simple.
"I'm good," I answered.
He nodded slowly.
"Good."
Neither of us said anything for a few seconds.
It wasn't awkward.
It was strange.
Comfortable and unfamiliar at the same time.
Then I glanced at my watch.
"I should go."
I expected him to say goodbye.
Instead, he took a breath.
"Ava?"
I turned back.
"Yeah?"
"Can I have your number?"
I blinked.
"My number?"
He laughed nervously.
"Yeah. I mean... we've known each other forever, and somehow I don't even have your number anymore."
I stared at him.
He was right.
We had spent so much of our childhood together that the idea of not having each other's numbers felt almost ridiculous.
"Okay."
I took out my phone.
"Give me yours."
He handed me his phone.
I typed my number into it and then called myself so I would have his.
My phone rang.
Ethan Brooks.
I stared at his name on my screen.
Something about seeing it there felt strangely familiar.
Comforting.
Safe.
I didn't know why.
Maybe because Ethan belonged to a version of my life that existed before everything became complicated.
Before loss.
Before grief.
Before I learned how fragile love could be.
I looked up at him.
"Nice seeing you."
"You too."
I smiled.
Then I walked away.
I didn't look back.
At least, not immediately.
But when I reached the end of the street, I stopped.
I don't know why.
I turned around.
Ethan was still standing there.
Watching me.
Our eyes met from across the distance.
He smiled.
I smiled back.
Then I continued walking.
At the time, I didn't think much of it.
It was just Ethan.
My childhood best friend.
A person from my past who had unexpectedly walked back into my life.
A phone number in my contacts.
A familiar face.
A forgotten friendship.
I didn't know that the smallest moments could become the beginning of the biggest changes.
I didn't know that the future I had spent years carefully planning would eventually be interrupted by someone I had never planned to find again.
And I certainly didn't know that the one thing I had sworn I would never want again would someday become the one thing I would be most afraid to lose.
At that moment, all I knew was that I had another item on my list waiting to be completed.
And love wasn't on it.Chapter One
The List
I was twenty-four years old when I decided that my life was finally going to begin. Looking back, I suppose that sounds ridiculous because, technically, my life had already begun twenty-four years earlier. I had been born, raised, educated, loved, hurt, and changed. I had already experienced things that seventeen-year-old me had never imagined I would experience, and I had already lost someone I had once believed would be beside me for the rest of my life. But that evening, sitting alone at the small wooden desk beside my bedroom window, I felt as though I had reached the edge of something. It wasn't exactly a beginning, and it wasn't exactly an ending either. It was more like standing at the entrance of a road I had been too afraid to walk down because I couldn't see where it led. My apartment was unusually quiet. The only sounds came from the city below me—the distant movement of cars, the occasional sound of someone laughing on the sidewalk, the faint hum of an air conditioner somewhere in the building, and the soft ticking of the clock on my wall. The sunlight was disappearing behind the buildings, leaving long golden streaks across my bedroom floor, and for a few minutes I simply sat there and watched the light move. I had always loved evenings because they made everything feel temporary. Day became night, noise became silence, people went home, and somehow the world seemed to give everyone permission to start over the following morning. Maybe that was what I wanted. A chance to start over. A chance to stop thinking about everything I had lost and start paying attention to everything I could still have.
In front of me was a piece of paper I hadn't seen in months. It wasn't particularly beautiful. In fact, it looked almost embarrassing now. The edges were slightly worn, one corner had a faded coffee stain, and the paper had been folded so many times that the middle crease had become permanently visible. There were tiny stars beside certain sentences, three hearts underneath the title, and a few words crossed out and rewritten because apparently seventeen-year-old me couldn't decide what she wanted her future to look like. I picked it up carefully, almost as if I were holding something fragile, and smiled when I saw the handwriting. It was mine, but it looked like it belonged to someone else. My letters had been larger then, more careless and confident, and there was something about them that made me miss the girl I used to be. At the top of the page, written in thick black marker, were four words that made me laugh quietly to myself: THINGS I WILL DO. I remembered exactly where I had been when I wrote it. I had been seventeen, sitting on the floor of my childhood bedroom with my legs crossed beneath me while rain hit the windows. I had been listening to music through cheap speakers, drinking a cup of hot chocolate, and imagining that adulthood was something magical waiting just beyond graduation. Twenty-four had sounded impossibly old to me. I had believed twenty-four-year-old Ava would have everything figured out. She would have a beautiful house, an impressive career, a passport overflowing with stamps, a bank account that never made her nervous, and enough confidence to walk into any room without wondering whether she belonged there. I had imagined myself waking up early every morning, drinking coffee from a beautiful ceramic mug, wearing clothes that somehow always looked perfect, traveling whenever I wanted, and knowing exactly what I wanted from life. I had even imagined that by twenty-four I would have discovered the secret to happiness. I didn't know then that adulthood wasn't a destination. It was simply a collection of days in which you slowly realized that nobody actually knew what they were doing.
I flattened the paper against the desk and began reading the list again, even though I already knew every word by heart. The first line said, Travel somewhere I've never been. I smiled because I had done that. Several times, actually. I remembered the first time I stepped off a plane in a country I had never visited before and realized that every street sign, every building, every voice around me belonged to a world I hadn't known existed in quite the same way. I had taken photographs, tried foods I couldn't pronounce, gotten lost more than once, and learned that being alone in a foreign place could be frightening and strangely freeing at the same time. The next line said, Build a career I'm proud of. That one was still a work in progress, but I was getting there. I had worked hard for everything I had, even when nobody saw the hours behind the achievements. The next said, Buy my own home. I wasn't there yet, but I had started saving. Then came, See the ocean from another country. Done. Learn another language. Still working on it. Go somewhere completely alone. That one was circled three times. I remembered why I had circled it. I had wanted to prove to myself that I could exist somewhere without relying on anyone else. I wanted to sit in a restaurant alone without feeling self-conscious. I wanted to walk through a city without having to explain where I was going. I wanted to wake up in a hotel room and know that every decision I made that day belonged entirely to me. The final sentence sat near the bottom of the page, separated from the others by a small amount of empty space. Be happy with the life I create. I stopped there.
I don't know how long I stared at those words. Maybe a minute. Maybe five. The room had become darker without me noticing, and the golden sunlight had almost disappeared completely. I could see my reflection faintly in the window now, superimposed over the city lights beginning to appear outside. I looked at the sentence again. Be happy. It seemed so simple when I was seventeen. I hadn't understood that happiness could become complicated. I hadn't understood that there would be days when you could have everything you had once prayed for and still feel like something was missing. I hadn't understood that you could laugh with friends, succeed at work, travel to beautiful places, buy yourself things you had always wanted, and still go home at night with a strange ache in your chest that you couldn't explain to anyone. I hadn't understood grief. I hadn't understood how a person could continue living after losing someone who had once been woven into every part of their future. Most importantly, I hadn't understood that sometimes the hardest part of moving forward wasn't letting go of the past. It was accepting that moving forward didn't mean leaving the past behind. It meant learning how to carry it without allowing it to control every step you took.
His name was Daniel.
I still hated how easily his name appeared in my thoughts.
I didn't say it anymore. I didn't talk about him unless someone asked, and even then I usually gave them the shortest answer possible. Two years had passed since the accident, but sometimes it felt like two days. I could still remember the phone call with painful clarity. I could remember where I had been standing. I could remember the glass of water in my hand. I could remember the exact sound of the person's voice on the other end of the phone, the pause before they said the words I never wanted to hear, and the way my entire body seemed to become numb before my mind even understood what had happened. There had been a car accident. He hadn't survived. That was it. Two sentences had divided my life into a before and an after. Before Daniel died, I had believed the future was something I could see. I could imagine it clearly. I could picture where we would live, what our home might look like, where we would travel, what ridiculous arguments we would have about furniture, and all the small ordinary things that I had once believed were guaranteed simply because we loved each other. After he died, the future became a blank page. I couldn't imagine anything beyond the next few months. I couldn't imagine trusting another person with my heart. I couldn't imagine waking up beside someone else. I couldn't imagine hearing someone say they loved me without wondering how long I would have before they disappeared too. Everyone told me that time would make it easier. They were wrong. Time didn't make it easier. It simply taught me how to hide the pain better.
I folded the list and placed it inside my desk drawer, then closed the drawer. I stared at it for a moment before opening it again. I took the paper back out, folded it more carefully this time, and placed it inside the front pocket of my planner instead. I didn't know why I had changed my mind. Maybe I didn't want to hide it. Maybe I needed the reminder. Maybe I was tired of thinking about the life I had lost and wanted to focus on the life I could still create. Whatever the reason, I knew one thing: I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life being afraid. I had already lost two years to grief. I didn't want to lose another ten. I didn't want to wake up at thirty-four and realize that I had spent a decade avoiding happiness because I was terrified of losing it again. I wanted to travel. I wanted to work. I wanted to build something that belonged entirely to me. I wanted to buy a home with a little garden and large windows. I wanted to learn things simply because they interested me. I wanted to wake up one morning and realize I was no longer counting the days since the accident. I wanted to become someone my seventeen-year-old self would be proud of. And if that meant doing it alone, then I would do it alone.
"One thing at a time," I whispered.
My phone vibrated on the desk.
I glanced at the screen and saw several notifications. Someone had liked one of my photographs. Someone had commented. Someone else had followed me. I opened the app almost automatically and found myself looking at a photograph I had posted a few days earlier. I was sitting outside a small café beside the river, wearing a cream-colored sweater with my hair loosely tied behind my head. The sunlight had been falling across my face, and I had been smiling at something outside the frame. Beneath the photograph, I had written three simple words: Another dream in progress. Hundreds of people had liked it. I scrolled through the comments, smiling at familiar names and responding to a few messages. It was strange how easily people could believe they knew someone because they could see pieces of their life online. They saw my coffee in the morning. They saw the airport. They saw my work. They saw photographs from restaurants, museums, beaches, hotels, and streets in cities I had never visited before. They saw birthdays, celebrations, achievements, new clothes, new places, and smiling photographs. They saw the life I chose to show them. They didn't see the nights when I couldn't sleep. They didn't see me sitting on the floor beside my bed because I had suddenly remembered something Daniel had said years earlier. They didn't see the photographs I kept hidden. They didn't see how quickly a happy day could become a difficult one because of a song playing in a supermarket. They didn't see how sometimes I would reach for my phone because something funny happened and instinctively think about sending it to him before remembering that there was nowhere to send it.
I locked my phone and placed it face down.
I didn't want to think about him anymore.
At least, that was what I told myself.
I stood from the desk and walked toward my closet. My suitcase was sitting open on the floor, completely empty. I stared at it and laughed under my breath because buying an expensive suitcase for a trip I hadn't even booked was exactly the kind of thing I would do. I had always been a planner. I planned everything. I planned my career. I planned my savings. I planned my travels. I planned what kind of house I wanted. I had folders filled with photographs of homes, kitchens, gardens, bedrooms, and even dining tables because apparently I needed to know what kind of dining table I wanted before I had even bought a house. I planned because plans made me feel safe. If I knew where I was going, I didn't have to worry about getting lost. If I knew what came next, I didn't have to think about what could go wrong. But there were things no plan could protect you from. You couldn't plan for an accident. You couldn't plan for grief. You couldn't plan for a goodbye that came without warning. And you certainly couldn't plan for love. That was probably why I had decided love didn't belong anywhere in my future. It was too unpredictable. Too fragile. Too dangerous.
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was my mother.
Dinner Sunday. Don't make an excuse this time.
I smiled.
My mother knew me too well.
I typed back, I won't. Promise.
Then I placed my phone down and walked toward the mirror. I stood there for a moment, looking at my reflection. Twenty-four. I looked older than the girl who had written the list, but younger than the woman I imagined I would become. There were moments when I wondered whether I had changed too much. Whether grief had made me harder. Whether I had become too independent because depending on someone had once ended in unbearable pain. I wondered what seventeen-year-old Ava would think if she could see me standing there. Would she be proud? I hoped so. Would she be disappointed? Probably. She would probably ask why I wasn't married yet, why I didn't have the perfect career, why I hadn't completed every item on the list, and why I looked so tired. I might laugh at her. I might tell her that life doesn't follow schedules. I might tell her that sometimes the people you think will be with you forever aren't. I might tell her that losing someone doesn't mean your life is over, even when it feels that way. And maybe I would tell her one more thing. I would tell her not to be afraid of the future simply because the past hurt.
I didn't know yet that I would soon have to listen to my own advice.
Three days later, I was walking out of a bookstore when I heard someone say my name.
"Ava?"
I stopped immediately.
For one strange second, I didn't turn around. I simply stood there with one hand wrapped around the strap of my bag while my mind searched through every voice I knew. Then I turned.
And there he was.
Ethan Brooks.
My childhood best friend.
The sight of him hit me with a strange mixture of familiarity and disbelief. There are some people you can go years without seeing, but when they suddenly appear in front of you, your mind doesn't register the years between you. It remembers everything at once. I remembered Ethan at twelve, sitting beside me on the school bus. Ethan at fourteen, stealing food from my lunch. Ethan at sixteen, walking me home because it had started raining. Ethan at seventeen, sitting beside me on the curb outside my house while I told him about the list I had made for my future. I remembered his laugh. I remembered the way he used to roll his eyes whenever I became dramatic. I remembered how he always seemed to know when something was wrong even when I insisted nothing was. And now he was standing in front of me as a grown man, taller than I remembered, his hair slightly different, his face more mature, but somehow still unmistakably Ethan.
"Ethan?"
He smiled.
"Hi."
I couldn't help laughing softly.
"What are you doing here?"
He glanced at the bookstore behind me.
"Buying a book."
I looked at his hands.
They were empty.
"You don't have a book."
He looked down at them as though he had only just realized that.
"I was going to buy one."
I laughed.
"You're still terrible at lying."
"And you're still terrible at pretending you believe me."
The sound of my own laughter surprised me.
It had been so long since I had laughed like that without thinking about whether I was supposed to be happy or sad. Ethan didn't seem to notice the significance of it. Or maybe he did. He simply smiled at me, and for a moment I felt as though I had stepped backward in time. We weren't twenty-four anymore. We were teenagers again, standing outside the bookstore after school and arguing about which book was better.
"How have you been?" he asked.
"I'm good."
He looked at me for a moment.
Not suspiciously.
Not pityingly.
Just looked.
"Good," he said.
There was something comforting about the way he said it. Like he actually wanted me to be good.
We stood there talking for several minutes. We caught up on the simple things first. Work. Family. Where we had been living. What we had been doing since high school. We laughed about old classmates and remembered teachers whose names I hadn't thought about in years. It felt strangely easy. There was no pressure to impress him, no need to pretend my life was more exciting than it was. Ethan had known me before I learned how to carefully construct the version of myself I showed the world.
Eventually, I looked at my watch.
"I should probably go."
I expected him to say goodbye.
Instead, he hesitated.
"Ava?"
I turned back.
"Yeah?"
"Can I have your number?"
I blinked.
"My number?"
He laughed nervously.
"Yeah. I mean, we've known each other forever, and somehow I don't have it anymore."
I smiled.
"That's actually kind of ridiculous."
"I know."
I took out my phone.
"Give me yours."
He handed me his phone, and I typed my number into it. Then I called myself so I would have his number too. My screen lit up with his name.
Ethan Brooks.
I stared at it for a second longer than I probably should have.
It was only a name.
Only a phone number.
Only a small moment between two old friends.
But something about seeing his name there felt strangely familiar.
Safe.
I didn't know why.
Maybe because Ethan belonged to a part of my life that existed before everything became complicated. Before Daniel. Before grief. Before I became so afraid of losing people that I stopped allowing myself to get close to them.
I looked up.
"Nice seeing you."
"You too."
I smiled and turned away.
I walked down the sidewalk, listening to the sound of my own footsteps against the pavement. I told myself it was nothing. It was just Ethan. My childhood best friend. Someone I hadn't seen in years. Someone who had unexpectedly crossed my path on an ordinary afternoon.
But when I reached the end of the street, I stopped.
I don't know why.
Maybe I felt him watching me.
Maybe some instinct told me to turn around.
So I did.
Ethan was still standing outside the bookstore.
Still watching me.
When our eyes met, he smiled.
I smiled back.
Then I turned around and continued walking.
I didn't know that he had spent years loving me from a distance.
I didn't know how many times he had seen my photographs and wondered whether I was happy.
I didn't know that asking for my number had taken him more courage than I could have imagined.
I didn't know that the simple exchange of two phone numbers would eventually change the direction of both our lives.
All I knew was that something felt different.
Not romantic.
Not yet.
Just different.
It felt like the smallest door had opened somewhere in my life, and for the first time in years, I wasn't immediately reaching for the key to lock it again.
That night, when I returned home, I changed into comfortable clothes, made myself tea, and sat on the edge of my bed with my phone in my hand. I scrolled through my contacts until I found his name.
Ethan Brooks.
I stared at it.
Then my phone buzzed.
A message.
Ethan: It was really good seeing you today.
I smiled before I could stop myself.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard.
I typed:
Ava: It was good seeing you too.
I almost put the phone down.
Then another message appeared.
Ethan: You still make lists?
I laughed quietly.
I looked toward the desk where my old list was tucked inside my planner.
Ava: Unfortunately.
A few seconds later:
Ethan: What's number one?
I stared at the message.
I could have told him.
I could have told him that number one was traveling somewhere I had never been.
I could have told him about the house I wanted.
I could have told him about my career.
I could have told him about everything I had planned for myself.
Instead, I typed:
Ava: I'll tell you when I finish it.
He responded almost immediately.
Ethan: Deal.
I put my phone down.
For some reason, I smiled.
It was such a small thing.
A conversation.
A memory.
A familiar person returning to my life.
Nothing more.
At least, that was what I believed.
I had spent two years carefully constructing a life where love had no place. I had convinced myself that happiness could exist without romance, that independence could protect me, and that the safest future was the one where I never gave another person enough of my heart to destroy me.
I believed my list had already decided what my future would look like.
I was going to travel.
I was going to build my career.
I was going to buy my dream home.
I was going to accomplish everything I had promised my seventeen-year-old self.
And I was going to do it alone.
Love wasn't on the list.
I didn't know then that sometimes the most important things in life are the things we never think to write down.
I didn't know that some people return to your life at exactly the moment you need them.
I didn't know that friendship could quietly become something more.
And I certainly didn't know that the heart I had spent two years protecting would eventually begin asking me a question I wasn't ready to answer.
What if this time, love didn't have to end in loss?
