Chapter 1
Lena was staring at her laptop when the email arrived.
She almost ignored it.
For the past two weeks, every notification had made her heart jump, only to turn out to be an advertisement, a university newsletter, or something completely useless. So when another email appeared at the top of her screen, she continued eating her cereal for several seconds before actually reading the subject line.
Application Decision — Admission to Master Programme
Her spoon stopped halfway to her mouth. She clicked. Read the first sentence. Then read it again. Then a third time.
We are pleased to inform you...
Lena screamed.
Her mother shouted from another room. “What happened?!”
But Lena was already grabbing her phone.
She called Louis.
No answer.
She called again.
No answer.
“LOUIS!”
As though shouting her name would somehow make the phone connect faster.
On the third attempt, Louis finally answered.
“What? What happened?”
“I GOT IN!”
Silence.
“Louis?”
“What?”
“I GOT IN! NETHERLANDS! I GOT ACCEPTED!”
“Oh my God.”
“I KNOW!”
“Oh my God, oh my God—wait.”
There was suddenly noise on Louis’s side of the call. Something fell.
“Louis?”
“WAIT.”
“What are you doing?”
“My laptop!”
“Why?”
“BECAUSE I HAVEN’T CHECKED!”
Lena jumped out of her chair and started pacing around her room.
“Check! Check now!”
“I AM!”
There was frantic clicking on the other end.
“Anything?”
“Shut up, Lena.”
“I’m not saying anything!”
“You’re breathing loudly!”
Five seconds felt like five minutes.
Then Louis went completely silent.
Lena stopped pacing.
“Louis?”
Nothing.
Then—
“AAAAAAAH!”
Lena screamed too.
“I GOT IN!”
“YOU GOT IN?!”
“I GOT IN!”
They were both yelling now, neither of them listening to the other.
“WE’RE GOING!”
“WE’RE ACTUALLY GOING!”
“TOGETHER!”
“TO THE NETHERLANDS!”
Lena’s mother appeared at the bedroom door, staring at her daughter jumping around with a phone in her hand.
Lena pointed at the laptop.
“Louis got in too!”
Her mother smiled. “Congratulations.”
Lena barely heard her.
She was already imagining it.
A European city. Bicycles. Canals. University buildings. Tiny cafés. New friends. Weekend trips. Grocery shopping together. Complaining about assignments together. Maybe taking the train to Belgium. Maybe Germany. Maybe France.
And, most importantly—
Her boyfriend.
He was already in the Netherlands.
After months of long-distance calls, Lena would finally be living in the same country as him.
“Lena,” Louis said.
“What?”
“We need visas.”
The jumping stopped.
“Oh.”
“And housing.”
“Oh.”
“And insurance.”
Lena sat back down.
Their European adventure had lasted approximately forty seconds.
The following weeks became a blur of paperwork.
They sent each other photos of documents at midnight.
Louis: Is this the right form?
Lena: I think so.
Louis: You THINK?
Lena: Ask the embassy.
Louis: I thought YOU knew.
They compared visa requirements, checked passport validity, searched for accommodation, emailed the university, made lists, lost the lists, and made new lists.
Every completed document felt like a small victory. Every new requirement felt personally insulting. But gradually, the impossible thing became real. Their visas were approved. Their flights were booked. Their suitcases appeared in their bedrooms.
And suddenly, the Netherlands wasn’t something happening later.
They were leaving.
On the morning of their flight, Lena and Louis arrived at the airport with their families, two big suitcases, two backpacks and considerably less confidence than they had possessed when their acceptance emails arrived.
Louis’s boyfriend, Hose, came too.
She had been dating him for six months.
Six months of dates, messages, arguments, inside jokes, holding hands, stealing food from each other’s plates and slowly becoming part of each other’s everyday lives.
And now she was leaving him.
Lena noticed that Louis had been unusually quiet since they arrived.
“You okay?”
Louis nodded.
Then shook her head.
Then looked toward her boyfriend.
“No.”
Lena squeezed her arm.
It was strange.
Months ago, they had screamed with happiness because they were going to the Netherlands together.
Now Lena was going toward her boyfriend.
Louis was going away from hers.
Same flight.
Same university.
Completely different beginning.
And neither of them knew yet that by the end of their first year, love would become far more complicated than either of them had planned.
Hose had been trying to act normal all morning. That somehow made it worse. He helped with her suitcase. He joked about how much she had packed. He reminded her that she could buy shampoo in the Netherlands and didn’t need to transport half the bathroom with her. Louis laughed at all the right moments. But the closer they got to security, the less she laughed.
Lena was having her own round of goodbyes. Her mother had already checked three times whether Lena had her passport, while her father was attempting to push one last packet of snacks into a backpack that could barely close.
“Dad, it doesn’t fit.”
“You’ll eat it on the plane.”
Lena looked at Louis for help, but Louis wasn’t paying attention anymore.
She was standing in front of her boyfriend.
“So,” Hose said.
“So.”
Neither moved.
“You’re really going.”
Louis gave him a small smile. “You watched me check in my suitcase.”
“I was hoping they’d reject it for being overweight.”
“It almost was.”
“I should’ve put another five kilos in.”
Louis laughed, but her eyes were already filling with tears.
“Don’t.”
“What?”
“Make me laugh. I’m trying not to cry.”
“Why?”
“Because I look ugly when I cry.”
“You don’t.”
That was enough. Louis wrapped her arms around him.
“I don’t want to go.”
Lena heard it from where she stood with her parents.
For the first time that morning, Louis didn’t sound like the girl who had spent months talking about studying abroad. She didn’t sound excited about Rotterdam, university, or the apartment they would share.
She just sounded sad.
Her boyfriend held her tightly. “You do want to go.”
“Right now I don’t.”
“You’ll regret it if you stay because of me.”
“What if you forget me?”
“In two hours?”
“You know what I mean.”
Hose
pulled back and looked at her. “Six months isn’t going to disappear because you get on a plane.” Louis wiped underneath one eye.
“You’ll call?”
“Every day.”
“Video call?”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll visit?”
“Yes.”
He smiled. “You haven’t even left and you’re already scheduling my visit.”
She stared at him and then hugged him again.
A few meters away, Lena’s mother was now hugging her.
“Call as soon as you land.”
“I will.”
“And when you reach the apartment.”
“I will.”
“And don’t only eat instant noodles.”
“I won’t.”
“You say that now.”
“Mom, Louis cooks.”
Her mother looked toward Louis.
Louis was crying into her boyfriend’s shoulder.
“That one?”
Lena laughed. “She can cook and cry at the same time.”
Her mother smiled, but then her expression changed.
That was when Lena felt it too.
For months, she had thought only about what was waiting for her in the Netherlands. Her boyfriend. University. Freedom. A new city.
She hadn’t thought enough about what she was leaving. She hugged her mother more tightly.
“Oh no,” her mother whispered. “Now you’re crying too.”
“I’m not.”
“You are.”
Her father joined them, and that only made things worse. By the time Lena finally stepped away, she had tears running down both cheeks.
Louis appeared beside her a minute later looking even worse.
“Ready?” Lena asked.
“No.”
“Me neither.”
They looked at the security entrance. Then at each other. Then back at their families.
“We have to go,” Lena said.
“I know.”
They walked. Five steps later, Louis turned around. Her boyfriend was still standing there. She waved. He waved back.
When they finally passed through security and the people they loved disappeared from view, the two girls stood silently for several seconds.
Louis sniffed.
“This was a terrible idea.”
Lena nodded. “Absolutely terrible.”
“We should go back.”
“Yes.”
Neither of them moved toward the exit.
Louis looked at her.
Lena looked at Louis.
Then they both started laughing.
Two hours later, Louis had recovered enough to complain about the airplane food.
“This sandwich is offensive.”
“You ate all of it.”
“I was hungry. That’s different.”
Lena wasn’t listening properly.
She had checked her phone for perhaps the twentieth time even though there was no signal.
Louis leaned over.
“You know he can’t message you while we’re in the air.”
“I know.”
“Then why do you keep checking?”
“I don’t.”
“You literally just did.”
Lena put her phone face down.
Louis smiled knowingly. “You’re excited.”
“Obviously.”
“How long has it been since you saw him?”
“Too long.”
“And he’s picking you up?”
“He said he’ll be there.”
Louis turned toward the window. “Must be nice.”
The words were playful, but Lena caught the sadness underneath them.
She nudged her friend’s shoulder.
“He’ll visit you.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll go home during the holidays.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll video call every day until you get sick of looking at his face.”
Louis smiled. “Impossible.”
“Give it three months.”
Louis hit her with the tiny airplane pillow.
“Hey!”
“You’re supposed to support my relationship.”
“I do!”
“You just predicted its destruction.”
“I said you’d get sick of his face. You can still love him.”
Louis considered this.
“Fair.”
For a while they sat quietly.
Then the captain announced that they were beginning their descent. Below them, the Netherlands appeared through gaps in the clouds: rectangular fields, roads, waterways and clusters of houses that looked impossibly neat from above.
Louis pressed closer to the window.
“Oh my God.”
Lena smiled. There it was. The place they had talked about for months. The place hidden behind application forms, visa appointments, university emails and endless searches for accommodation.
The Netherlands.
“We’re actually here,” Louis whispered.
“Almost.”
Louis looked at Lena.
The sadness from the airport was still there, but something else was beginning to replace it.
Excitement.
“University students in Europe,” Louis said.
Lena grinned. “International students.”
“We’re going to be so sophisticated.”
“We’re going to get lost leaving the airport.”
“We are not.”
They did.
By the time they finally found the correct way toward arrivals, Louis was dragging her suitcase behind her and blaming Dutch airport signage for a mistake that had very clearly been hers.
Lena’s eyes immediately began searching the crowd.
Left.
Right.
Nothing.
Her steps slowed.
Louis noticed. “Do you see him?”
“No.”
Liam: I’m here.
Her heart jumped.
She looked up again.
And then she saw him.
“Louis.”
“What?”
“Louis.”
“What?”
Lena grabbed her arm.
“There.”
Liam was standing farther down the barrier.
For a second, Lena simply stared.
After months of seeing his face inside a phone screen, there was something almost strange about seeing all of him at once. Real. Three-dimensional. Standing in the same room.
Then he saw her.
He smiled.
Lena abandoned all dignity.
She let go of her suitcase and ran.
“Lena!” Louis shouted behind her.
She didn’t care.
Liam barely had time to open his arms before Lena crashed into him.
He laughed as he caught her.
“You came.”
“You thought I wouldn’t?” She hugged him tighter.
For those few seconds, the visa applications, the flight, the crying at the airport and the fear of moving abroad disappeared.
This was exactly what she had imagined. Louis eventually reached them, dragging both her own suitcase and the one Lena had abandoned.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m apparently the luggage service.”
Lena pulled away, laughing.
“Sorry.”
“No, no. It’s fine. Please enjoy your romantic reunion while the single person carries everything.”
“You’re not single.”
Louis’s expression changed for just half a second.
“Exactly,” she said. “I’m not.”
Her phone vibrated.
A message from her boyfriend, Hose.
Landed? ❤️
Louis looked at it and smiled.
Louis: Just landed. Miss you already.
She sent it, slipped her phone back into her pocket and looked around the airport.
“Okay,” she said. “Now what?”
Lena’s boyfriend took one of the suitcases.
“Now we get you two to Rotterdam.”
