Always

Chapter Eighteen

Mia

The boxes make it real.

They’re stacked against my bedroom walls, labeled in black marker—Dorm Bedding. Books. Winter Clothes. My childhood slowly packed into cardboard and tape.

I sit cross-legged on the floor, staring at the empty spaces where posters used to hang. It feels like I’m dismantling a version of myself piece by piece.

There’s a knock on my open window.

Of course there is.

“You planning to leave without a dramatic goodbye?” Liam asks, climbing in like he’s done a thousand times before.

I smile faintly. “I leave tomorrow. You have plenty of time.”

He looks around the room, taking in the boxes. His jaw tightens slightly, but he hides it quickly.

“Feels weird,” he admits.

“Yeah.”

He sits beside me on the floor, our shoulders brushing. For a moment, neither of us talks. The silence isn’t uncomfortable—it’s heavy with everything we don’t quite know how to say.

“I keep thinking I forgot something,” I confess. “Like there’s one important thing I’m not packing.”

“You packed your notes. That’s all you care about.”

I bump his arm. “I’m serious.”

He studies me for a second. “You’re not forgetting anything.”

It sounds simple, but I know what he means.

I’m not forgetting him.

Still, the doubt lingers. Long distance sounds manageable in theory. Calls. Texts. Visits. But what about the in-between moments? The random late-night drives. The sitting on rooftops. The comfort of knowing he’s one backyard away.

“What if we change?” I ask quietly.

He doesn’t pretend not to understand. “We will.”

That wasn’t the answer I expected.

“We’re supposed to,” he continues. “That’s the whole point of this next part.”

“And what if we change into people who don’t fit?”

He reaches for my hands, grounding me. “Then we’ll know we gave it a real shot. But I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen.”

“Why?”

“Because we didn’t start this as strangers who liked each other. We started as best friends.”

The word steadies me.

Best friends.

That foundation hasn’t shifted, even when everything else has.

“I don’t want distance to make things blurry,” I whisper.

“It won’t,” he says firmly. “We talk. We show up. We visit. We fight if we have to. But we don’t fade.”

His certainty feels like an anchor in the middle of my spinning thoughts.

Outside, the sun is setting—my last one here for a while. Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and drive toward something new.

“I’m scared,” I admit.

“I know.”

He pulls me into his chest, holding me tighter than usual.

“But you’re ready,” he adds.

And maybe that’s the difference.

Being scared doesn’t mean I’m not ready.

It just means it matters.

Tomorrow, I leave this room behind.

But tonight, with his arms around me and the future waiting just beyond sunrise, I realize something important.

Leaving doesn’t mean losing.

It just means growing.