Which I do, more than I wanted to admit, even to myself. I couldn’t think about not seeing her every day. She has become a part of who I am now. We had the discussion about age a few weeks ago. We are three years apart, but she will be eighteen in a few months, so things won’t seem so out of balance for us. Not that it feels unbalanced—I guess it will just be less frowned upon by society. I explained to her how it was that I was so much further along in school. Accelerated classes since my sophomore year paired with college classes since my junior. I’ll still need to take some classes for my master’s degree, but I can teach like I have always wanted to. I was on my way to pick up Ali for our last night together. I had a surprise for her that took me a week to plan, and I was nervous because it all depended on Sean pulling through for me. I never thought crazy Trudy’s house would become familiar to me, but it has. I knocked on the door, and Ali opened it quickly like she had been waiting for me.
