The scorching Florida sunshine battered down on my bare shoulders.

I climbed out of Aunt Rachel's neon green Volkswagen and popped the trunk to grab my ancient little rolling suitcase, with it's stuttering wheels and broken zippers. Stripes of bright orange and pink polka-dotted duct tape were plastered over every outer inch of the plastic shell, blotting out every last bit of inconspicuous black, so I wouldn't have to worry about tracking it down at baggage claim in Alaska.

What I would have to worry about were the overweight fees.

I was struggling to heave up what had to be two hundred pounds of clothes and souvenirs—a T-shirt from the ice cream parlor where Jesse worked, an unspeakably expensive Louis Vuitton winter coat that Alissa had worn once in the Alps and wanted someone to actually use, a handful of Rachel's romance novels (including the sequel to The Prince of Turning Tides, which sounded twice as contrived and twice as graphic)—when Blake appeared beside me.

"Need some help?" he offered.

It seemed unfair that Blake looked so good when my flight home was due to begin boarding in an hour and a half. He'd dressed up a little—a short-sleeved button down and a pair of real shorts, not swim trunks or athletic ones, with his hair brushed all neat and his dark green crewneck sweatshirt tucked under one arm.

The sweatshirt he'd brought for me to wear on the plane, knowing full well that it would be months until I'd be able to visit again.

"No, thank you," I grunted. "I am—a strong—independent—"

Lena hip-checked me out of the way and, with one hand, tugged my suitcase out of the trunk and set it wheels-down on the asphalt.

"Okay, rude. I almost had it."

"Sure you did, champ," she said, giving my back a hard slap, like we were two football players celebrating a well-executed fumble (look, I don't know).

Alissa's white Range Rover pulled into the parking spot beside us, blasting Norwegian pop music. The passenger side window rolled down. Jesse's head popped out, blond curls gleaming in the brutal sunlight.

"Hey, Ms. Lyons, I think you're on the curb a little," he said, eyeing her parking job.

Rachel slammed the driver's side door shut and pushed her sunglasses up on the bridge of her nose with one band-aid-wrapped finger.

She'd gotten a little overzealous with cutting up duct tape for my suitcase.

"I always am, Jesse," she sighed.

Alissa emerged from her car with an enormous iced coffee in one hand and made her way over to our little huddle. Jesse joined her, stooping down briefly to steal a long gulp from her straw.

"Got everything?" Rachel asked me.

I looked from Jesse to Alissa, then to Lena, then to Blake. His smile was tight.

"Yep," I croaked. All my baggage. "I'm set."

"Let's go get your boarding pass, then," she said.

It seemed somewhat poetic that my last morning in Holden would feel so much like the first—just in reverse, and with a small entourage accompanying me.

The inside of the airport was heavily air-conditioned. The chill was nothing compared to my final destination, but it felt like a smack to the face regardless. Alissa quickly handed off her iced coffee to Jesse, who seemed completely fine with the prospect of freezing solid in the pursuit of caffeination.

We stood in the line at bag check all clumped together, like it might actually take all six of us to heave my suitcase up onto the scales between kiosks.

The line was long. Which was nice, because it meant I had ten more minutes to enjoy everyone's presence and the conversation between Jesse (who had started shivering) and Lena (who was asking why he didn't just toss the damned ice coffee out). But it was also not so nice, because the longer we stood there inching towards the front of the line, the longer I had to envision myself hurtling through the air at three hundred miles an hour away from all the people I gave shits about.

"Are you a window seat or aisle seat person?" I asked Blake suddenly. "Window seats are fun—especially if the weather's nice and you're flying over, like, mountains, and stuff. But I booked my ticket for an aisle seat, because I hate asking for people to get up if I need to pee. And I feel like this is a long flight, right? I'm gonna have to pee up there. I think I'm gonna order orange juice when they come around asking about drinks. Everyone says ginger ale's the way to go, but I just really like—"

"Waverly."

"—that kind of tangy, like—" I smacked my tongue against the roof of my mouth in demonstration.

"Waverly," Blake said again, putting his hands on my shoulders.

Our eyes met.

And I don't know how else to describe the feeling in my stomach, but it was like the sudden gut-deep panic you feel when you're in an airplane that suddenly drops in altitude. The floor and your seat seem to go out from underneath you. You think you might scream.

"Line's moving," I blurted.

I ducked under his arm and scooted forward three steps, bumping into Lena in my haste.

I didn't meet Blake's eyes again, even as we made it to the front of the line and he and Lena assisted me in wrestling my suitcase up onto the scale. I paid the overweight fee—forty-nine dollars and ninety-nine cents—and was thanked for picking that specific airline by a woman who looked like she didn't care if I made it to Alaska or if I went down in a fireball over some cornfield on the way.

Then the only thing that separated me from my inevitable mental breakdown in an airport bathroom next to a PF Chang's was the TSA.

We stopped off to the side, right next to where the roped-off lanes herding travelers towards the security checkpoints began.

I turned to Alissa first.

We blinked at each other for a moment. Then she threw her arms out, and I stepped forward to hug her. She smelled expensive. Some kind of argan oil shampoo and a perfume that you could only find at upscale department stores.

"I'm sorry I thought you were a bitch," I mumbled into her television-commercial-grade hair.

Alissa laughed.

"I'm sorry I was a bitch," she said. "Let me know if you're ever in the Mediterranean. My mom knows people. I can get you a free stay anywhere except Santorini. Don't tell people you know me in Santorini, actually."

I'd hated her, once. I'd thought that, somehow, one of us was in some way better than the other. One of us had to be prettier. Smarter. More reserved. More outgoing.

What a load of shit.

Alissa stepped back and smiled at me. "Have a safe flight, Waverly."

Jesse was next. He took a long pull of iced coffee, then set the cup on the floor by his feet. I had only a moment to anticipate his hug before his arms were around my torso and I was a half a foot off the ground.

I screeched.

"Jesse! Your hands are like ice cubes!"

He let me down and beamed at me.

"Just getting you ready for Alaska."

I rolled my eyes. Then I stepped forward and hugged him again, holding his gangly, freckled body tight against mine.

"Thank you," I whispered. "Take care of everyone, okay? Even your sister."

"Not to be, like, super melodramatic," Jesse said, "but take care of Blake's heart. Because it's basically in your carry-on. Get it? Like—"

"I get it."

Jesse ruffled my hair.

"Watch out for polar bears and shit," he said, then shrugged. "I don't know. Alaska."

"I think I'll manage."

It seemed unfortunate that Rachel was standing in the middle of the group, because she was thus the next person I turned to look at. And the second I faced my aunt, I felt the tears come soaring up like someone had knocked over a fire hydrant with their car.

"Oh, kiddo," Rachel murmured.

She held open her arms and I stepped into them, feeling very much like a child.

"Thank you for feeding me," I said. "And clothing me. And—"

Rachel stroked my hair and shushed me.

"You know you're welcome down here anytime," she told me. "I mean it. As soon as you're done with high school and you turn eighteen, you are your own person. You don't owe your mom and dad anything, Waverly. You could go to college. You could take a gap year. You could go to trade school. You could join the circus. I don't care. You'll always have a place to stay in Holden."

She really wasn't helping my efforts to not ugly cry in a public space.

"Maybe don't join the circus, though," she added, as an afterthought. "I've seen you in action, honey. That's a broken neck waiting to happen."

I laughed against her shoulder. Then I buried my face there.

"You're a really, really good guardian," I said, willing my voice not to wobble.

"Happy to be of service," Rachel teased, squeezing me and rocking side to side. "Call me as soon as you land, alright?"

I'd barely let go of my aunt before Lena's arms crushed me into a hug.

I let out a miserable little wail of distress. She laughed and went to let go, but I held tight.

"I love you," I mumbled into her blond curls.

"I love you, too," she said into my shoulder. Her voice was tight.

"Are you about to cry?"

"Obviously not."

She sniffled.

"Can I say something?" I asked. Lena grumbled in protest, but I pushed on regardless, "You were the first friend I had here. You were the first person who didn't look at me like I was a total weirdo—"

"You are a weirdo," Lena murmured affectionately.

"—and I'll always appreciate that. More than you know."

Lena and I stepped back and took a moment to detangle the bits of our hair that'd gotten tangled. We both had tears in our eyes and kept sniffling, so eventually the sight of each other became so comical we had to laugh.

"If anyone up in Alaska gives you trouble," Lena said. "You call me. I'll come kick their ass."

"I know you will," I told her.

There was only one person left to say goodbye to. I could see him hovering off to the side in my peripheral vision. My whole body felt like an honest to god ice cube. I was frozen solid.

"His turn," Lena said, tipping her head to the side, towards my boyfriend.

I stared at her, wide-eyed with panic.

"Hold on," Alissa murmured, stepping up to us. She stood on her tiptoes, so we were eye to eye, and ran her thumbs under my eyes. "Mascara. Okay. You're good."

Jesse leaned over and gave me an encouraging pat on the shoulder.

And so I turned, finally, and met Blake's eyes.

The dull ache in my chest was physically painful. I wanted to scream, again. I wanted to sit down on the grimy linoleum floor of the airport and throw a tantrum like the child I suddenly realized I was.

"Um," I began, eloquent to the very end. "Hey."

Blake's throat worked as he swallowed hard. His smile was tight.

"This is for you," he murmured.

His sweatshirt. The green crewneck.

I accepted it delicately, like he'd passed me a sleeping newborn baby.

"Thank you," I said, my voice so wobbly it hit four different octaves.

Something flickered across Blake's face, but before I could dwell on it, he stepped forward and pulled me tight against his chest.

I tried to memorize it. The heat of his body, the smell of laundry detergent when I pressed my nose against his shoulder, the way his chest rose and fell with one deep breath while his heart hammered against his ribs.

Don't cry, I told myself. Do not cry.

We broke apart. I tucked his sweatshirt under my arm. Blake looked like he was going to say something else, but he hesitated, and in that little window of time I decided that I needed to go before either of us made this any harder.

"Bye, Blake."

I turned and took four determined strides towards the end of the security line.

And then I promptly lost it.

I stopped, my whole body slumping in defeat as the tears I'd worked so hard to hold back poured over, and turned back around to face Blake. I lifted my arms and let them drop to my sides again, as if to say, I almost had it.

He hurried forward to meet me just as the first real sob came on.

"Talk to me, Waverly," he said.

I blubbered something unintelligible to all humankind.

Blake put his hands on my shoulders and kneaded his fingers into muscles I hadn't realized were tensed. I used the sleeve of his green crewneck to wipe at my tears.

"I knew you were being weird," he teased.

"I just—didn't want—to cry," I sobbed.

"Yeah, well, I'd rather my last visual of you be covered in snot than, like, not making eye contact with me."

I sighed and leaned into his hands.

"I'm sorry," I sniffled.

Blake tucked a piece of my hair behind my ear.

"And you realize we're gonna see each other again, right?"

"I know," I sighed.

"Because I love this sweatshirt," he said, tugging at the crewneck. "You're gonna dry clean it after this, right? I think you got snot on the—"

I hugged him again.

He hugged me back, his chest heaving with a heavy exhale.

"I love you," I said.

"Right back at you," Blake murmured, then laughed when I pinched the skin over his ribs right up under his armpit. "Jeez! Okay, okay. I love you too. Gremlin."

"You say the most romantic things," I sighed. "All that poetry's paying off."

Blake let me go.

"Hold on! Shit, I almost forgot. I got you something else for the plane," he said, face flushing pink as he dug one hand into the front pocket of his shorts. He pulled out a clump of folded printer paper. "It's, uh, kinda dumb, but—"

"Did you write me a letter?" I asked, a bit horrified.

Please don't make me read this on the plane, I thought. I'll bawl my eyes out.

"I'm not too great at letters," Blake admitted, and I knew we were both thinking about the note in which he'd told me he'd never try to kiss me again. (And look how that'd gone.) "That would've been a bit more heartfelt, I guess. I just printed you out some—okay, it's dumber when I say it out loud—I just figured you don't have a phone, so you can't look at—"

I took the clump and unfolded it.

Memes. He'd printed me three pages of memes.

I desperately did not want to cry again—especially not about memes—but I felt like a broken vase a guilty child had tried to piece together with Elmer's glue and hadn't given the time to dry.

"Blake," I said, smiling up at him. "You big dork."

He shrugged nonchalantly. It might've been the harsh florescent lighting, but I was sure I saw tears glistening in his eyes.

"C'mon," he said, grabbing my hand. "As much as I want you to miss your flight, you probably shouldn't. Here to Alaska's, like, seven hundred bucks."

I didn't need to ask how he knew that.

"You know," I said as I shuffled into the security line, "you could always come visit me."

Blake inched along with me, holding my hand tight over the security rail.

"I'm serious about Christmas. It's really pretty around where I live. Lots of snow. I know a place where we can rent skis for real cheap, too."

Blake's cheeks flushed pink.

"Um," he said. "Don't laugh, or anything, but—"

"Let me guess," I sighed. "You were like a Junior Olympian skier or something. Of course. Look, I'm not great, but I'm pretty decent, so if you want to race I'm—"

"Actually, Waverly," Blake interrupted, "I, uh—I've never seen snow."

The line inched forward again, but I stood there for a moment, my arm still stretched out enough so that our pinky fingers were hooked.

Blake's face had passed pink and gone bright red.

"You've never..." I trailed off.

And then I did laugh, because of course. Of course the boy who'd taught me to swim—the lifeguard with a golden tan and freckled shoulders and a house on the water—would be just as out-of-place in my world as I'd been in his.

"Yeah, yeah. Laugh it up," Blake joked, though he was clearly half mortified.

"Come here," I said, tugging at his pinky.

I stepped to the side of the line, ignoring the impatient sigh of the guy behind me as he wheeled his suitcase around me, and tucked my hair behind my ears.

Blake stepped forward to meet me halfway.

"Don't make fun of me, okay?" he said.

"Me? Make fun of you? Never."

I leaned across the security rail and kissed him, one last time. His eyes were bright when I pulled back. Electric blue, like the ocean—two things I'd miss desperately. Two things I was determined to see again as soon as humanly possible.

"Blake Hamilton," I sighed, "I'm going to teach you how to ski."

THE END

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