I was Rowen Sterling. I liked edgy clothing and kickass boots. I liked a pair of worn-in jeans and the boots my boyfriend had got me. I could be both. I could be whatever I wanted. The only person holding me back from doing that was me. I’d learned a lot of things that summer, a lot of lessons I’d take with me the rest of my life, but that was perhaps the one I’d hold closest to my heart. My future was wide open for the taking.
“I hate to break this up, kids, but the bus is leaving.” A man cleared his throat behind me. Jesse and I sighed at the same time. We’d known it was coming, but it didn’t matter how well we tried to prepare ourselves for it. It hurt like hell having to say goodbye. Even if it wasn’t the permanent kind.
“Thank you, sir,” Jesse said, tipping his head. “She’s ready.” But what I heard in his tone was I’m ready. So we were both ready, but that didn’t make letting go of him any easier.
“Hey,” the man said, “weren’t you the guy looking for a young lady earlier this summer?”
I glanced over my shoulder and, sure enough, the same driver who’d driven me there was driving me out.
Jesse smiled at him. “That was me.”
“Well?” the man asked, backing up toward the bus. “Did you find her?”
Jesse’s eyes dropped to me. There was something in them I couldn’t quite understand. It was something I wasn’t sure I ever would. Whatever it was, I knew it was one thing: powerful.
“Yeah,” he said. “I sure did.”
I grinned at him, even though I felt the tears coming. I was too choked up for words, so I lifted up onto my toes and kissed him. It was a long, sweet kiss that wasn’t nearly long enough, but I knew the driver was probably getting close to blasting the horn if I didn’t get my butt on that bus.
“See you soon,” I whispered, sweeping a quick kiss over his cheek. I turned and climbed onto the bus before I could throw myself back into Jesse’s arms.
The driver nodded at me as I passed him. “I like that boy. He’s just got something about him.”
I smiled. “He certainly does,” I replied, before climbing into an empty seat by the window.
Jesse was still smiling, a hand in his pocket and his casted arm in front of his stomach. Even through the dirty window of a Greyhound bus, he made me weak in the knees when he looked at me that way.
I waved, and he waved back. We were waving goodbye to each other.
I almost made it, but a tear dripped down the side of my cheek. As if Jesse had seen that tiny tear from where he was, he tipped his hat and mouthed those three words that had changed my life.
I’d come here one person, and I was leaving as that same person. Just that person who had let love into her life. The bus pulled away from the station, but I twisted in my seat and watched him until he disappeared. Way after I’d settled back into my seat and Jesse was long out of my sight, I still felt him. It didn’t matter where I went or how far, I’d always carry him with me. What he’d done for me was something that didn’t fade with time or distance.
Contrary to what I’d believed for a while, Jesse hadn’t changed me. He just showed me the person I really was—the person I’d convinced myself didn’t exist.
The rest was up to me.