Tyler twirls me around in front of MacGowan Hall, almost wiping out a random student walking by with my swinging legs. “We slayed it in there!” Tyler shouts. He puts me down, laughing. But when he sees my face, his smile vanishes. “What’s wrong?”

I take a deep breath. Swallow hard. “I’m just sad our projects are over, that’s all. All three of them.”

Tyler stares at me for a long beat. “You can’t be serious.”

I feel my lower lip trembling, but I can’t control it. I don’t reply.

“You seriously think I think we’re over, just because we’ve turned in our two midterm projects?”

“I have no idea what you think,” I reply honestly. “All I know is what you told me when you gave me the syllabus. And that you haven’t said anything to contradict it since then.”

Tyler exhales. “Come on, Zooey. We can’t call it quits now. We still haven’t checked off ‘Fun with Food’ or ‘Role-play.’”

He smiles, but I remain stone-faced. If Tyler’s not done with me yet simply because we haven’t checked off every naughty item on his freaking syllabus, then we’re most definitely not on the same page.

Tyler rakes his hand through his hair and exhales again. “Shit. Okay, I guess this conversation is long overdue.” He looks up at the sky for a moment and then trains his blazing blue eyes on my face. “I love you, Zooey. Okay? I love you. But the thing is, I’ve come to realize that doesn’t matter.”

I can’t believe my ears. He loves me? Oh, my God! How can he possibly say that doesn’t matter? It’s everything! “I love you, too,” I blurt, but it feels like a desperate plea coming out of my mouth, not something joyous. Why do I feel like he’s about to punch me in the teeth?

Tyler’s features soften. He takes my limp hands in his. “I know you love me, Zooey,” he says softly. “You’ve let me know how you feel about me a thousand ways for weeks. Thank you for that. But, sweetheart, we both know love isn’t going to be enough for us.”

I shake my head like he’s talking gibberish. “What are you talking about? I don’t understand what you’re saying to me.”

“I’m saying we’re Romeo and Juliet.”

“How is that a bad thing? Romeo and Juliet is the greatest love story ever told.”

“Babe, they both die in the end. They were star-crossed lovers. Doomed.”

“Okay, then, fine. We’re Jim and Pam! I don’t care what you call us. We love each other.”

Tyler smiles sympathetically. “No, baby. We’re not Jim and Pam. I wish we were. But we’re not. We’re doomed, sweetheart. It’s undeniable.”

I open and close my mouth, utterly flabbergasted. Tears flood my eyes. “Tyler.”

He shakes his head. “To be honest, knowing our doomed fate has, at times, made me want to pull away from you, just to save myself from the inevitable pain this is going to cause me. But I just can’t do it. For some reason, my heart doesn’t seem to care it’s going to get smashed at the end of this. It just wants you for as long as it can have you.”

I’m a deer in headlights. This is making absolutely no sense. “I don’t understand. Why are you saying all this? No one knows the future. Nothing is set in stone.”

“I know the future.”

“You don’t. No one does.”

“Come on, Zooey. Think about it. Six months from now, I’m gonna get drafted top ten and immediately head off to live in whatever city takes me—and under the league’s collective bargaining agreement for top picks, I’m going to be signed to a four-year deal. True, I don’t know which team will select me, but the chances it’ll be an LA team are almost nil. And what will you be doing for those same four years? Going to school here for at least three of them, except when you’re off for summers. But during summers, I’ll be away at training camp, getting my ass kicked. Explain to me when we’ll have a chance to see each other for the next three to four years?”

I press my lips together.

“Plus, consider this. All those years you’ll be here at school, doing your thing, you’re going to be meeting lots of guys. And they’re all gonna want you the same way I did when I first laid eyes on you. The same way Hanalei did. The same way Jake did. The way everyone does when they see you.”

Jake? Hanalei? What?

“And maybe you’re going to want some of those guys in return, baby. Why not? You’ll be nineteen, twenty years old and understandably wanting to have some fun. God knows I’ve had my fun in college. Lots of it. Why shouldn’t you get to do that?”

“I’ll never want anyone but you,” I say evenly.

He smiles at me like I’m a puppy chasing my own tail. “I know you think that now, sweetheart. Thank you. But even if we somehow manage to slog through the next three or four years of an exclusive long-distance relationship during which we never see each other, we still wouldn’t get our happy ending after all that suffering. After graduation, you’ll be heading to New York to chase your dreams, exactly as you should. Exactly as you’ve promised you’ll do. And God knows where I’ll be.”

I’m drowning in panic. Completely blindsided. Hyperventilating.

Out of nowhere, an epiphany slams into me, and I grasp at it like a lifeline. TBD. Surely, Tyler included that line item under Phase Two of the syllabus because some piece of his brain wanted to leave the tiniest opening for us to continue together past the stupid five-week mark. Because Tyler knew in his bones we’d fall in love! “What was TBD?” I demand, my tone much harsher than intended. By God, I’m going to use Tyler’s own premonition of our love against him. I’m not going down without a fight!

Tyler stares at me blankly.

“On the syllabus,” I say. “You listed TBD as the last item under Phase Two. What did it refer to?”

Tyler looks at me ruefully but doesn’t speak.

“Tell me, Tyler. You knew you’d extend the five weeks even back then, didn’t you? You knew it!”

“It was a threesome, Zooey,” Tyler says flatly. “With Jake.”

I gasp.

“It was what Jake demanded to agree to swap Social Psych partners with me.”

I consciously close my hanging jaw.

“Jake had seen us together on the dance floor at the party, and he assumed we’d fucked upstairs right after that. Based on what he saw of you on the dance floor, he figured you were the kind of girl who’d jump at the chance to get double-fucked by the two biggest stars on the football team.” He scoffs. “Of course, I didn’t tell him the real deal about you or what actually happened between us that night. I don’t kiss and tell, unlike Jake the Snake.” He rolls his eyes. “God, Jake’s such a fucking douchebag these days, you have no idea. Ever since his break-up, Jake’s been on quite the tear with the ladies. Talk about a guy who only cares about getting his dick wet.”

The hair on my arms stands up.

“So, anyway, Jake wouldn’t agree to switch partners with me unless I promised to ask you about the threesome idea at some point during our partnership. So I was like, ‘Sure, Jake. Whatever. No promises, of course, but I’ll float the idea with her when the time is right.’ Honestly, Zooey, at that point, I would have said anything to get you as my partner.” His eyes darken. “And, yeah, if I’m being completely honest with you, the idea of both of us fucking you back then turned me on.”

“Tyler.”

“But all it took was our first night together, and I knew I’d never ask you about Jake. In fact, just that fast, the thought of him—or any man—laying so much as a pinky on you made me feel fucking homicidal.” He clenches his jaw. His eyes are blazing. “You want to know why I’ve been playing like a fucking maniac since I met you? Why I’ve been hitting twice as hard and making twice as many tackles and interceptions as I did last year?” He cups my face in his large hands. I’m trembling in his palms. “Because when I’m playing, all I have to do is imagine the ball is you, and I go fucking insane whenever anyone else so much as touches it.” He swallows hard. “Because that ball is mine.”

I open my mouth and close it. Holy shit.

“I love you, Zooey Cartwright,” Tyler says, his voice low and intense. “You’re the answer to a prayer I didn’t even know I had. You make me feel completely alive for the first time in my life. I’m a new man, thanks to you. Now that I’ve got you in my life, I can’t even imagine how I’m going to be happy without you ever again. But that’s exactly why I keep thinking maybe I should break things off with you now—just to save myself from getting absolutely decimated later. Let’s face it, baby, the only thing loving you is going to get me in the end is a broken heart.” He takes a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes are glistening and full of pain. “Zooey, baby, I’ve already had enough heartbreak to last me a fucking lifetime. I can’t take any more.”

Tears are streaming down my cheeks. He wipes them with his thumbs.

“Tyler, sweetheart, no one knows the future. Anything can happen. Think about it. Did you ever think in a million years you’d fall in love with me when you first met me at that party? And yet, here we are.”

Tyler runs the pad of his thumb over my lips. “Of course, I thought I’d fall in love with you when I met you at the party. I thought I’d fall in love with you the minute I saw you. Why do you think I turned you away that first night? Babe, I felt like I’d been struck by a thunderbolt, and it scared the shit out of me.”

I blink several times in rapid succession, trying to wrap my brain around that. Finally, I jut my chin at him, resolve washing over me. “Okay then. Fuck fate. If it’s not our destiny to wind up together, then let the stars take their best shot at us. But in the meantime, I’m going to do everything in my power to chart my own destiny. With you. Our assignment was to rewrite Romeo and Juliet for modern times, right? Well, then, that’s what we’re going to do. And in our version, Romeo and Juliet are finally going to get their happily ever after.”