I know I shouldn’t be out walking around town in the middle of the night, but I can’t help myself.

It’s been a busy day. I had sex with Henry last night, we got a good interview for our story, and then these security guys show up. Claude and Jean, the most cliché French-sounding names. Turns out, they’re both from Quebec, which makes sense, though I’m not sure what they’re doing in Alabama. Still, they seem competent.

And I feel better with them around. Especially right now. I glance over my shoulder and sure enough, there’s Jean, tailing me at a respectable distance. I tried to leave without him, but he was adamant that if I’m going for a walk, he’s coming with me.

I can’t say I fought him too hard. The fact that Henry got these guys is putting me on edge a bit. I knew this was dangerous, but I had no clue that it was worth hiring freaking mercenaries or whatever they are. He calls them security, but they don’t look like normal security. Frankly, they’re scary, and they have that same sort of look that Henry sometimes gets, like he’s really looking around the room and seeing it.

I don’t know what that’s all about, but it’s all keeping me awake. I can’t sleep and sometimes when it gets bad, getting some fresh air really helps. I know it’s maybe stupid and reckless, but I doubt the Strips are out right now. It’s one in the morning and we’re not even downtown. There’s nothing around here but a few closed-down businesses and some residential addresses.

I glance back at Jean and sigh to myself. I can’t relax with him trailing after me, but I want to be alone with my thoughts right now.

I need to figure out what I’m going to do about Henry. I should be concentrating on this story and planning on what our next move is, but I know I’m well past that. Maybe I’m like a stupid little girl again but I can’t get him out of my brain.

It’s the way he looks at me, with that cocky, self-assured smile. I remember it from all those years ago, but now it’s on the face of a full-grown man. There’s more depth to him now, like everything has shifted and gotten more full. Every gesture and comment has so much more weight.

And last night felt good… so good. It’s hard to even explain how I could lose myself like that. I’m normally so careful, especially after he broke my heart the first time. I’ve been with guys, even had a couple of boyfriends, but nothing ever stuck. I never let anyone get close enough to hurt me.

I’ve been like that for years. I don’t take big risks because I don’t want to get wrecked again. Anyone can step into your life and blow it all up if you trust them and you let them, but I keep promising myself that I won’t do that. I won’t let someone hurt me ever again.

Suddenly though, Henry’s back and it’s like I never made those promises to myself. As soon as I saw him again, I completely dropped my defenses.

Well, maybe not completely, but pretty darn close. I feel so exposed around him, but in a good way. And not just when we’re together in my room, fooling around. I feel it all the time, every second we’re around each other.

It’s stupid, but I don’t know what to do. Even when I’m annoyed with him, it’s not really about him, it’s about me. It’s about what I want and all the anger I still have toward him. I can’t help it. What happened between us was so long ago, and we were just kids back then, but still… it hurt, more than you could imagine.

I can still see him in those weeks after we first broke up. It was like he was a new guy, a bigger asshole. One morning I saw him alone at his locker, and decided to say hello, like we always did. I went up to him but instead of smiling, he turned away from me, turning his back to me.

I watched as he hurried away. We made eye contact, but that didn’t seem to matter to him. A couple days later, I saw him in the hall and smiled, but he just frowned and looked away.

I tried calling once, a month after we broke up, just to see how he was doing. That was a mistake. When he answered, he didn’t bother trying to have small talk. He just told me to stop calling him, and hung up the phone.

It devastated me. It was the silence that really did it. I have no clue how he turned it all off and went from loving me, making plans with me, to suddenly wanting nothing to do with me. It showed me that people can do horrible, ugly things for no reason, and it made me never want to trust again.

I come up to a bend in the road and I risk another glance over my shoulder. This time, I’m surprised to find that Jean isn’t there anymore. I stop walking and turn around, looking for him, my heart racing.

“Vivian,” a voice calls out.

I nearly jump out of my fucking skin. I spot Henry hurrying toward me from across the street.

“What are you doing?” I hiss at him.

“Coming to check on you.” He frowns at me. “Sorry, did I scare you?”

“Yes!” My heart is beating a million miles per hour in my chest. For a second, I thought the Strips were coming for me. “Where’s Jean?”

“I had him go back.” He grins at me. “Look what he made me take.” He lifts his shirt up and shows me a gun, tucked into his jeans.”

“Henry,” I say, “what the hell? Can you use that thing?”

“Sure,” he says. “I have a gun license back in Philly.”

“For some reason, that’s not making me feel better.”

He grins at me and shrugs. “I was in a war zone. You think I didn’t have my own protection out there? Anyway, I wouldn’t worry. We won’t need it.”

He starts walking and I move to catch up with him. I bite my lip, not sure what he’s doing out here. “How’d you know I was out?” I ask.

“Jean told Claude and Claude told me.” He cocks his head at me. “You really shouldn’t be out here, by the way.”

“Are you spying on me?”

“No,” he says seriously. “I told them not to keep tabs on you like that anymore. But since you’re here… well, I guess I figured I’d join you.”

I take a deep breath and let it out. I can feel all my anger and resentment still bubbling, but for a second, I manage to let it go.

“What are you doing, anyway?” he asks me.

“Can’t sleep,” I say. “Walking helps sometimes.”

“Yeah,” he says, looking down the street. “I can’t sleep either.”

We walk past an abandoned house and he stops. I walks past him a bit and turn back as he looks up at the boarded windows, the dilapidated porch, the sagging shutters.

“Used to be beautiful, I bet,” he says. He turns and looks at me. “Come on.”

“Henry, wait,” I say, but he’s already walking toward it. I hurry to follow him as he skirts along the outside of the house and finally hops over the fence, a big tall wooden thing that creeks as he climbs it.

“Henry,” I whisper. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Someone could be inside.”

“Holy crap,” he says. “You got to see this.”

“Henry,” I say.

“Come on, I know you can jump it.”

I hesitate a second. “This is a bad idea.”

“You scared?”

I clench my jaw. I’m not scared, not at all. I grab onto the fence and hoist myself up, managing to climb up and over it. As I fall down the other side, he catches me, steadying me with his hands on my hips.

“Uh, thanks,” I say, as flashes of skin and memory hit me.

“Sure,” he whispers, lips close to mine. “Come on.”

He leads me a little further back into the yard. It’s pretty overgrown with weeds, but it looks like any other yard out there. As soon as we get around the corner though, I see what he was talking about.

“Holy crap,” I say.

“I know, right?”

In the middle of the yard, surrounded by nothing but overgrown green and weeds, is an enormous fountain. It looks like twenty feet in diameter, at least, maybe more. The statues in the middle are two lions fighting with each other, and one of them has a bunch of arrows spouting from its body.

“Must have cost a fortune,” he says, walking toward it. “I mean, why have a fountain back here?” He shakes his head. “There’s nothing else around.”

He’s right, it seems really odd. There’s no furniture, no deck, no paving stones, nothing. Just a fountain in the middle of an otherwise empty yard.

“It’s pretty cool,” I admit to him. “I mean, I’d put it in my yard.”

He laughs and sits on the rim. “I think I would, too.”

I sit down next to him. The house is totally silent and dark, and the windows in the back are boarded up as well. It doesn’t look like anyone’s broken in, which is good. Means the place probably isn’t full of meth heads or something.

I glance over at Henry and he’s looking at me. “What?” I ask him.

“I was just thinking,” he says softly.

“What?” I ask again, tipping my head toward him.

“I’m glad you went to Harvard, you know,” he says.

“Yeah, you basically forced me into it,” I say, a little harsher than I meant.

He winces at that. “Yeah, I know.”

“You were an ass back then.”

“I know that, too,” he says. “I thought I was doing the right thing.”

“If you didn’t want me anymore…” I trail off, not sure where to go.

“I wanted you,” he says, and I’m surprised by the intensity in his voice. “I wanted you so badly, Viv. But you were talking about throwing away Harvard for me. Freaking Harvard. A full ride. Do you know how valuable that is?”

“Yes,” I say softly. “I know.”

“You wanted to throw it away and come to some shitty state school with me. I couldn’t let you do it. I couldn’t live with that.”

“That wasn’t your choice to make,” I say to him. “Why didn’t you just say this to me back then?”

“I did,” he says, and I realize he’s practically pleading. “I tried to convince you, over and over, but you just ignored me. You couldn’t see the mistake you were making.”

And it hits me right there. It all suddenly hits me. I remember the conversations about our future, how serious I was back then about being with him. I was ready to go anywhere with him. We had applied to a few schools together and gotten into most of them. I was ready to do anything he wanted.

“I couldn’t let you do it,” he says softly. “So I decided to make the biggest mistake of my life.”

“You did that to get me to go to Harvard?” I ask him, surprised by how stupid it sounds.

“Yes,” he says, sighing. “God, it feels good to finally say it. I pushed you away like a fucking moron, even though I was in love with you. I just couldn’t let you throw away your future for me.”

I stare at him, not sure what to say. It all makes sense now, though. He never stopped having feelings for me out of the blue. He always loved me. And he pushed me away for my own good.

“That’s why you ignored me,” I say softly. “You weren’t just being cruel.”

“I changed my whole life,” he says. “Changed all my friends. Burned a few bridges. People thought I was a horrible person, for what I did to you, but I didn’t care. And when I heard that you went to Harvard… I was happy.”

“It’s just a school,” I say. “I could have been fine without it.”

“Maybe,” he says, “but how many opportunities have you had because of that school?”

“Everything,” I admit. “God, Henry. It’s been easier to hate you, you know.”

“Yeah, well, I was still a dick back then. I could have gone about it better.”

“Yeah,” I agree with him. “You could have.”

I lean up against him, my heart beating fast. I feel like I’m dizzy, trying to take all this in, and I have no clue what to say.

He sacrificed for me. He forced me into a choice, and that’s a shitty thing, but we really were kids back then. And he was doing it for a good reason.

I’m glad he did on some level. I had some amazing experiences at Harvard, learned some incredible things, met some amazing people. My life is what it is now because of that decision. He changed my life in a way I can never really understand, and he was just a kid back then. He saw far enough into the future to know that I had to take that opportunity.

I hated him. I was so angry with him. I went to Harvard just to get away from him, but it turns out that’s what he wanted all along.

He leans toward me and I kiss him. I kiss him hard, his taste flooding my mouth, desire for him taking over every fiber in my being. I can’t believe he did that, he’s such a fucking asshole, but nobody in my life has ever cared about me enough to do something so stupid and reckless for me.

Maybe he broke my heart. But he’s back now, and I understand why he did what he did. As we kiss, I can feel the anger, the resentment, everything begin to melt away. It’s just me and Henry, grown up now, kissing on an abandoned fountain behind an empty, boarded-up house.

And it feels so good I can barely breathe.