Will

Will spent half the night at the gym punishing himself on the treadmill and in the weight room after his conversation with Emma. If nothing else, at least his lacrosse coach wouldn’t be able to ride his ass for slacking over the holidays. Ever since Emma showed up in New York, Will had been hitting the gym extra hard. It was his only outlet for his pent up frustrations over her. The girl was driving him insane and she had no idea.

Emma was a total smoke show. She’d always been. And maybe it was because he hadn’t seen her in a while or because he knew she was sleeping just down the hall from him, but Will hadn’t had a good night’s rest since she arrived. And when he did manage to sleep, Emma haunted his dreams, filling them with tantalizing illusions of kissing her perfect lips or tracing her rose petal skin.

Just that morning Will had woken from a dream so real he swore his skin felt scorched from Emma’s touch. He’d had to start the day with a cold shower. Will could hardly believe it was still the same day. How had things gone so wrong?

He’d planned the perfect date for he and Emma to help her get to know Colin, all the while showing her everything there was to love about New York, and about him. Will had been sure if he could help her remember how great things used to be when they were together they could get back there—to that place they were when everything was perfect. When they were Emma and Will. When he never could’ve imagined her not in his life. He just wanted to go back to how things were before she left. But Emma had made it clear that wasn’t going to happen. Will upped the speed on his treadmill, trying to outrun the reality of Emma’s harsh words, but in the end he walked home feeling broken and alone.

* * *

After exercising his demons at the gym, Will chucked his gym bag in his bedroom and took his second cold shower of the day, wondering how things had gone from a dream to a nightmare in the span of a few hours. He was still way too wound up to go to bed despite it being nearly midnight, so he turned to his first love—the classics. But even Will’s old black and white films couldn’t bring him any comfort. They only reminded him that he used to watch them with Emma and it made him miss her more.

It was infuriating knowing she was next door and there was nothing he could do about it. It was taking all his willpower not to march to her apartment and drag her back into the hall to finish their conversation, because it wasn’t over. It couldn’t be over.

Will wanted to fight for her. And he’d seen that spark in her eyes when they’d been in the park. His mind flashed back to their perfect day. Her laughter ringing out as he chased her with snowballs. How she’d held onto him on the ice. The warmth of her next to him in the carriage. The way their eyes met across the room. He hadn’t imagined it. And if only to prove it to himself, Will switched off ‘Casablanca’ and flipped opened his laptop. He’d uploaded the videos he’d stealthily taken throughout the day.

Proofing the clips, Will paused at certain intervals to memorize the stolen moments between him and Emma. They were there. Every last one of them. And that only made him even more upset. How could she feel the way he did and not want to fight for it?

So what if she lived in Boston and he was in New York? They were only a few hours apart. And in a few short months they’d be graduating and could go anywhere. There were great film schools in Boston. And there wasn’t anywhere better for fashion than New York. They could make it work.

Will had always thought that Emma would come back to the city for college. That had been her plan since she went to her first Fashion Week in fifth grade. She’d come back and told him she wanted to go to Parsons and open up her own design studio in the garment district. And Will was perfectly happy with that plan because he planned to stay in the city too and go to Columbia. He didn’t have a choice since his parents and brothers were all distinguished alumni. But Columbia had a great film program and all that mattered was that he and Emma would be together.

His chest felt tight as he realized a major flaw in his plan. Will had mapped out his entire future without ever telling Emma the most important part. That he wanted her in it. That she was his future—the axis around which his universe rotated. God, how had he let that happen?

He suddenly felt ridiculous for having been too afraid of losing her to admit that he was in love with her. Because he absolutely was. And look where trying to deny it had gotten him. He’d kept his stupid mouth shut and lost her anyway. And right now nothing was more terrifying.

“I’m not giving up,” Will muttered to himself. It wasn’t over yet. He had to believe he still had a chance. He may not agree with his parents’ choices most of the time, but he had learned one thing from them. Go after what you want one hundred percent or not at all. Emma was what Will wanted. And he wouldn’t quit until she believed him.