“I can’t believe the summer is over,” she confided while hopping up on the counter.
“I’m not ready for it to be over.”
“Me either,” William responded even though he didn’t have a break like he did when
in school.
“We need to make a pact,” Emily said, standing up straight.
“A pact?” William inquired. He thought about the last few months. They never
specified what their relationship was. William did think of Emily as his girlfriend
but they never said outright they were a couple. They also never talked about what
their relationship would be like once she returned to school.
“Yes, a pact,” Emily responded.
William stared at her as she glanced up at the ceiling. She may have been just as
confused as him about the nature of their relationship, he thought.
“I loved it this summer,” she confided. “Me. You. Sharing the apartment. It was
fun. I loved you. It. I loved it.”
William slowly opened his mouth to tell her he loved her too.
“And I don’t want it to end,” Emily continued before William could say it. “But I
am going to be away. You are going to be here.”
“Yeah,” he agreed.
“I don’t want this to be the end of us,” she told him. “But I don’t want either of
us putting our lives on pause.”
“On pause?” William asked.
“Yeah,” she hopped off the counter and grabbed his hands. “The summer was perfect.
And I don’t think a long-distance thing can work out. We will have a lot going on.”
“I suppose that’s true,” William faked a smile.
“So this is what I am proposing,” Emily told him. “We put a pause on us while I am