On the other side of a decade an almost becomes a what if. With years stretched out between them, people forget and obsess over what could have been. The fear of regretting doing something risky becomes the regret of not taking more chances. Doe eyed girls become wrathful wolves. Blinding smile jocks become waking ghosts.

On the other side of a decade high school kids meet as adult strangers. What a rush to see the passage of time on the face of someone you barely recognize and yet know so well. Russ Waterford doesn’t think of who others have become in ten years, but he frequently wonders about who he has become since then. April showers, May flowers, the man has heard since he wandered into the stuffy office building that day.

He shakes the spring rain off his tousled brown curls, like a chocolate lab after a dip in the lake. A woman walks into the office on a rainy Monday morning.

This exact moment, in this city on this day, has almost happened a hundred different ways over the past decade. Russ shakes the rain off his hair in an art gallery in Rome, and a woman walks past him on her way out of Villa Borghese, her favorite place on her trip, that ends that day after three weeks backpacking in Italy. The man adjusts his shirt and their eyes miss each other for a second, and Russ starts his Italy trip as she ends hers.

The sky pours down on thousands of people at a music festival in Dublin. Hozier is walking on stage and the crowd is erupting in a shared ecstatic scream. The rain falls on them in the stifling heat of July. Russ shakes the rain off his hair as he smiles at his friends. A woman bumps into him as he does, a mundane occurrence in the packed Golden Circle. She smells like the falling rain and the sunshine that peaks through the clouds. He combs his wet hair back after they share a scream-shouted “Sorry!” and when his eyes dart to look at the sound of the voice he seems only a throng of people.

There is a train station in Prague and Russ is running late. He runs past the arriving crowd as he tries to make it onto the departing train. The snow has turned to rain and he is soaked to the bone. He’s on his way out of the city and she’s on her way into it. A woman holds her arm out of the train to stop the doors from closing on her. The man rushes to the last open door on the train. When the doors slide open, Russ shakes the rain off his hair and looks down to find his footing over the gap. The woman slides past him in a rush and the two travelers go their opposite ways, missing each other again.

There are a dozen other times where an almost threatens to become a reunion. In the city they share, sometimes the kilometers that separate them shrink into mere meters. He wanders into her favorite coffee shop to find shelter from the downpour he got caught in. She’s chatting to the server, laughing back and forth with the familiarity of a regular. Russ shakes the rain off his hair behind the woman. When he looks up, the server waves goodbye to the woman heading into the torrential downpour. Maniac, he thinks as he looks at the back of the departing regular.

Today, however, the almost becomes something more. A semicolon eternally torn between a period and a pause no longer needs to hang in the balance. The same woman walks into the office on a rainy Monday morning. The same woman that Russ almost saw through the rain in his curls a hundred times over ten years. The same woman that Russ knew like a friend ten years ago.

This time, Russ Waterford shakes the rain off his hair and looks up. It seems like the forces of the universe collectively stop to watch. They pass buckets of popcorn and hush each other because– oh, finally– Russ looks up and sees her.

He sees her, alright.

Alexandra Stoker waltzes into his office like sunshine in the bleak of winter. The washed out grey of the office floor brightens with her golden blonde hair. The trademark green of the company, a football club Russ had dreamed of working with since he was a kid, has lost some of its shine over the years he’s worked there. But Alexandra wears a blazer of the same shade and takes it off slowly. And now the color doesn’t seem so dull when he sees it on her.

She stands by the company logo at the entryway, her white blouse cutting her silhouette in stark contrast. Russ notices that she is a woman now. The linen of the blouse hangs loosely around her curves but he notices the curves now. He thinks for a moment that he should go in for a medical check up because he doesn’t remember the curves. He certainly doesn’t remember the way her lips curl in a billowy smile as she shakes his boss’s hand. He certainly would remember the way her slacks hug her figure, that he trails shamelessly as her heels click on the marble floor into the conference room.

He looks at her like he sees her for the first time. A second first time because a girl has turned into a woman and a boy has turned into a man. But then, why does he feel like a teenager again? He watches her smile and throw her head back in a laugh through the glass conference room walls. She’s some kind of rare specimen that he peers at now. The memory of who they used to be haunts him. Her laughter travels to him and he clings to it. In a moment the almosts he has collected sink down into his very soul.

Serendipity is a hell of a bitch.

2.

Second First Time

The wedding weekend of high school sweethearts would be enough to make anyone sick with nostalgia. Russ is dragged out of the bachelor party stupor both metaphorically and physically. The men drag him out of the open floor living room and into the starlit night. They howl at the moon like a pack of wolves when the women filter out of the cars like princesses out of carriages.

The group of high school friends run to each other in a cacophony of hugs and cries of delight. The bride arrives in a white slip dress and the groom spins her around in his black button down. They kiss and the crowd cheers them on. High school sweethearts are a clichê except when they are your friends. When they are your friends you hoot like owls and screech like eagles, showering them in oh’s and aw’s until they drown in your excitement and the champagne being poured messily into flutes.

Russ stands back and smiles at his friends. A champagne-full flute is passed to him. His fingers brush against someone’s on the stem and he looks up at her. He seems to find himself here quite often now. Looking up at the memory of a girl he used to know in the face of a beautiful woman. It’s still as striking as the second first time he saw her, all those months ago in his office.

“Hey, Alex.” He gives her a lopsided grin and he blames it on the lingering alcohol in his blood.

“Hey, Russ.” She smiles with red painted lips and his blood rushes a few dozen places. To his cheeks, get your mind out of the gutter.

“Got dragged out here too?” He gestures to the rowdy group of adult teenagers and tilts his glass to hers.

She clinks their flutes together. “One too many ‘you have to’ texts later in the group chat.” They take a sip together and she licks her lips before giving him a chuckle. “But it’s nice to see you out of the office.”

Okay, maybe his blood rushes elsewhere now.

The weekend is shockful of champagne toasts and awkward small talk until a group of somewhat-strangers eases back into the friends they used to be. Teenagers but not at all anymore. Adults but not quite yet. Questions of “what do you do now?” turn into games of “never have I ever”. They discover who has finally had sex on a boat, who never had a threesome and who misses an ex. They get too drunk for shallow conversation and not drunk enough for the deep kind.

They discover what it is like to be kids again. The weekend belongs to who they used to be, lived by who they are now. On the second night, which feels like the fifth because they’ve slept very little and drunk very much, a firepit is lit. The flames cast tall shadows of the group of friends on the forest edge behind them. The warm glow of the embers paints their faces in the kind light of memory and nostalgia. Everyone is younger tonight; wiser but childish still.

Russ sits down on one of the long logs serving as benches around the fire. He pops the caps off two beer bottles expertly like a teenager peacocking for a girl. Which he is. Alexandra takes the extended beer from his hand and their fingers brush together, slick with the water drops from the ice cold bottles. They’ve forgone the fancy champagne of their grownup selves for the cheap beer of their teenage years.

He nods his head towards a couple that disappears into the woods with their hands intertwined. “Seems like Violet and Patrick are back at it.” He swings from his bottle with a smirk.

Alexandra laughs, a lilting sound carried by the cracking embers and the sudden quiet of the firepit, and his throat feels dry as he swallows. A laugh that could end a man. Alcohol-induced teenage Russ doesn’t stand a chance. They lock eyes in a shared smirk and his eyes travel down to her bare lips. Adult Russ doesn’t stand a chance either.

Her lips are flushed with the many drinks of the night, the pale pink gloss she’d worn earlier is but a stain on the rim of a glass now. He imagines they are cold from the beer. He imagines warming them up in a kiss. He imagines how that laugh would feel in his throat. He imagines so much in that split second that he sees her lips moving, but misses half of her question.

“... and I wondered if you did too.”

Russ shakes off the horny teenager fantasies. He sips his drink and gives her an apologetic smile, nervously combing his messy curls back. “I’m sorry, I zoned out for a second there. What was that?”

She laughs again with her head thrown back. That goddamn laugh. “Oh, boy. You are drunk.” Alexandra says this with the ease of her laughter and the ignorance of the effect it has on him. “I was talking about my first day at the office. When I saw you I was quite shocked, you know. Not because you were there, but because you weren’t a kid anymore.”

Russ remembered that morning, of course. It frequently replayed in his brain for months, and even now. He remembered struggling to combine these two snapshots of Alexandra, from girl to woman, in the same person. How ridiculous he’d thought of himself for only imagining her as a girl for a decade and being at a loss for the woman she actually was.

“I thought that was so silly of me, to see you as a kid every time I imagined you now. And I wondered if you did too.” She pulls at a loose thread in the hem of her dress.

“Yeah.” The single word hangs between them and Russ curses himself for his sudden ineptitude with women. He can’t even blame it on teenage Russ, because the colgate smile jock had never had an issue with girls. Somehow, adult Russ is struck dumb by a laugh and thoughts of a simple kiss. But her lips would be wet and she’d taste of wheat and the vanilla from her perfume and he’d– goddamn it.

“Yeah, that’s how I pictured you too.” Good save, he thinks to himself, straightening his back and grinning at her with a sweeping gesture of his hand. “I’d never have imagined you like this.”

“Like this?” She cocks one eyebrow at him and he’s about to stumble into a rambling apology of ‘that’s not what I meant’ when she teases him with a smirk against the lip of the bottle. It’s his turn to laugh and scratch the back of his head as the tension leaves his body. They laugh together, she leans her forehead against his shoulder and he stares up at the stars. A night that could hold memories old and new.

When he looks down at her, she is looking up at him. “That stupid laugh.” Her eyes are bright with the flames. “It’s still the same. It always used to make me smile back in school.”

“I didn’t know that.”

She finishes her drink and sets down the empty bottle with a shrug. “You never noticed, I guess.”

Russ grabs two new beers from the cooler behind them. Alexandra takes one from him and he tries to linger in the touch of her fingers. They trade memories on that late night by the firepit. The conversation flows steadily between them like the current of a river. A rhythm only possible when you’ve known someone in another life.

“When I saw you again, you looked so different.” Russ breaks a comfortable silence and his voice is low and raspy with beer and longing. “But looking at you now, it’s remarkable how much you look the same too.”

Alexandra smiles at him and extends her beer to clink with his. They’re facing each other on the log, so close that their knees touch. There’s too much space between them still, a decade’s worth, and yet not enough. He leans forward and looks at her like an old friend. They drink and they talk. She laughs with him and he drinks her in. The fire warms his body. The touch of her leg sparks chills up his thigh. The heat in his gaze isn’t the kind you give an old friend. And he can’t blame the flames either.

3.

She Walks into Mine

Russ has a secret. No one knows where he is today. It’s not a shady dark secret, like something that belongs in a black book. It’s more like something that belongs in a cheery glitter gel pen diary with a lock and key. It makes him happy and he wants to keep it for himself.

He’s at a castle in Prague for a week of Dungeons and Dragons. Somehow, over the years the jock has turned into a bit of a nerd. It’s turned into a yearly ritual of his– he takes a week off work and claims to go on an impromptu unplug trip. In reality he’s bought the ticket months before and booked himself a room at the castle overlooking the sprawling gardens and the forest. He picked it out himself, courtesy of the VIP ticket for the “D&D in a Castle” weeklong event.

It’s not that he’s ashamed. It’s mostly that he doesn’t really have friends to share this sort of thing with. And because he likes having something of his own. Like a puzzle piece of his identity that he never gives out, never allowing the picture to be complete. A mystery of himself that only he can solve. It makes him feel giddy with excitement as he unpacks his bag in the 18th century bedroom. He sighs with delight looking out into the autumn painted forest.

A bell tolls and is followed by the sound of feet down staircases. The guests make their way to the gardens and he trails after them. He recognizes a few faces from previous years and events, greeting them with hello’s and how are you’s as he goes. The crowd gathers at the bottom of two curved stone staircases. All faces are turned up towards the balcony and railing where a group of hosts gathers. A man with grey hair introduces them to the history of the castle, which he skims to get to the good part. He smiles when he welcomes them all to a week of games and stories. Russ can feel the crowd hum with pure undiluted glee. They all hoot and clap when the old man calls forward the week’s Grand Master.

The Grand Master is the week’s illustrious Dungeon Master. The mind behind the games and the activities for the whole event. The crowd, and Russ, wait with bated breath for the hooded figure to reveal themselves. In the past, the Grand Masters have been celebrities, famous DM’s, or up and coming nerds. Russ has only ever recognized one Grand Master before, as he isn’t as informed on the lore as everyone else.

The hooded figure is a woman. She wears a corseted long dress and a medallion hangs between her cleavage. The hood hides her face, but her lips and her nails are red. She brings her hands to the cloak and lowers it, revealing her face. Her voice unravels like velvet across the garden and her blood-red lips curl into a smile.

“Hello, adventurers.”

The crowd erupts into claps and cheers and all Russ can think is: Fuck.

Alexandra Stoker welcomes the guest for a week of fun and mystery. Well, there goes my mystery. A man he’d played with the year before clasps Russ on the shoulder and gushes about the Grand Master.

“I can’t believe we got Alex fucking Stoker.” He rambles on about her games and is joined in by a few of his friends. Russ plasters a smile on his face and nods, yeah, how lucky are we? He moves out of the man’s touch, acutely aware of the jealousy in his stomach at hearing this stranger refer to Alex so casually. He also doesn’t miss the way the man’s gaze lingers on her a moment too long, like Russ is prone to doing lately, and he kicks himself for ever looking so much like a lost puppy. Yeah, so lucky.

Of all the D&D events in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine. And she is lit up from within. She positively glows when she takes the players, not guests anymore but players, into the gaming den. Alexandra takes up space and the crowd flocks to her like her voice is a siren song and they are lost at sea. Or at least, Russ is.

“The den used to be this castle’s main formal dining hall.” She opens her arms to the cavernous and gigantic room. The stone walls are adorned with long banners with the event’s logo.

There are old and worn solid wooden tables arranged along the hall. “The mahogany tables are original.” Her eyes shine and you’d think she was telling you about a pot of gold. She hasn’t seen him, and he tries to delay that moment for as long as he can.

The roll call begins, however. The players find their designated table and party when their names are called out. The same old man from before reads the players’ names in alphabetical order from a long parchment style list. Russ stares at the parchment like he can bore a hole through the letter W which will certainly be near the bottom. He isn’t sure why he’s so keen on hiding behind a curtain or jumping from the tall balcony to avoid mortification. He isn’t even sure why he’s mortified.

“Sir Russ Waterford, table 7.”

The man calls out and Russ seems to forget his name for a moment. There are only 5 other people next to him, and they turn to each other in a silent question until their gazes land on Russ. You see, the five other people are women. The old man looks at Russ and he gets the distinct feeling he is trying not to laugh.

“Mr. Waterford?” He encourages him.

Russ clears his throat, “Yeah, here.” He’s not looking at anyone as he makes his way to his table. He’s trying his hardest not to look at anyone, really. What has turned him into the awkward teenager he never was? And like the answer to a question he didn’t need asking, Alexandra smiles at him. She’s at the head of table 7. He double checks the number, triple checks, quadruple checks. Looking between the calligraphy written number to her and back again until she purses her lips to stop her smile from growing.

“Welcome, Russ.”

Because of fucking course. Russ takes his place at table 7, where the Grand Master will be leading the game for the course of the next few days. Alexandra doesn’t waste time before launching them into a sprawling story fit for the hall of a castle. Her hair is tied up halfway through and her eyes are lit with the same fire that she used to have when she argued in class. When she defended a book with so much passion that he’d actually done the assigned reading for once.

Russ watches Alexandra talk like it’s a private performance. He wonders how he never realized before how she makes people feel. The burning desire for life and adventure and discovery. He can see it so clearly now in the people taking in her every word, but more clearly in how his eyes cannot let go of her. In the blazing memory that this is who she has always been and that he, like she had said before, had just never noticed.

She doesn’t acknowledge that they know each other. For his sake, or hers, he doesn’t know which. She weaves a story like a master, befitting her name. The narrative twists and turns under the command of her voice. She bends to mimic a crone and the party laughs. Russ smiles at her with something like endearment. Alexandra holds them all in suspense as the story beat draws taut with tension. Russ realizes that she isn’t a master storyteller because of fancy words or dramatic encounters, but because of the emotion in her voice. Because of the feeling she elicits in all of them. He’s enthralled and only notices that five hours have gone by when the dinner bell rings.

He lingers back while the rest of his party leave for dinner. When he turns around, Alexandra is already looking at him, a hand on her hip.

“Look who the cat dragged in.” That same teasing smile from before is on her lips from which the red lipstick has faded in the past couple of hours. He’s staring at her lips again and she is trying not to smirk again.

“I think you mean the dragon.”

Alex laughs and Russ is undone. She laughs and he knows with the certainty of a dying man that he is going to kiss her tonight.

4.

You’ve Changed

Like the tragically in love teenager in a 2010s romance movie, about three things Russ was absolutely positive. First, Alexandra was here. Second, there was a part of him– and he didn’t know how strong that part might be– that yearned for her. And third, he was, unconditionally and irrevocably, a goner.

Russ paces back and forth in his stone bedroom. The castle is cool and humid, which would be a balm on this stifling early autumn night, if only Russ hadn’t worked himself up by endless pacing and theatrical reenactments of how he would charm Alexandra. Charm, like this is an actual game or he’s been transported back to the centuries when this castle had been polished and new.

He fixes the collar of his loose billowing linen shirt. He unbuttons the top of his shirt like he’s William Turner ready to see Elizabeth Swann after a decade at sea. That’s what he feels like. A cursed pirate that waits ten years just for a single night with a woman. Not any woman– William Turner would never. He waits for one woman. He does it willingly and with the full painful knowledge of his longing. William Turner is a man. Russ Waterford is a boy.

Up until a year ago, Russ hadn’t given Alexandra more than a few fleeting thoughts scattered over the years. A little over a year had passed since he saw her for the second first time. He can trace back his ridiculous longing to that blasted rainy Monday morning. She’d worn an open shirt like the one he wears now. He wonders what she might be wearing tonight. He stops pacing when the fantasy catches him off guard.

“Fucking hell.” He mutters to himself and crosses the room to the small bar cart to fix himself a drink. The drink swishes and the ice clinks against the glass as he tips his head back in a gulp of liquid courage. Squaring his shoulders, he takes one last look at himself in the mirror.

Russ Waterford, star athlete, easy smile, charming to a fault, once golden boy, saunters into the library of a castle. The schedule had an invitation for after-game drinks and he figured it would be the perfect scenario to charm a woman. Lots of people, drinks flowing, romantic lighting, the works. Except that nothing ever goes according to plan. He stops in his tracks as he looks out into a practically empty room. The bar is set up along the back wall, and a massive fireplace cracks and pops with empty couches and chaises placed around it. There are scattered floor pillows in a circle by the fire. That is where he finds her.

The nostalgia hits him like a tidal wave. It crashes over him with the weight of memory and he can’t breathe for a moment. Alexandra Stoker sits on a cushion on the floor, her feet curled up beneath her, reading a book by the firelight. He remembers her then– the woman before him metamorphoses into the quiet girl she used to be, scribbling in the margins of a book. And the memory fades into the present, and girl and woman are the same now. The same poised confidence, the same sharpness around the edges. The two images bleed together and he sees her. Who she used to be, and who she is now. The same and yet changed. His feet move of his own accord towards her.

Alexandra doesn’t see him until he sits down across from her. Of course she doesn’t, he thinks. “Hey, Russ.” When she closes her book and sets it down to greet him he almost dies on the spot.

“Hey, Alex.” He gives her the same fond smile he’s grown used to having around her.

“I almost ran up to you when I saw you from the balcony.” There’s an openness to her smile as she confides in him, the glee and mischief of it hitting him in full force. “Thank goodness for my poker face, or I would have outed your jock status to the nerds.”

He laughs with her and wants to keep her laughing. Wants to lie down in the sound of her laughter and spend an eternity there. He stretches his left leg between them, pulling up the loose pant leg to show her his scarred knee.

“Not a jock anymore– got a bum knee now.” He raises one eyebrow at her and watches in delight as surprise morphs into utter amusement and she bursts out laughing.

“You got a bum knee?” Alex covers her mouth with her hands and shakes her head. “Oh, lord, I’m sorry I shouldn’t be laughing. That’s–” She snorts, trying to hold back her giggles. “I’m terrible, I’m sorry.”

Russ reaches out and takes her hand off her mouth. “Don’t.” Her eyes soften as she looks at their joined hands between them. “I like making you laugh.” There’s a shyness in the corner of her mouth as she takes him in. “Since my jock days are behind me, I have to win you over despite my bum knee.”

Alexandra laughs on cue, bowing her head and her hair falling over her shoulders. Russ can smell the vanilla of her shampoo and the richness of her perfume. She looks up at him through thick dark lashes and the warmth of the flames brightens her chocolate eyes. “Win me over, uh?”

He shrugs. “I may not be a varsity heartrober anymore, but I can still make you laugh.”

It’s her turn to give him a fond smile. She tilts her head to one side, studying him. He watches as she brings one hand to his face. Her fingers trace his beard, softly moving along his jaw. Her nails scratch up the side of his face, making their way along his hairline. She catches a stray curl that had fallen over his forehead. It curls around her finger. She studies him like he’s one of her books. If he hadn’t wanted to kiss her before, he certainly would now.

“You’ve changed.” Her voice is a whisper for him, though there is no one else in the room, and if there were, Russ wouldn’t notice. “But then again, so have I.” She trails her fingers softly, a ghost of a touch, down his chest. “And that’s not a bad thing, in the end.” Alexandra softens before him and Russ can’t remember any of the words he rehearsed in the mirror. “I quite like who you’ve become.”

Russ isn’t sure who moves first. Alexandra isn’t sure either. The man leans forward as the girl becomes the woman and the woman becomes the girl. The bleeding of a decade finally runs out. Ten years fade together in a single moment as they lean in for a kiss. Russ takes her face in his hands and she is soft and warm when he kisses her. Alexandra presses her hands against his bare chest– thank you, Will Turner– and pulls him in by the collar of his shirt.

He learns what she tastes like. He breathes her in and devours her whole. He’s slower, quieter and more patient now that a decade has passed. And like she said, he quite likes that too. He takes his time when they are alone in his room.

“Did you know I had a crush on you back then?” She bites on her bottom lip when Russ tosses his shirt to the floor. “Guess that hasn’t changed after all.”

He climbs on top of her in a four poster bed, fit for lords and ladies with a canopy, and he thinks of all the improper ways he can shock some 18th century ghosts. “Thank fuck for that.”

She kisses an ache in him and the longing burns under her touch. He adds this night to the collection he’s made of her. Of memories and fantasies and dreams. He consciously chooses this moment a thousand times over. Alexandra wraps around him and Russ around her. He chooses this. He does it willingly and with the full painful knowledge of his longin

5.

The Defeat of What If

On the other side of a decade a what if becomes true. A “what if we had?” turns into a “what if we did?”. A question haunting a decade becomes an answer on a warm October night in a castle. Alexandra Stoker looks out at the stars above them through the open windows. Russ Waterford is lying next to her, tangled in the wool blanket they had dragged off the bed and onto the floor.

The years stretch out behind and ahead of them like the stars dotting the sky. The almost became a what if. The what if became a question. And now, they stop asking. She laughs. The moonlight night bears witness to the defeat of what if. They stop wondering, stop regretting, stop missing chances. The stars watch as Russ and Alexandra finally stop asking.

“You know, there was a moment I almost told you.” She whispers, still looking at the twinkling lights. “We were walking in the woods during spring break, in our last year. We’d gotten lost on our way back to the group with the beer crate.”

Dusk had fallen and the night had been bathed in starlight. They’d wandered off, talking about all they’d do after graduation; about dreams and fears and the ease of two people sharing a pivotal life changing moment. Alexandra had looked at him then and wondered in a split second that lasted for an age, what if?

“I almost reached for you and kissed you right then. I was so scared I would chicken out.” She huffs out a laugh and looks up at him, propped on an elbow, slightly towering over her.

They’d sat down under a weeping willow and leaned their tired backs against its trunk. She remembered thinking how old that tree must have been, how many young teenagers had sat under her and kissed for the first time, how many love-sick couples had carved their names there. Alexandra remembers the tree above her and Russ beside her. This boy was taller than her as she’d looked up at him and tried to muster the courage. She was leaving, for goodness sake. She was leaving and so was he, and she’d never know if she didn’t tell him.

“But I didn’t.” She traces his jaw with his fingertips now. “I chickened out.”

“The weeping willow.” He brings her back from her memory and into his. “I remember.” He smiles at her, that lopsided smile that makes him look like a teenager again. He looks exactly as he had then. He looks at her in the same way too. “I wanted to kiss you too.”

He leans down and takes her mouth in a gentle kiss. It is slow. It is patient. It has a tenderness that could only have been nurtured for a decade. His thumb brushes over her cheek and he pulls her up. They sit on the floor under the stars as Russ kisses her like they have all the time in the world. He sits next to her and she leans into him and his kiss. They fall across a decade together, back to the weeping willow and that night on spring break. He kisses her like it’s the first time and the last and all in between. When Russ pulls back, he looks like a teenager and a man. He looks the same and not at all. He smiles at her.

“There.” His thumb traces her lips. “Our first kiss.”

She laughs and her eyes shine at him like the stars shine at them. “Hardly the first.”

His hand tangles in her long hair again and he pulls her in for another kiss. A hand travels down her naked back and pulls her closer to him. “The weeping willow.” He looks towards the nature reliefs in the ceiling, she follows his gaze. The room had been fashioned with detailed reliefs of the foliage of a weeping willow. Centuries ago, someone had stood there and carved the branches and leaves that now adorned the ceiling above them.

“You are wearing a red dress with white polka dots.” He brushes a strand of her hair behind her ear.

She bumps his shoulder “I am wearing nothing, Russ.”

He shakes his head and closes his eyes. “Your hair is in a braid and you’re talking about Italy.” She looks at this man, laughs softly and closes her eyes too. He continues. “You’re going to write a book. You’re going to be an editor.”

“You’re going to be a journalist.” She says and he smiles. “You remember.”

“I remember you.” He kisses her again. With their eyes closed, the weeping willow relief above them and the open window letting in the night, they are transported to that night. He kisses her for the first time and she kisses him too. They span a whole decade in a single kiss. “There. A second first kiss.”

They kiss for the teenagers they used to be. They answer that question and linger in the moment. This time, when the light shifts and they’ve grown ten years older, they kiss again. The light will change again and they will pass still. They will kiss under a tree, and she’ll wear white and he’ll wear a suit with a red pocket square with white polka dots. They will kiss under the wooden beam threshold of their first home together. They will kiss under fluorescent lights and welcome a child into their family.

And one day, they will kiss under that same weeping willow again. They will be slow with age and their hair grey with years. They will have had an eternity of kisses since that almost kiss under that tree. Their wrinkled hands intertwined as they make their way to the tree year after year. When they kiss now in a castle and infinite moments of them exist in the span of a breath. The man and woman kissing under the carved relief of a tree. The teenagers making out under a weeping willow. And an old couple sharing a life.

They grow young together and they grow old too. They hold snapshots of their lives together in their kiss. They are teenagers again and they dare to kiss. They are all the years of a decade of missed kisses. They are the life they will have together. They are the same and yet changed.

They are that night and all those that will follow. In this life and the next, under the weeping willow tree on a starry night.

Born in 1997, in the year eternally torn between Millenials and Gen Z’s, Inês de Lucena Guedes is a writer and editor based in Lisbon, Portugal. Storytelling has been her lifelong passion, both medium and message. Majored in American Literature and minored in Editing and Comparative Studies. Always seeking to find the heart of stories, Inês has worked in marketing, publishing and editing her whole life. She is an expert gardener, mom to 4 cats, voracious reader and prolific Dungeon Master. When she isn’t devouring stories and worlds, she’s hosting elaborate dinner parties, designing games and creating content.