Her head fell soft on my shoulder. The blue lines of my shirt were crooked and faded in the folds where she leaned on me. The bus was empty except for us and a few people in the front seats. I was so tired I could barely hold my head up let alone hers, but I did. We had done the impossible; we were youth in triumph, pivoting around every emotion we didn’t understand. Going against everything anyone ever told us. They said we were too young to know love, they said our dreams would change when we realized what’s really important. But how could we care when all we ever wanted was just sitting, waiting for us to take it.

It’s all so crazy to think of now. Only three years ago we lived on an island not even 15 miles long. I was a sophomore she was junior and I promised her the world. Chesnutt Park on Saturday nights, Mansard roofs, a house in Foxborough 30 min away from my university in the city, and 20 min away from her’s in Rhode Island. But most of all I promised her all the love I could give. On that bus ride home that’s all I could think of. Her head moved from my lap to my shoulder to kiss me and back again.

The bus rolled quietly to a stop three blocks from our house. I could tell she was asleep so I lifted her up in my arms and started walking down the breezy streets of Boston’s suburbs. I held her close to keep her green dress from blowing open. She wore this dress for me; it was the first thing I ever saw her in. A block away from the house she kissed my cheek and said, “thank you, thank you for everything.” Tears weld up in my eyes I tried to speak but I kept choking over my words. For all I’ve done for her, it could never compare to what she had done for me. She kept me alive; she gave me the hope to love when they told me to be cynical. She gave me the only thing my life really needed, love.
We reached the house I kicked open the door passed through the parlor were our dog and cat slept, got to our bedroom and laid her down. As I turned down the lights and laid next to her I told her what I had said hundreds of nights before, “Thank you forbeing with me. I wouldn’t trade you for all the ladies of Cambridge.I love you, from here to Boston.”