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“Ooh, please?”

“It’s down here.” Jonathan led the way down the hallway, the red tile floor cool under Phoebe’s bare feet.

The room was a time capsule. Phoebe didn’t know what to remark upon first: the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles poster on the wall, the stack of Hardy Boys books, or …

“They kept your computer?” On the desk by the window was a clunky desktop computer and monitor straight out of the early 2000s. There was even a small CD-ROM organizer next to the monitor, displaying gems such as The Sims, RollerCoaster Tycoon, and The Legend of Zelda. “Wow.”

“My mom uses it as a guest room. But she’s very sentimental.” Jonathan sat down on his childhood bed.

Phoebe slid open the closet door, intending to just take a peek, but then she saw her own face.

“What’s this?” She pulled out the cardboard box that had their recent Santa photo on top.

“Oh, it’s…” Jonathan tucked his hair behind his ear, a gesture that was new to her—his hair had always been so much shorter before. “It’s stuff from college.”

“Okay, so it’s not like a shrine to me. Phew.”

Jonathan didn’t respond. Phoebe poked around inside the box. There were a few folders containing schoolwork. Lots of loose photographs of friends, many of whom Phoebe recognized. Then she saw a nondescript folder with “P.K.” scrawled on the front.

She glanced over her shoulder at Jonathan. He didn’t say anything, just watched as she opened it.

“P.K.?” she asked.

Inside were photographs, including the original Santa photo, mostly pictures from parties and graduation. There was a project they had worked on together in their Theory of Knowledge class, which had been one of their favorites. And then there were notes. Notes Phoebe had no memory of writing but knew that she had.

The first one was written on a small scrap of paper:

Roses are red

Violets are blue

This class is so boring

But at least I have you

“I was quite the poet.”

She looked through the rest. A lot of the notes were just inside jokes, little distractions to entertain each other during class.

“Do you have a folder like this for all of your college friends?” she asked quietly.

“No one else wrote me poems. So, no.”

She put everything back in the folder and set it back in the box, where she noticed that old copy of Big Magic. The book that had ignited their friendship.

She sat down next to him on the bed. “You kept all that stuff.”

He looked evenly at her. “Would you rather I’d thrown it away?”

“No.” Phoebe hesitated. Jonathan’s gaze was open but a little wistful, or maybe sad. “I kept a lot of stuff, too. From you.” When he didn’t say anything, she felt the need to explain. “What we had was just different. On a different level. It was like I knew I needed to keep the memories, even if…”

Even if I would never see you again? Even if we weren’t meant to be together? Phoebe didn’t know where she was going with this.

Jonathan stopped her. He reached for her hand and held it easily in his lap. Again, Phoebe had a thrill from the contact—like there was a chance they could relax back into their old closeness.

“I get it,” he said. “Look, my twenty-two-year-old self is internally freaking out right now that Phoebe Keller is in my childhood bedroom.”

“So is mine.” Phoebe grinned. “And this outfit of yours. I don’t know if you could have pulled it off back then, but…”