Slow Dance

by Rainbow Rowell

“The brain makes note of novelty. Broken patterns. The more we do the same things, the more they blend together.”

“Things still change, Shiloh, whether or not you participate in the rituals of transition.”

“We’ll slow-dance—is that better?” Shiloh let him catch her hand. “But it’s a fast song.” “No one cares.”

Like—cells get replaced in the human body every seven years. So that’s two full iterations since 1992. You don’t have any cells left that remember me.” “I’m pretty sure my cells remember you, Shiloh.” “Not from firsthand experience.”

Then he kissed her like he’d been thinking about it all night—like maybe he’d been thinking about it for fifteen years.

What made a kiss good, Shiloh decided, wasn’t technique. It was wanting it—and she wanted this. She wanted him. She’d never wanted anyone else as much or as well.

She’d longed for him—and she’d thought it was something else, some other feeling. She’d thought that someone else would come along someday and that person would show her what love and desire felt like.

Cary got in front of her, reaching behind her to close the door—then crowded her against it. “Shiloh,” he said before he kissed her.

Shiloh felt the arousal rising up in her, and it was such a relief. She could ride this feeling past all the other stuff. (The desolation, again. The ennui.) (Memories.)

There was nowhere for them to go with each other. The minute they started, they’d be at the finish line.

He already knew her so well. He already loved her so much. What were they going to do, get married? What were they going to do if they couldn’t get married? Destroy everything? Their friendship? Their shot at something bigger?

It felt so good that he lost track of himself.

Her mom pinched Shiloh’s upper arm. “You brought Cary home from the wedding?” She was whisper-hissing. “I didn’t think you had it in you!”

It was her first kiss. In her dorm room. That day. She was nineteen, too. It wasn’t a kiss that changed anything, externally.

But Shiloh was done meeting new people. For life.

Shiloh made friends in school and at work, with people she was trapped with all the time anyway. The idea of making friends in the wild? Inconceivable. And completely unappealing.

He was just getting to the age where Shiloh could leave him alone for a few minutes. Like, he could still kill himself if left to his own devices—but it would probably take more than five minutes.

“It’s like ‘yes,’ asterisk, and then ‘Let the record show I think this is probably a bad idea.’”

“Let the record show I’m terrified of losing you completely.”

I voted for Al Gore. Like a sane person.”

“Don’t begrudge me this life.”

“I want to remember this day,” she whispered. “But I also want to have so many good days that this one gets lost in the plethora. Cary, I want to make you so happy that all your happy memories run together. I want the rest of your life to be a bright gold streak.”

“I’m going to make you feel so consistently good that the days lose specificity.”

“Yes. I’m going to obliterate your memory. All you’re going to remember at the end is a blur of milk and honey.”