The Infinity Between Us

by N.S. Perkins

Five years later, and I still can’t think of death without feeling like I’m going to be sick.

It’s easy to not realize how much you miss something when it’s been so long, you don’t even remember how it used to be.

Grief. Pain. Love. It all floods me at once, preventing me from catching my breath.

“Sorry to disappoint you, V, but I’m here for the same reason.”

Everything’s going to be okay.

“Of course, it’s my choice. The house belongs to both our families, not just yours.”

“I can’t see it that way. Not anymore.”

“Please don’t leave,” he interrupts, eyes wide and cloudy. “Not yet.”

I don’t remember a time when Will Seaberg wasn’t the most important person in my world.

Jensen,

“God, I missed you.”

“You have no idea,”

And finally, the ocean. Every year I see it, and every year I fall in love all over again.

“This summer’s going to be special. I can feel it.”

Probably by telling Dad I had extreme diarrhea and couldn’t come to Maine to deal with the house.

I turn around and pinch my lips to drown a gasp. His nose is bruised. Badly. His gray eyes are also underlined by dark circles. But even with them, he looks better than anyone I’ve ever met. Life is unfair sometimes.

He blinks. “I’ve always been willing to risk a lot of things for you.”

I look around the shower, but obviously there’s nothing I can wash myself with except for Will’s single bottle of…soap? Shampoo? I don’t know what to call it. It looks like the kind of thing men can use to wash their hair and their bodies and their cars with.

Not knowing what I want to do with my life is one of the things that keeps me up at night. I’ve changed majors four times in the last five years, and I still haven’t found it. The thing that will make me feel happy to get up in the morning.

“I agreed to stay here. I didn’t say anything about doing things with you.”

“It’s okay,”

“I won’t give up.”

Will that I’d ask to have sleepovers in the summer room with. Will that I’d want to make sandcastles with. Will that I’d miss so much it hurt during the school year. He could make me laugh like no one else. He just got me.

“Stop it. You love me.”

“I do.”

“Send it to me, will you?”

“What? Why?”

“A guy can’t get a photo of his best friend looking nice for...

I want to give him a hug. Comfort him. Tell him I don’t care how fast these other guys are because none of them could make me smile like he can.

God, I’m such a sucker. I’ve never been able to resist that smile.

Plus, I think I’m too old for this show. Was Rory always this annoying?

God, I was naïve.

I’d rather fall on my face in the first obstacle of Wipeout and have the entirety of America laugh at me.

I used to know everything about his life, and now it feels like we’re strangers.

“I miss all of you.”

“You don’t get to talk about that night. Or that summer. Ever. I don’t care what we agreed on. If you ever mention it again, I swear I’m out of here.”

“I hate you,”

“No, you don’t.”

“How many memories do you have with me? Something like an infinity, right? You couldn’t count them all.” I nod. “And if you think about it, I have an infinity of memories with you, too.” The corners of my lips twitch up. “So there’s an infinity of memories within me, and an infinity of memories within you. But the infinity between us? It’s even grander.”

It’s one of the prettiest nights we’ve had all summer.

Will had a girlfriend. Will had a girlfriend, and worse than that, he didn’t tell me. His best friend. Who he talks to every day.

“You didn’t even say there was a possibility that we wouldn’t sell.”

“Because there isn’t.”

“No,”

“I’m sorry. I won’t bring it up again. Please don’t go.”

With all his nonfiction books and interest in boring documentaries, it’s like he was always meant to do that.

“Good. Just try not to fit the mold.” “The mold?” “Yeah, the mold. It is a truth universally acknowledged that every child will, at least once in their lives, get a somewhat hot history teacher who’s also a total creep.” He nods. “Right. I haven’t started to make sexist jokes in front of the class or to give my students winks yet, but who knows, maybe it’s doomed to happen.”

“Fight that history teacher instinct with all that you can, Will, and never give up.”

He’s fooling himself if he thinks I’ll let him in ever again.

“What the hell is going on?”