Flora started coming to a lot of my away games. It annoyed her when Jake called her my bodyguard, but clearly not enough to be dissuaded. She sat in the audience seat watching me like a proud mom, her face breaking into a broad grin every time our eyes met.

Scratch that. Not even my mom had that much interest in me.

"Baby, you know you don't have to come, right?" I asked when I got in her car one evening after the game. "If you have other things to do, it's totally fine."

She reached out a hand to stroke my face. "This is what I want to do. It's a school night and I don't have anyone to hang around with anyway."

Aside from guys with questionable motives like Raymond Corbett. For the eighteen thousandth time I wondered if I was being too hard on their friendship, but for the eighteen thousandth time I decided that while Flora had a point, relationships are fragile and I didn't want to test ours by placing her in an unfavorable position.

There was another selfish reason and it was the fact that I liked her here. I liked how she was my personal cheerleader, the way her face lit up like an automatic porch light when I neared her, and there was something about getting picked up by my stunning girlfriend in her silver Mercedes that made me feel very special and pampered.

This evening she let me choose what to eat, and I picked the same restaurant as usual, a cheap diner near school where the food was served fast and hot. I just wanted to get dinner out of the way and go home ASAP. Flora was attentive, cooperative, and full of smiles. Said she just wanted to make me happy.

On a good day like this I felt like I had the best girlfriend in the world. This was a girl who was used to eating foie gras in her designer dress and dating anyone she wanted, yet she was right next to me, gazing at me with affection like there was nowhere else she'd rather be.

On one of the worse days I still thought she was the best girlfriend, but one who was irritable, impatient, and ready to fight, and I would be walking on eggshells trying not to get on her nerves. She said she was fine with my routines, but I knew she craved more excitement.

She needed something bad. Something loud. Something with the possibility of getting out of hand.

Not this evening, though. This evening was one of the good days, and we laughed all the way home. I was lying face down on my bed when I felt her soft hand slide onto my back.

"Are you tired?" she asked.

I grunted to indicate that I was. I was starting to feel really comfortable around her, and I liked the idea of us more and more each day. It felt so right and easy.

Her hands moved to my shoulders and because I wasn't expecting it, it took me a full second to realize that she was giving me a massage. Her fingers slid under my shirt and I pushed myself off the bed momentarily so she could remove it, then she kneaded down my back.

I almost choked on gratification. I never knew an impromptu backrub could feel this heavenly. She started back up again when she reached the small of my back, her hands running along my spine up to my neck. She had strong fingers despite being so slender, and this had immediately topped my list of favorite things Flora could do to me.

"Does it feel good?"

"It's better than good. Where did you learn these things?" Please don't stop.

"I know a lot about spa treatments," she said.

Praise the lord for the beauty centers she went to; I never thought I'd benefit from them. I asked to return the favor but Flora insisted she just wanted to give, so I allowed myself to be indulged.

"What have I ever done to deserve you?" I murmured. Flora used to bring out the insecurities in me, but now she made me feel safe, in the best way possible. Not because I knew I couldn't get hurt, but because I knew she'd have my back. She was always ready to support me emotionally, and financially, if I let her.

"I wonder the same thing everyday." She laughed lightly and bent down to kiss my neck. She took care of me when I was supposed to be taking care of her. I vowed to always cherish her and never took anything for granted.

Flora's kisses trailed from my neck to my shoulder. Just when I was getting incredibly turned on, she sighed and stopped. I wanted to sigh too.

"I love you so much," she said, "but I'm worried about something."

I sat up. I prayed she wasn't in one of her we-are-incompatible moods again. "Tell me."

She narrowed her eyes ominously like she was about to deliver a horror story by the campfire. "Jeremy said none of his friends who were in a relationship made it past the first year of college. Most of them broke up very quickly over Thanksgiving break freshman year."

"Are Jeremy's friends like him?" I asked. "You know...hunters?"

"I don't know." She sighed again. "Not all of them, I guess. Jeremy had a girlfriend in high school too, but he decided it's stupid to string one along to university. He said it's too easy to get laid after a frat party. His bedroom is right upstairs, as you can imagine."

"I'm not like Jeremy."

"I know, but it's not just that. A possessive boyfriend plus an obsessive girlfriend times the distance equals disaster. There are too many issues to consider..." she trailed off, and a warning bell went off in my head. I couldn't be surer of us, but Flora tended to overthink from time to time. I wasn't sure she was fully convinced whenever I tried to reassure her. She did things impulsively then worried and backtracked later, and I hoped she didn't think of me as one of the bags she bought and never used again. "...which is why I want to ask you to consider applying to Columbia," she finished.

"To Columbia?" I repeated.

"Yes." A familiar crazy glint sprang into her eyes, and I realized what attracted me to her could also be the exact same thing that scared me. "I know you can get in anywhere you apply to! If I make it into NYU, we'd be so close! We can rent an apartment together and wake up in each other's arms everyday. I can give you massages all the time."

She looked so expectant and hopeful I almost gave in, not to mention she used massages as bait which was very unfair, but I didn't want to make promises I couldn't keep. "Baby, that does sound great, but you know I've wanted to go to MIT my whole life."

She nodded wildly. "Of course! I'd never ask you to give up on that. I know your granddad is an alumnus and everything. I'm just asking you to apply to Columbia as a backup."

"I already have several backup schools," I said, stalling for time, dreading the questions that were to follow.

"Really? I know you mentioned some to my parents, but I forgot. What are they? Are any of them in New York?"

"Stanford...Caltech...UC Berkeley..." My heart hammered as if I was confessing to adultery.

Flora gasped and her hand flew to her mouth. A few seconds passed before she dared to speak again. "But those are in California. As in West Coast." She made West Coast sounded like the Amazon Jungle, as if I'd never return home again. "California is miles and miles and miles away from New York."

"I know where California is, but-"

She held out a hand to silent me, and another hand rested on her forehead in the most exaggerated way possible. She lay back down on the bed with a thud and stared at the ceiling. "I can't believe you getting into MIT is actually the best I can hope for. Boston and New York are supposedly four hours apart by bus, but Jeremy said they once got stuck for six hours and it took seventy minutes just to get from 54th to 42nd street in Manhattan." She took a moment to catch her breath before a fresh surge of energy poured in again. "I loathe long distance relationships! Long distance relationships aren't relationships at all, it's just the hope of having one in the future. I will die. I will die."

Sometimes Flora was so melodramatic I couldn't tell if she was serious. "Boston and New York are right next to each other," I said.

Flora shook her head. "University should be the time of our lives, but we're going to sit in front of the webcam every night trying to have awkward Skype sex. The weekends will be spent on coaches with lousy WiFi signal and my classmates are going to think I'm a weirdo for never joining any of the social activities..." She sat up again. "I'm going to apply to every school in Boston."

"No! The whole point of studying hard is so that you can get an intern job in New York. What are you going to do in Boston?"

"To stay with you?"

I exhaled. "Flora, I love you. I hope to live together someday too, but not at the expense of you throwing away your chances. What if we-"

"Don't say it!" She gasped, pressing her fingers against my lips. "We're going to stay together no matter what! We'll stay together even if you decide to work at NASA after graduating from MIT, and I'll wait for you faithfully when you go on your expedition to Mars."

"You can endure the distance between Earth and Mars but not a four-hour bus trip?"

"Six if the traffic is bad," she corrected.

"Flora, it's just four years of our lives, and we're going to see each other all the time. If we have our whole lives together, what does it matter to spend four years apart?"

"It's four more years spent preparing for the future instead of living in the moment." A shadow fell over her face, only to be chased away a second later by a bright smile, like a sliver of sun breaking through the clouds. I knew something insane was coming out of her mouth, by it still surprised me to hear her say, "I've got it. Let's take a year off school."

"Excuse me?"

"Think about it, Sean, Gap Year!" Her eyes widened with exhilaration and sparkled with lights, almost as if fireworks were on display. "Lots of bright young people in Europe and Australia are doing it, and we get to spend a year figuring out ourselves and our future."

"But I already have everything figured out. It'd just be spending my parents' money and putting off my responsibility while I escape to do...what are you planning on doing?"

"I don't know...maybe we can walk across China on foot? Wouldn't that be amazing?" I loved her creativity but I had to shake my head at the impracticability. "Or we can buy a camel and travel the Gobi desert...or go on a motorbike trip through South America like Che Guevara...The possibilities are endless!"

Or we can make a spear with our bare hands and hunt down boars. I opened my mouth and shut it again. Usually I'd play along whenever Flora floated off the ground and stuck her head up in the clouds, but this time she was actually serious. Where did I begin to talk some sense into her?

She leaned forward excitedly and patted my arm. "It's going to be one hell of an adventure and it's so going to build character!"

"I think you're already quite a character, Flora."

"I've always wanted to drift down Yukon River and feed ourselves on fresh salmon." Apparently she wasn't done yet. "Have you seen the movie Into the Wild? It's so inspiring! This rich kid gave all his money to charity and hitchhiked to Alaska, then he met all those interesting people that shaped his life-"

"His very short life. Didn't Alexander Supertramp starve to death in the end?"

She scoffed like it was an insignificant detail. "That's not the point. Besides, we're going to stay at a hotel and order room service, so there's no chance of that happening. I think my parents are totally going to say yes! So don't worry for a minute about financial aid."

So much for building character.

Flora grinned and flashed her pearly teeth as she delivered the tagline of this ridiculous commercial. "Take a chance, Sean. Carpe Diem."

Carpe Fucking Diem, I thought. That and YOLO were two phrases people abused all the time for doing irresponsible, reckless things without thinking of the consequences, but I didn't want to hurt Flora's feelings. I knew delaying her education wasn't her point. She just didn't want to be separated from me.

I was flattered at the thought, but there was no way I could go along with it. "Flora, come on." I reached out my hand to rub on her forearm. "We can survive college."

"Yeah, we can survive." She gave me a mournful look, like a victim who just went through a catastrophe. "But I want to live, not survive."

That was one of the things she was really good at: twisting my words. "You know what I mean."

She scooted closer and put her arms around me. "Sean. I just...I'm so mad about you. I want to be with you all the time. The reason I go to your games and pick you up afterwards is because we can spend more time together, even if you're just sleeping in the car." Her face was buried in the nook of my neck and I circled her waist to close the distance between us. Her body was so soft against me. I would've melted at her sweet words if she didn't sound so sad.

"I want to be with you all the time too," I said, pressing my cheek against her and breathing in the flowery scent of her hair. Flora hugged me tighter like she was afraid I'd be shipped off to Mars any second.

But I don't need to be with you all the time. I don't need to wake up next to you everyday to remind myself that I'm crazy in love with you. I don't need to rent an apartment or ride camels together, and even if we end up on opposite ends of the country, every time I see you it'd be worth it and I'd be coming alive all over again.

Do you understand that, dear Flora?

I didn't say all of it because I knew Flora didn't think the way I did, so I just kept asking her to have faith. I told her the time apart would only make it better when we did see each other, but I could tell she didn't buy this logic. Her idea of a relationship was living together having fun instead of keeping it tucked away safely at heart, thinking of and believing in each other like a religion.

We weren't even off to college yet but she was already having doubts. I noticed with alarm that Flora didn't sound very much like Flora. This was a new side I rarely saw before; a doubtful, emotional, and--dare I say it?--clingy side which scared me.

Scared not because I wanted to run away, but because I was afraid she would.

***