I realize all at once then why Charlie has brought me to the city. The secretive calls, wanting to show me what his uncle has built in the city, allowing me to see his sketches – he is showing me his future in possibly the only way I would ever see it.

“I don’t think anyone could really feel lonely here.”

“I think someone could,” He’d said.

Charlie would leave Clemson, would move to New York to work for his uncle. He already said that the Isaacs were considering moving, what else would keep him in Clemson? There would be no one to train him and, once he is employed by his uncle, he won’t need to box or train anyone else again.

Of course, this is what I’ve wanted for him since the moment that I’d stepped foot into his office against his wishes. I’d wanted him to see his own potential and to know that, while boxing is a perfectly alright career, he need not feel unworthy of another dream.

And I love him. I wanted him to know that, too – and that I will love him, no matter where he ends up, who he becomes. I can stand to be away from Charlie for the sake of him doing what he loves.

But as we walk through building after building of clean glass and shiny, marble floors and high ceilings and tens of stories, I wonder to myself how much my feelings for him will matter once this is his world.

There will be so much distance between us. Charlie won’t want to leave the city to visit me in a sleepy college town. I don’t have enough money to travel to see him often. Then, there’s time – I have three more years of undergraduate studies, and I haven’t even begun to think about where I’ll go for grad school. I’ll be a full time student for many more years, and I already felt like I was behind Charlie, with him working and owning his own home. To compensate, I had the fact that I was working towards something, and that neither of us were doing what we planned to do when we were much older. Charlie wouldn’t box forever, he had said that the job was somewhat temporary, and I wouldn’t be a student forever, either – I didn’t feel so behind. But how quickly will he advance at his uncles company, I don’t know. If he has a high paying, stable job in a huge city, being in a relationship with a college girl from South Carolina will hardly sound appealing. What’s more, the relationship will be a burden – I’ll have nothing to offer him.

Once Charlie’s sketches become structures and he has something solid to remind him of how brilliant he is, he won’t need me anymore.

“Are you sure you’re not hungry? We haven’t eaten all day and it’s nearly two.”

Charlie looks back at me as we start out of the eighth building on our mini-tour. He’d saved the tallest for last, he said, and the building had an amazing view of the river. It was also very close to his uncle’s new office buildings, which were still under construction.

“I’m still not very hungry, but we can stop, if you are.”

He walks ahead of me to hold the door, and I notice him shove his hand through the top of his curly hair and look back at me with a frown.

“I think we should stop. If not now, after I take you by the offices,” he says.

He takes my hand and continues to glance worriedly at me in a familiar way. “I don’t understand how you’re not hungry. Are you feeling alright?”

“Yes, Charlie,” I laugh a little, “I’ll eat, if you want to stop.” I appease him, knowing exactly why I’m not hungry. It’s my realization of Charlie’s intentions that’s caused me to lose my appetite.

“Do you know what you’d like? Something light maybe? If you’re not feeling well, we could get soup. Or maybe you don’t want something hot –”

“I’m really feeling fine. If you’re hungry, you decide.”

Charlie reaches towards his mouth, pinching his bottom lip between his thumb and index finger and then he sends his hand roughly through his hair again while simultaneously tightening his hold on mine. His palm feels sweaty, I realize, and then I think back to his behavior in the car on our trip to the airport and compare it to his fussiness now. He’d said that he was nervous about this trip – that he wanted things to go smoothly.

He must be afraid of telling me that he’s moving here.

As much as it’s bothering me – the possibilities of what will happen to us when he’s moving on and I’m still in Clemson – I can’t let him continue to suffer and wonder if he’s doing something wrong by thinking about himself.

“Maybe we could just go back to the hotel and order something after we see the offices. That way we can relax before dinner.”

“Alright,” I smile up at him and squeeze his hand, willing him to relax. He has nothing to worry about, anyhow. I will support him when he tells me, I will try to stay close with him when he moves, and I won’t lay any blame on him when he moves on. I’ll suffer in silence, and he’ll never have to worry. I can do that for him, for all that he’s taught me about myself, for the ways that he’s helped me – ways that no one else could, after years of trying – I can do this for him.

“I think Chris may be at the offices now,” Charlie says as we near the building. Because of the evident remodeling, I see the offices from far away.

Unlike the others, this building isn’t a skyscraper. It’s noticeably shorter than the buildings that surround it, but much more charming. It looks almost historic, made of large, red bricks and glass.

“Are you sure we can just go in? Is it safe with all of the construction?” I ask as we walk up the concrete steps towards the glass doors lines in black wood.

“Do you really think I would take you inside if I thought it wasn’t safe?” Charlie smirks.

“You’re right,” I correct myself, “And I should probably be thankful that you aren’t shoving a hard hat on my head.”

Charlie turns back to me, grinning at my teasing while reaching for the large, golden door handle. But before his hands touch the metal, the door shoots open and I pull back on Charlie’s arm when a man appears in the doorway.

“Charlie,” he greets both enthusiastically and familiarly. Charlie has already turned his head back in surprise and he beams as the man wraps one arm around his shoulder, pulling him in for a short hug.

“And you must be Stella,” the man smiles sparklingly down at me, pulling away from Charlie.

“Stella, this is my uncle, Chris.”

“Hi. It’s nice to meet you,” I say in an almost embarrassingly giddy voice.

Chris is young – much younger than I’d expected – appearing to be in his early to mid thirties. He’s nearly as tall as Charlie, but more slender, with narrower shoulders. He has short, blonde hair and rather tanned skin. He’s well dressed in a perfectly tailored, pinstripe blazer.

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” He smiles again, offering me his hand. “I figured you would be by soon and I wanted to give you both the tour myself.”

Chris speaks to us while he leads the way into the building, stopping and spinning near a center structure covered in plastic wrap.

“These will be where the lobby desks are. We’re keeping them covered until the tops arrive,” As he speaks, his eyes are fixed on Charlie, who stands behind me, and I’m almost certain that I see him nod before turning back around and asking us to follow him down the hallway to a large boardroom.

By the time we make it to the fifth floor, where the largest, executive offices are being finished, I nearly blurt out that I know what’s happening, and it’s okay. I thought at first that I might be paranoid about Charlie moving – he could just be genuinely excited to share the success of someone so close to him. But Chris’ behavior has proved my uncertainty about the meaning of this trip to be an obvious elephant, and it’s followed us through every floor and every office.

“Of course, I have the best view.” Chris’ words echo boastfully, yet charmingly through the halls and he turns before pushing open the double French doors and gives me another magnanimous smile.

During this tour, when I wasn't distracted by thoughts of Charlie walking through these halls as an employee and resident of New York, I’ve been distracted by Chris and his fiery charisma. He is the opposite from Charlie in the most obvious ways – his smooth voice loud and booming, while Charlie’s is deep, but quiet. Chris moves quickly, with grand gestures and extraverted confidence while Charlie is careful, taking his time with every action and moving about with subtle assurance.

Charlie and I walk side by side through each of the French doors and I immediately walk to the back side of the office to stare at the view with Chris, who stands proudly, with his hands in his pockets, explaining more details of what will become of the grand, fifth floor offices.

“Anyone who works for you is very lucky,” I say, wishing I could spark something in Charlie to tell me. He must be so nervous.

Chris turns to me then and his beaming grin softens with into a more humble, sweet smile – more like Charlie’s, “I’m lucky to have all of them. My company would still be a simple construction business in Savannah if it weren’t for the people around me. Now, the possibilities are endless. Our offices here will open late summer, we’ll be on both coasts by next Spring, we’ve even talked about doing international work.” He looks away from the glass windows, towards Charlie who stands in the middle of the room, looking about with his hands clasped behind his back. “I just want to make sure that I’m taking the right people with me. I need young, clever talent whom I can trust to take over for me someday.” He looks down at me and winks then, his fire returning, “I may still be a young bachelor, but I plan on retiring in ten years.”

“Ten years?” I raise my brows at him, “You’ll be awfully bored by the time your friends can retire with you. What will you do?”

“Everything,” he says, nearly laughing, “I’ll move to a town near the ocean so I can go sailing every morning for the first year – I love to sail. Then, I’ll learn how to fly a plane. When I’m fifty, I’ll live in a different city every season. I might take a year and tour art museums in Europe. I’ve never been to Asia – the largest continent in the world and I’ve never stepped foot in it. I’m not religious, but I’d make a pilgrimage. I want to read the books that I’ve collected, at least half of them, anyway. There is too much to do, really. I should have retired years ago.”

I smile up at him, wanting nothing more than for Charlie to learn from him, to live a life like this man has just described, even if it isn’t with me.

“Well, then you’d better start looking for someone to take care of your means while you’re off enjoying them,” I bite my lip and glance towards Charlie. He has moved back towards the doors and is inspecting the wiring of a wall sconce, moving the electrical cords between his fingers and frowning. “My guess is you won’t have to look far.”

I lie in bed on my stomach with my head resting on my folded arms, keeping my eyes closed while Charlie finishes his lunch and berates me for eating only half a sandwich and a bit of soup.

“I feel like you’re sick and you aren’t telling me,” He says again.

“Shh,” I finally whisper, “Just relax for a while.”

I open one of my eyes a tiny bit to peek at him. He sits with his back mostly to me, angled slightly on the opposite side of the bed. His plate looks tiny in his lap, though it isn’t small at all, and he fumbles with his fingers as he cuts the last of his food.

“Charlie?” I say quietly, opening both of my eyes.

“Hmm?” He makes the sound while keeping mouth closed, chewing.

“Thank you for worrying about me so much,” I smile, “I do appreciate it, even if I act annoyed sometimes.”

His silverware clinks against his plate as he moves to set it on the nightstand. He leans back on the bed then, laying his arm across my lower back and resting his head on me.

“It’s okay,” he says in an accidental whisper. He clears his throat and speaks a bit louder, but still softly, “I like having someone to worry about.”

I close my eyes again, waiting for my mind to give my mouth the perfect thing to say. I feel him move for just a moment, and his hand slips underneath the fabric of my shirt and starts to rub lightly at my back.

What can I say to Charlie -- that I’ll be okay without him, without his worry? Surely I would be, I was okay last summer, before I’d moved to Clemson, before I’d even seen Charlie.

And I’m young; I’ll readjust. Time goes by so quickly and by the time I’ve graduated, I could have met another boy who changes me in even better ways than Charlie – it’s possible, even if the thought makes me sick to my stomach now.

But none of that feels very honest.

There are things that change you and leave you irrecoverably different. What is built for months and years could be torn down in an instant, but not without leaving its lasting mark, the evidence of its change, an incessant reminder that you can let go, but you can never go back.

“You know I worry about you too,” I say finally, “I used to worry the most that you would realize one day all of the things that you could have done, and I wouldn’t have done enough to save you from letting it all slip away.”

“That’s a bit of ambiguous fear,” he says, and I can hear a smile in his voice.

I take a deep breath, “I don’t worry about that now, because I think you’re starting to see what could be for you. I don’t want you to think that I would want any less, okay? No matter what it means for me, I want you to take every opportunity that you have.”

“Stella –” Charlie starts. He sits up, withdrawing his hand from my back at the same time that I roll over onto my back and shoot up, leaning back on my hands.

“Charlie, I know why you brought me here. It wasn’t your clients calling about training all of those times, was it? And that night that you were reading before bed and you hid the paper –”

“You remember that?” He tilts his head, amused.

“Your uncle wants you to work for him, doesn’t he? He wants you to take over his company someday – I think that’s amazing,” I say it mistakenly with zero enthusiasm, but I really mean it.

“You’re right. He wants me to come to work for him here. He thinks the company here will be better for me than Atlanta, I’ll have more opportunities here and he wants me to take classes while I’m working. I won’t be able to do much without a license, but until I get that, I can learn about how the company works and shadow Chris. But you said that you knew why I brought you…” he trails off.

“Well yeah,” I say, confused, “I mean, you wanted me to see you box finally, and you wanted me to see where you’ll be working.”

He smiles at my confusing, but his smile vanishes fast and his dark blue eyes burn into mine as he leans forward, closer to me. Neither of us breaks eye contact, and I frown after a moment under his unusually heavy stare, leaning back a little more.

“I want you to come with me,” he says quickly, so low that it’s almost a whisper, as if he had to pull it out of himself.

My lips part as if I’m going to speak, but I have nothing to say. I bite my bottom lip, moving my jaw around and staring into his eyes, which seem to have lightened before me.

“You didn’t even have a hunch that I was going to say that?” Charlie says with a light laugh.

“No – I thought you were afraid to tell me that you were leaving Clemson.”

“You couldn’t have thought that I would just leave and not offer to bring you here.”

I shake my head, “Charlie it’s perfectly okay for you to leave and not offer to bring me along. You’re twenty! Your only obligation is to take every opportunity that you want to. Don’t think about me when you make this kind of decision.”

He huffs, shrugging his shoulders and I realize that I probably hurt his feelings. His mind will automatically go to a place of wondering if that’s how I feel about him – I don’t.

And I know that if I were the one thinking about a move that I would want him to come along, even if I hid the desire for the sake of logic – we really are so young.

“I don’t think you mean that,” he says, like he’s heard every damn thought. “I know you’d be hurt if I just decided to leave and didn’t even mention the possibility of you coming here –”

I open my mouth to protest but he stops me.

“Even if you’re happy for me. And I’ve thought about it a lot – it isn’t as crazy as you think, my asking you to move here. Everyone wants to move to New York, see, it’s not like I’m trying to get you to follow me to Wyoming or something. There are opportunities for you here, too. Don’t you like it?”

“Don’t I like it?”

“Yeah, like it – the city, the atmosphere, everything.”

“I – I don’t know. I’ve been trying to take it all in but it’s been a bit of a whirlwind I guess,” I smile weakly, feeling saddened for some reason.

Why don’t I feel the irrational urge to scream “yes” and throw my arms around Charlie’s neck? Sure, details are lurking in the corner, I could have every desire in the world to come here and still be unable to because of school and money (I certainly won’t have Charlie or his uncle paying for my whole life here,) but still, I don’t even feel a honeymoon of emotions about living in this city.

Charlie looks defeated, “I’m sorry, I wanted you to have fun and fall in love with this city. I didn’t want you to feel overwhelmed. I guess I’ve just been nervously dragging you around, I should have –”

“No, it’s fine,” I quiet him, placing my hand in the air between us. “I just think I need to think about it. I am having lots of fun, and the weekend’s not over. Just give me time, okay?”

He nods, staring down at my hand with pursed lips. “I think I might go downstairs and check out the gym here. I think I’ll feel better about tomorrow if I get a quick couple of miles in on the treadmill. Will you be okay here alone?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I smile.

“Okay,” he says, getting up from the bed and going to his suitcase, “I won’t be long. I’ll want to shower and stuff before dinner.”

He changes in silence, and I scroll through channels on the television just to look busy. Before he leaves, he leans onto the bed and kisses my forehead.

“I love you,” he says, and I tell him I love him too, wishing, in a way, that he loved me a little less, so I wouldn’t feel so guilty.