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It felt surreal—an out-of-body experience—being at John’s house early in the morning, his backyard cold and quiet. My eyes locked on the weathered French doors leading into John’s bedroom, and I slowed.

I tapped so lightly on the glass, he may not have heard. If he didn’t open the door in ten more seconds, I’d turn around.

Nothing. I drew a shuddering breath and turned to leave.

“Julia!” I heard his voice, low and husky so as not to wake the house. I whipped around to see John standing in the doorway, shirtless, in boxers. Oh, thank God.

“I’m sorry I woke you up.” I could go now, knowing I was leaving him right where he was supposed to be. I still didn’t move.

“I couldn’t sleep. What are you doing here?” he whispered, his eyes tired and sexy behind his glasses.

“I wanted to make sure you were okay. That’s it,” I said, as though it were perfectly normal that I was knocking on his door at dawn, so many weeks after we’d broken up.

“It’s freezing.” John opened the door wider, silently asking me in. He seemed half-asleep, and his defenses were down. I’d lost my jacket at some point in the night, and cold was coming off me.

I knew I shouldn’t do it. No one would wait for me.

I brushed past him. Stepping into his room, I was enveloped in warmth. His bed was rumpled and the sheets had the impression of his body. Just being this close to him made me aware of every pore in my skin.

John seemed to be waking up and realizing I was actually here. I could feel when the wall went up. He swiftly put on a pair of jeans over his boxers and grabbed a T-shirt.

Earlier in the evening felt like playacting compared with this. Maybe his family was asleep in the house, but this time we were really alone, no one watching over our interaction.

“Are you okay?” I asked. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you after…”

“I’m fine. That was crazy. It’s all over the place now. Videos of it.” He backed as far away from me as he could get in the small room, hands shoved in back pockets in his usual stance. He had a long gash on his arm from the tree. “What happened? Why did he do that?” John asked.

“It was—I don’t know—things got out of control. It had to do with a fight we were having among ourselves.” My eyes rested on the framed photo of John and Alex. If I never did another good thing in my life, at least I’d saved John’s. It blew me away how much potential he had here. His family, Stanford, tennis. Meeting John had made it impossible for me to continue ignoring the value of other people’s lives. I thought about how his life, how every outsider’s life, would keep moving forward, in contrast to mine. In five years John would be finished with college, and who knows what he would have seen and done in that time. And who he’ll have been with.

“Was that you? The butterflies?” he asked. I nodded, and he gave a small Of course smile. I realized we were both holding our breath.

“What else don’t I know?” he asked.

“I think now you’ve seen it all.” Though I actually didn’t know what I was capable of anymore. I’d unnerved him. I backed away a few steps.

“So what happens now? How do you explain what happened tonight?” John asked.

I stopped smiling. “We can’t. It’s done. We’re leaving.”

“When?”

“Right now.”

“What? Where are you going?”

“I don’t even know.” I tried to sound matter-of-fact instead of scared.

John’s eyes widened, and then he quickly looked down, studying the floor. When he looked up, he’d concealed his emotions again. We both stood in the awkward silence.

“This was a bad idea.” I turned to leave. Suddenly he grabbed my arm and I turned back around, hearing my own intake of breath.

And then we both slid.

He lowered his head to mine at the exact moment my arms reached up for him, winding around his neck. Just one last time. I didn’t care if he was with someone else—I didn’t care about anything. He and I were together in that moment. After the emptiness of being cut off from his thoughts, I felt a deep thrill in finally knowing what he was feeling. We both let go of everything pent up between us and the pain of the last weeks. My hands snaked into his hair. I’d forgotten exactly how he felt and how well he kissed. That coupled with the fact that I would never see him again made the kiss surpass anything I’d ever experienced. And probably ever would.

When we broke apart, he rested his forehead against mine.

“When I saw you tonight, I thought you’d moved on,” I said, thinking of Reese.

“I’ve been trying to,” he said, his expression unreadable again, but his hand shook as he smoothed my hair behind my ear. “I thought you’d moved on.”

“I’ve been trying to.” I met his dark eyes. For a second I fell into them and pretended he was still mine. “I’m just going to go. It will be easier that way.” I reached behind me for the door.

“You’re eighteen today. You could stay if you wanted to,” he said in a neutral voice that matched his expression. He sounded like he didn’t care one way or the other. The only sign that he gave a shit about what he was saying was that he’d started speaking at normal volume.