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I wondered often why they decided to even have me at all. I thought, deep down, I was nothing more than a box to check off in the list of adult accomplishments. Get married. Have a child. Build a career. All the things the world deemed successful.

But if it didn’t make you happy, did it even matter?

“You would be my first priority—the most important thing in my life.” He reached for my hand. “I’m sorry they never made you feel that way.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I said nothing at all.

“Can you tell me about it?” he asked. “New York? What your home is like?”

It was safer territory. Less sad, to be sure. I sipped my wine and did my best to try and describe the city. The impossible buzz and hum and energy. The crowds. The way that, at certain angles, it looked like the skyscrapers went right into the clouds. The splotch of green in Central Park, the food, the music and plays and bookstores.

“It’s endless,” I said. “Always something to do, always somewhere to eat. Something to distract you and take up your time. People move there for inspiration—for the art and theater.”

“Not you?”

“I grew up there. My parent’s law firm is there. I’ve never known anything else but the city. In the summer, there’s this air of possibility. Like your life could change at any moment. In the winter, it’s cold and brutal and despite being surrounded, you can still feel impossibly alone.”

He shifted close, knee bracketing mine beneath the table. “Do you like it?”

“It’s fine.” I shrugged. “I’m used to it, but being here…the silence? It’s nice. I like being able to hear myself think. The sound of the ocean out the window. The…openness of it. I don’t feel like everything is on top of me.”

“I can imagine you there,” he mused. “Coffee or tea in hand. Writing in a quiet little shop somewhere. I’d like to see it.”

“So would I.”

He sighed, draining the last of his wine. “I have one more question, and then we’ll go to the next part of our date.”

Anticipation rolled through me. “All right.”

“What comes next?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what comes next? You go home to New York in two weeks. What then? What does your life look like? What do you want for yourself?”

I glanced away from him. “I don’t know.”

“Indulge me,” he urged. “Please.” The word was almost desperate, like he wouldn’t be able to let me go if he didn’t know I had something else waiting for me.

“I go home and I finish the book, I guess. I turn it in. I do edits and rereads. We send it off to the publisher and then a tour is scheduled. I travel and meet people.”

“No. Not work, Avery. Not the books. What do you want for yourself?”

I blinked at him. No one had ever asked me that question before.

“I suppose I want to be happy.”

“That’s a start,” he said, smile small. “What does it take to get there?”

I chewed my lower lip. “I see my friends. Make new ones, maybe. Spend time with Marissa. Travel more.”

“Good. What else?”

I choked on the words. I couldn’t say them out loud—not to him.

Because I wanted to meet someone, fall in love, get married, start a family and a life with them. I wanted to start holiday traditions. Make inside jokes that just the two of us laughed over until we cried. I wanted to fight about taking the trash out and what to make for dinner. I wanted to wake up and see his face first thing in the morning. I wanted the soft, quiet nights on the couch. The nights out on a crowded dance floor or at a private dinner table. I wanted to mourn with him, celebrate with him, figure it all out.

And it broke my heart that it wouldn’t be with him.