Ocean Beach smells like my childhood. Sounds like my future. I breathe the salt and cold and then, nearer the park, the evergreens and cypress and juniper berry and the lawn, new soil. I’m in a tank top. No coat. The fog moves in my hair. I want to hug it.

“I missed you, Fog!” I whisper.

The heavy glass doors close behind me, and my heart races at the sight of the words on the walls. All of the poem’s words come to me:

Stars that sink to our ocean,

Winds that visit our strand,

The heavens are your pathway,

Where is a gladder land!

At the end of our streets is sunrise;

At the end of our streets are spars;

At the end of our streets is sunset;

At the end of our streets the stars.

“Harper Scott,” Owen says.

Those eyes. Still so dark, so beautiful, and kind, intent on mine. On me.

“Your hair.” He smiles.

I nod.

“Do you love it?” he asks.

“I do.”

“Me too. Can I?” He slowly moves his fingers through my hair, standing so near to me that I close my eyes and inhale the scent of him, the grapefruit soap he still uses.

“You got my postcards?” I ask.

“You’ve been everywhere,” he says. “They’re taped to the refrigerator; it’s a total pain in the ass just trying to get in there for some milk.”

“Did you get my letter?”

“Uh, yeah…the ten pages asking forgiveness for I’m still not sure what? Yeah. I got that.”

“Forgiveness for falling apart. For doing stupid, selfish things in Antarctica, not writing you back right away, all those beautiful letters, every date we went on, I read them over and over—”

“Harper, nothing you’ve done there or anywhere is stupid. I was a dick for trying to guilt you into staying for my own selfishness. Which, in my defense, was fueled by the fact that I was, and am, amazed by and in awe of you. So there’s that.”

“Okay.”

“And I wrote you because I wanted to write you. I missed you. If you’d wanted me to stop, I knew you’d tell me.”

“Okay.”

“And your hair is so freakishly sexy, I’d like to…”

I silence him with a kiss, familiar and thrilling and I have missed him so much.

“You read them?” he says. “The date letters.”

“Yes.”

“More than once?”

“Maybe.”

“Wow.” He smiles at the floor.

“And oh, my shoes,” I say. “You saved me. My life.”

“Kate got them to me.”

“Thank you. I’ll never be able to say that enough. How can I…”

“Harp,” he says, and pulls me to him because, despite how hard I’m trying not to, tears are spilling.

“Every single time!” I yelp. “Can I ever spend three minutes with you and not cry?”

“I’m prepared now. It’s okay!” he says, and he puts a white lace-edged handkerchief in my hand. “That’s your welcome-home present. Now you can be proper and fancy with your depression!”

“I’m not depressed! I’m so…” He kisses me again. People are milling around the chalet, but who cares? We kiss and kiss, and he pulls me even closer until I have to pause to catch my breath.

“So to be clear, you liked the dates?”

“They’re perfect blueprints. Can we go in order? Can we start again?”

“Really?”

“Yes, please.”

“Does that mean we have to work back up to kissing?”

“Obviously. Let’s go.” I sigh happily.

“Where’s your coat?”

“Not cold. Not anymore.”

“You must have been frozen.”

“I was.”

I take his warm hand in mine. My heart is buzzing. Dancing.

“Where to now?” he asks.

“Anywhere. Everywhere. And then home.”