Free After the Rain by Lisa de Jong

right below that is the date Kate came to the University of Iowa.
    As I’m putting the last of the notes in the box, the door swings open. “What are you doing with those?” Kate asks, hurrying across the room.
    “I was just putting them away for you,” I answer, watching the panic wash over her face.
    She glances at the one I hold in my hand, and her eyes shoot to mine. “You were the first person I gave my heart to and the last.”
    “And I thank God every day for that.” Grabbing her hand in mine, I kiss each of her fingers before placing the napkin in her hand. “You’ve had mine for a long time, and I’ve never asked to have it back. It’s yours to keep.”
    “That’s one of the reasons I love you, Beau Bennett,” she says as a single tear rolls down her cheek. “You loved me when I pushed you away. You loved me when I was lost. You loved me when you didn’t even know if you were going to get a chance with me. It takes true love to do that.”
    There’s something I’ve been dying to ask her since the day she came back to me. I’m not sure why I even want to know, but I do, even if the answer kills me. “If Asher was still here, would I have ever had a chance with you?”
    She watches me with her mouth hanging wide open. I wish she could feel how fast my heart is beating right now. In a way, I’m asking her if she’s settling for me, and it’s so fucking unfair.
    “Wait, don’t answer that. We’re supposed to be moving forward.”
    She catches me off guard by wrapping her arms around my neck and resting her forehead on mine. “Do you ever give much thought to coincidences?” she asks in a hushed tone.
    “No,” I whisper.
    “Like, if my mom hadn’t decided to move to Carrington, I would never have met you. If she hadn’t picked the house next to yours, we wouldn’t have been so close. Life is mapped out by a series of choices and coincidences … miracles and fate are figments of a dreamer’s imagination.”
    I stare at her, trying to draw the lines between her words. I hear what she’s saying, but I’m not sure where she’s going with it.
    She continues, “If Drew hadn’t hurt me, I think we’d be together just like we are now, but I appreciate you so much more because of the journey we took to get here. If Asher hadn’t been diagnosed with cancer, he wouldn’t have come to Carrington, and I would never have met him. It was our situations that brought us together so to answer your question, I don’t think it was ever possible for Asher to be my forever. That’s not the map that was laid out for either of us … I honestly believe he was meant to lead me back to you.” She pauses, kissing me softly. “I was always meant to be with you.”
    I let her words sink in and then wrap my arms around her, lifting her to sit on my lap. Burying my head in her neck, I smell her sweet perfume. “I couldn’t love you any more than I do right now.”
    “Yes, you can. I’ll prove it to you.”
    “How are you going to do that?” I ask, kissing her forehead.
    She bites that pink lower lip of hers, which always driving me freaking crazy. “You’ll have to wait and see.”
    We sit quietly for several minutes, listening to the rain hit the window. Her head rests against my chest as I rub my hands up and down her back. When she sits up, a slight smile highlights her face.
    Holding her face in my hands, I run my thumbs along her jaw line. “Are you okay?”
    She nods. “The rain always makes me smile.”
    I smile back at her. “Are you ready to get French fries and ice cream?”
    “Yeah,” she answers sweetly, “I am.”

Four Months Later — May 2013

    A YEAR AGO , IF YOU HAD TOLD ME I’d finish my first year of college, I would have laughed. Actually, I probably would have cried because that was the point I was at in my life.
    Today, though, I’m doing just that. Beau’s packing the last of his things into his truck and then coming here to pick up some of mine. One of the perks