I’ve always known my life in New York, even when it felt messy or overwhelming. It was familiar. It was mine. And then there was Isaac—someone who never quite fit into my “normal,” and somehow became the only part of it that truly made sense. When Isaac and Asher came to visit me and Daisy, it was supposed to be temporary. Just a short stay, a few days of having him here instead of through a screen, a chance to pretend distance didn’t exist. For Isaac and me, it felt like finally getting something real instead of something we always had to pause and resume. But nothing stays simple for long. When Isaac and Asher decide they want to apply to NYU, everything shifts. What was supposed to be an ending suddenly turns into a possibility. The future I had already tried not to imagine starts to feel like it might actually happen—and that scares me more than I want to admit. Loving Isaac is easy in the quiet moments, in the in-between spaces where it’s just us. But building something real, something that lasts, means facing everything I’ve been distance, change, and the fear that wanting too much might mean losing it all. Because falling in love was never the hard part. It’s everything that comes after that is.