Tillie Cole

The half-empty jar of a thousand boy-kisses.

“And my heart almost burst.”

“Our footprints in the sand.”

In both cases, a bond that no one could break.

Poppy was quirky, not cool. She wasn’t concerned with what people thought of her—she never had been. She played the cello because she loved it. She read books, she studied for fun, she woke at dawn just to watch the sunrise.

“Rune,” I whispered. “Carnegie Hall,”

I paused, letting the farewell sink in

Kiss eight hundred and nineteen was the kiss that changed it all. The kiss that proved that a long-haired brooding boy from Norway and a quirky girl from the Deep South could find a love to rival the greats.

“It will be like that, Rune,” I said with unwavering certainty. “We won’t end. We never will.”

“I’m not even thinking that far ahead,” I replied. “My life is here, right now, in this moment. All that will come later. Poppy’s my focus. She’s only ever been my focus. I don’t give a damn about next year or what I’ll do.”