"Girlfriend, you look like crap. Finish your tables and go home."

Just what I needed. More time alone with my thoughts. I shook my head resolutely.

"I'm not suggesting. I'm telling." She slipped my phone out of my pocket. "You can have this back tomorrow. Go home. Get some sleep."

I stared at the phone. "You realize this doesn't stop me from just going over to his place."

"I give you more credit than that. Go home, Tess."

I went home. I found half a bottle of white wine in the fridge, poured myself a glass, drew a bath, and had a nice, long soak while I sipped wine and read a magazine.

That lasted for about fifteen minutes. Then I got too tired to hold the pages of the magazine high and dry above the bubbles and pitched it over the side to land on the bathmat. I sank further into the suds, bringing the stem of the wine glass with me. I tilted the wine into my mouth so the bowl and my chin all got bearded in white foam as I drank, the sweet wine mixing with the scent of lavender and rosewater from the bath. I remembered the way Dylan had tasted when we'd kissed, like the retsina we'd been drinking. Wine and wood and warm.

I lifted my hips in the tub, bubbles popping against my more sensitive parts as they crested, then sank, then crested again. And it was nice, really, this tease, relaxing and comforting, like the way the water sloshed and echoed around the outdated, dark tiles of our tub. But not enough.

My chest was half-covered with bubbles, the silver of Dylan's chain tracing a sudsy V from my neck to the hollow between my breasts, the double-helix T like an exclamation point at the bottom. Bubbles clung to the metal, melting and sliding in a trail down from my breasts to my navel.

I closed my eyes, lay my head back against the rim of the tub, and let my hand follow the trail, longing for release, longing for relief, really. I'd been on edge for a week now, ever since the party, the closet, the phone...

The silver cooled against my skin, and I shifted in the bubbles, trying to find the purchase and pressure to get me where I needed, to no avail. I could always handle things myself, but that did nothing to slake the need Dylan had planted in me.

The problem, of course, was that it wasn't sexual. Not wholly, anyway. Yes, I wanted to tear Dylan's clothes off, but more than that, I wanted him with me, the way he'd been all semester, talking to me about algae and laughing with me about typos in his notes and lighting up when I served him meals at Verde. I missed that, too. Maybe, in time, I could have been happy with that. Just that.

No. Abruptly, I stood and pulled the plug. As the suds drained down, I turned on the shower and stood beneath the spray until the bubbles were gone and sanity had returned. We couldn't go back. The next time Dylan called, I'd answer.

But it wasn't until I was washed, dried and in bed, safely covered up in a nice pair of silk pajamas that I remembered Sylvia had swiped my phone.

The next morning, I woke up, exorcised. I made tea, I made toast, I read the paper. It was easily 9:00 a.m. by the time I sat down in front of my computer to check my email.

Among the new messages was one from Sylvia.

Subject: Returning Your Phone Okay, in retrospect, it was a bad idea to take it last night. I totally can't remember your mom's home number. We'll be lucky if I got the address right. I hope you get this in time.

And forgive me.

-S.

I furrowed my brows at the screen. Sylvia talking in code again? I wasn't angry at her for taking the phone. She'd been right-I'd have driven myself crazy with it last night. And what was that crap about my address? I sincerely hoped she hadn't mailed it to me when we'd be seeing each other at work in two hours.

Our doorbell rang.

"This is early," Mom called from the kitchen. And unexpected. Maybe a neighbor looking to borrow a scoop of coffee? I pushed away from the desk, but by the time I'd left my room, she was already at the door.

"Hi," said a voice I recognized. "You must be Mrs. McMann. I brought donuts."

And now I could see him standing on the threshold, in jeans, a hooded Canton sweatshirt, and those damn, damning glasses. His hair was almost as floppy as when I'd first met him, but the scruff on his jaw told an entirely different story. It was years since high school; it was days since we'd last spoken.

He saw me, too, and blindly handed off the pastries to my mom. "Tess." Two steps, and he was in the room, and his hands were sliding up to cup my jaw, his fingers weaving into my sleep-mussed waves. "I can't wait anymore," he whispered, and then our lips touched, a soft, sweet press of mouth on mouth. A greeting. A promise.

"Well," said my mom. "I'd ask who you are, but I think I can guess. Necklace Guy."

He turned to her and stuck out his hand. "Sorry, where are my manners? I'm Dylan Kingsley."

"The lab partner?" My mom narrowed her eyes. "My daughter's been holding out on me."

"That's fair," Dylan replied. "Turns out, I've been holding out on her."

"Don't say things like that to my mom," I said. We were out on the street, breathing in cool, crisp November air, the box of donuts forgotten on my kitchen counter as we walked and talked and figured ourselves out.

"Things like what?"

"That you've been holding out on me."

"But it's true," Dylan replied. "And it was also funny."

I gave a little shake of my head and looked away. "Your two favorite things."

"You're my favorite thing."

I bit my lip. When he said things like this, I wanted to believe they were true. But Wednesday night...

"Don't worry about your mom," he said now. "I'm really good with parents."

I could believe that. I'm sure he'd charmed the pants off Dad, right before breaking his other daughter's heart.

"So Sylvia gave you my address?"

"And your phone." He pulled it out and handed it over. Our fingers brushed, and I nearly fumbled.

"You think you're good with parents?" I asked to cover my nerves. "Sylvia's the toughest nut to crack of all. I can't believe she told you where I lived."

"I swore I'd cause a scene if she didn't. Since you seemed determined to avoid me at school and at home." He shrugged. "And even on text."

"Sylvia took my phone," I pointed out.

"I meant your replies."

I walked on, quickly, so he had to jog to catch up. "So now what?" I asked. "You're ready to come scoop me up? I'm not a library book you put on hold."

"No. Tess..." He scrubbed a hand through his hair. "If I hadn't seen you on Wednesday-if I'd called in sick to the lab that night and taken a day or two, all by myself, and then come to you and told you it was over with Hannah, would we be standing here right now?"

If, if, if. If I had never left him after Cornell, if Hannah hadn't been sick last week, if Marie Swift hadn't gotten pregnant with Hannah at the beginning of my parents' affair ... What was the point in thinking about ifs? We were here now.

"Probably not," I admitted. "Maybe it's not always a good idea to tell the truth."

"I will never believe that. But yeah, timing might be an important factor." Dylan reached for me, and I let him curl his fingers around mine.

We walked that way for a while, hand in hand, not saying anything.

"I want to be with you, Tess," he said softly, squeezing my hand. "Tell me how to make that happen."

"It's happening. It's already happened."

He stopped, so abruptly I swung around on the sidewalk until I faced him. His expression was filled with wonder, his blue eyes with wild relief. "Why didn't you tell me?"

My free hand flew to my throat, to the silver T hanging there. "What do I need to tell you, Dylan? I'm here, you're here. There's nothing to keep us apart anymore. Am I happy about what happened at the lab last week? No. Were you happy when I stopped calling you two years ago? Of course not. But that didn't stop you when I came back, and I'm not going to let one stupid night stop us now."

He tugged me into his arms and lay his head down against the crook of my neck. "Jesus, Tess," he whispered. "I thought I'd messed everything up. When you walked out, when you didn't show up to class..."

"It is messed up," I agreed. "Everything has always been messed up. It's been messed up for us for two years. But we finally have the chance to make things right." I couldn't let all the bad choices we'd made-all the bad choices of two generations-ruin what I had with Dylan. I wouldn't.

We'd done the best we could with what we had. And now we could start anew.

TWENTY.

It was the Friday before the Thanksgiving holiday, and Dylan was taking me out on our first real date. We'd had a hectic week, working long hours on our project and even longer on the last big round of tests, quizzes, and problem sets for our respective classes. After the Thanksgiving break, we'd have one more week of classes, then a week of studying, then final exams...and the colloquium on which I was resting all my financial hopes. I'd begged off work at Verde, which was probably going to be pretty dead anyway, as students left Canton for their hometowns. Even some of us who called Canton our hometown, like Hannah, had vamoosed for points unknown this weekend-at least, according to my mom's report that Dad was out of town with his family.

And I had to admit, there was still some small part of me that wondered if that was why Dylan had waited until now to take me out on the town. Our relationship up until now had been stolen kisses at the end of lab times, a few lunches here and there. Technically not so very different than what we'd been doing before we were officially together. We might be boyfriend and girlfriend for real now, but no matter how many times I told myself that, I didn't really believe it. My slim experience with boyfriends in the past wasn't sufficient to teach me how one behaved with this boyfriend. This man I loved. This man I was in a week-long relationship with that felt like it should be so much more.

Dylan planned to head home Saturday afternoon, but he'd promised me he'd be back right after Thanksgiving so we could put the finishing touches on our project before the department review period and, he added, spend some quality time together before exams made everything crazy. That meant that if we didn't go out tonight, it wasn't going to happen until sometime after break or-knowing the way Dylan attacked his lab work-maybe even after exams. After Christmas Break? By then we'd have been together a month, but would it still feel like no time at all, and also like entirely too long.

These were the thoughts running on a loop while I showered, dressed, and did my makeup. I kept it subtle tonight-none of Cristina's peacock-inspired eyes. A simple swipe of mascara, a touch of gloss on my lips. I wore a black wrap dress of my own instead of something from my mom's extensive wardrobe. It had a wide, swirly skirt and a plunging v-neckline that displayed the silver T to perfection. I blow-dried my hair so it had a nice wave but left it down so it floated over my shoulders. And when I was ready I took a long, appraising look at myself in the mirror.

I was not my mother, not my father. I had his eyes, her face and figure, but I hadn't followed their path. The boy I loved loved me enough to choose me. Loved me enough to make me his for real. It was everything I wanted, everything I'd asked him for, everything I'd thought wasn't possible for a girl like me.

So why wasn't I happier?

My doubts plagued me until I heard Dylan's knock at the door. I answered and the second I saw him, it all fell away. He wore a pair of dark pants and a charcoal-gray sweater that made his eyes practically glow with blue fire. Or maybe it was his expression that glowed.

"Tess," he said, his voice nearly a whisper. "You look beautiful."

I fingered the skirt. "Yeah, once I'm out of the lab coat, I clean up nice."

"No," he replied. "You look beautiful in the lab coat, too."

He made small talk with my mom, took me by the hand, and led me to his car.

"Where are we going?" I asked once we were seatbelted in.

"Verde."

I turned to him, eyebrows raised.

"What, don't you like that place? You spend enough time there. I thought it was your favorite." He winked at me and pulled out of the parking lot. "Nah, don't worry, T. I didn't get to take you out for a birthday drink, and I know a place I think you'll love. They're a little swanky and they definitely don't serve the underage collegiate crowd, so this will be your first opportunity to try it out."

And so he hadn't taken Hannah, either, if you couldn't go until you were twenty-one. Was he purposefully taking me to someplace off the campus radar so we didn't run into anyone who knew him with Hannah?

Stop thinking like that, Tess. Just stop.

After about fifteen minutes of driving, he pulled up in front of an unassuming brick storefront. A black awning out front had a name painted in gold block letters that I couldn't quite read from this angle. We approached the front door.

"Alchemy," I said when the name finally became visible.

"After you, lab partner." Dylan opened the door for me.

The inside looked like something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie, all exposed brick walls and copper pipes leading every which way. Giant glass vats suspended over the bar were lit from within so their mysterious contents glowed green and gold and blue. The walls were lined with dark glass bottles featuring hand-stenciled labels. We weren't in a bar-we were in some sort of Victorian apothecary.

Dylan and I found seats at a small, high table, and I perched on the leather-covered barstool, the full skirt of my dress sliding to the side. We opened the leather-bound menus and I perused the offerings, divided into "subjects" like Brews, Elixers, and Potions. We certainly weren't in Verde anymore. There wasn't an Amaretto sour to be seen, and despite my own bartending experience, I didn't recognize half the liqueurs they listed.

"Adorable," I stated, eyeing him over the rim of the menu.

"Yeah," he replied. "So...do you have any idea what elderflower tastes like?"

Our waitress arrived, dressed in a high-necked shirt with puffed sleeves and a bustle skirt. After she went through the usual patter, she informed us of a special promotion available that evening. Apparently they'd hired a palm reader to help guests concoct the perfect drink, based on the fortune the reader gave us.

"Interested?" the waitress asked. "I didn't get a drink because my shift started, but I have to say, I liked my fortune."

"I'm pretty skeptical about stuff like that," I said.

"It's just a drink," Dylan pointed out. "Not a prescription for life."

"Oh, honey," the waitress said to him as she took our menus. "You clearly haven't had one of our cocktails before."

In the end, we decided to let the fortune-teller choose for us, just for the story.

She came over, a middle-aged woman in flowing dresses and more than her fair share of bangles. "I'm Madame Misty," she intoned. "Give me your palm."

I shied away, chuckling nervously. "You first, Dylan," I said. "This bar was your idea."

He shrugged, then gamely held out his hand. "To be fair, I was going for the chemistry angle, not the mysticism."

I expected her to read the lines on his palm, but she did nothing of the sort. Instead, she looked deep into his eyes for a second, slapped his hand up and down a few times, turned it over once, then took a deep breath.

"You're on the right track," she said.

"That's good to know," Dylan said with a smile. "What should I drink?"

"Whatever you want," she replied, her tone just as matter of fact. "Your decision will not be wrong. You are intelligent and ambitious, but you never let that lead you astray. You live by your heart, and your heart is pure. The work you do arises from true passion. The love you know is the same. You do not doubt, and your aim is true. What do you want to drink right now?"