I went to Raymond's house with Jake after he came to my rescue and drove me home. We arrived at the party, found Dylan hovering near the keg, and joined him.

"What took you so long?" He lifted his chin at us. His face was flushed with alcohol already.

"Sean was saying bye to Flora," Jake said. I didn't tell him that and I thought I was very calm on the way over, but sometimes he could just detect these things with me. "He cried all the way home and I had to stop and pat his back."

"Yeah right," Dylan said sarcastically. He handed us a plastic cup each, and we started drinking and toasting to anything we could think of. To Jake getting voted as Most Gorgeous for the fourth time in a row, to me graduating with the second highest GPA in our class, and to Dylan breaking up with Sydney for one final round--or so he claimed.

"I'm pretty sure I heard you screaming you loved her when we went through the door," I said.

"I love us," Dylan said. He could be deep when he wanted to, and as he started getting sentimental, I knew he was very drunk. "I miss the old us when everything was so good and we were each other's firsts in everything. Now we're just holding on to that memory and refusing to let go."

He took another long swig and crumpled up the cup he was holding. "I regret a lot of things that happened between us. We turned each other into horrible people."

"You're not horrible people," Jake said. "You're just horrible at being in a relationship. I'm glad I didn't try. I must say I don't regret a single thing in high school."

"I don't, either," I said. "I did everything I wanted to do."

"I did everything I wanted to do, too," Dylan said, "along with lots of things I didn't plan on doing."

Jake smirked as he filled up his cup. "You mean Sydney, along with Diane, Annie and Emma?"

"Why are you keeping tabs on Dill's sex life?"

He smiled at me. "Because you don't have one?"

Dylan laughed. He shook his head. "Nah, there's only Sydney for me."

He sounded sad already, and I was willing to bet that the Sydney Dylan show would come back with a sequel. They were together for almost three years, and since he chose to go to a community college nearby--not sure if he did it for her or for his mom--they would still be close to each other. He was such a romantic fool.

Our conversation went on as we continued with our ritual of binge-drinking. Dylan's mom would pick us up afterwards and let us stay at his house, as we had done many times before. I wondered how often we'd be able to do that from now on. I felt nostalgic already.

For some reason, however, I had the feeling that these guys were going to stay in my life for quite a while. It was a comforting thought.

"I fucking love you guys," Dylan said suddenly. "I'm really going to miss your ugly faces." He was generally a very emotional person and was especially affectionate when drunk. I could sense a hug coming up.

"Love you too, bro," Jake said easily as he took a step back. "But please don't hug me in front of the girls."

We laughed and drank some more. By the time when I saw our party host Raymond, I was feeling dizzy and out-of-character, so I decided to go over and talk to him. I was grateful towards him for the party. It was one last chance to bring everyone together, and I felt like I'd miss our whole class.

Looking back, I wouldn't change a thing about high school. I was so incredibly lucky. I gave my sister an unforgettable birthday, made my parents proud, spent time with people I truly liked, went to prom with my best friend...

And I fell in love. It all started with one of Raymond Corbett's parties when this beautiful girl told me she liked me.

I was right when I told her we were too different and better off as friends, but at the same time, I was completely wrong too. I was relieved that we tried, and in the end it was all that really mattered. That we tried.

It was good to end here, and I'd never forget any of my sparkling Flora moments. They were like the snowflakes in a snow globe, not entirely real, but perpetual and easy to preserve, and I could reflect upon them any time I want.

"Great party," I said to Raymond.

He gave me one of his overly-friendly smiles. If I hadn't known better, I would've thought he genuinely liked my presence. "Thanks for coming!"

"Thanks for inviting me."

"I'm glad you made it. Honestly," he said. "I say that to everyone but I really mean it. I hate half the people here but you're not one of them."

Raymond was strangely blunt tonight, and I guessed it was because he'd just been voted Prom King and no longer had to pretend to be nice. A couple of guys, who I didn't know the names of, were standing at a corner and nervously watching the dance floor. Raymond sighed through his nose and shook his head.

"Look at those losers," he said. "They have no idea what to do with themselves. Be right back while I find them a babysitter."

Flora and Carmen were a few feet away taking pictures together. She looked stunning as usual in a red dress, like she was posing for a perfume ad. Raymond approached them, and a moment later he was gesturing animatedly at the guys.

Flora went over and shook their hands. In no time they were all laughing, and Raymond had his arm slung over one of the guy's shoulder. This was certainly a strange sight to behold and I marveled over just how fake Raymond was.

I didn't miss the guys' delighted faces, however. They were uncomfortable at first and probably didn't like the party scene that much, but I was pretty sure they would go home happy, now that Raymond intervened. He gave them something great to remember and they'd never know what he really thought of them. He went around making sure everyone was enjoying themselves before he came back.

"Why bother inviting everyone if you hate half of them?" I asked, accepting the bottle of beer he handed to me.

He shrugged. "I don't know. No one else would invite them, I guess. I feel better about myself when they're happy. Besides, no one is allowed to have a bad time at my party."

The way he said it reminded me so much of Flora. The only difference was that she was genuinely interested in people, even if at the beginning it was just their outfits.

"That's why I like Flora," Raymond said. "She can talk to anyone, and she actually enjoys doing it. I can pretend to be friendly for a while before it gets exhausting, but she's like that on default."

"Yeah. Flora is amazing like that."

As I got more familiar with Raymond's vibe, I began to grasp why Flora liked hanging out with him. They were similar in some ways, and Flora was open-minded enough to tolerate his negative remarks on people. He was also honest and insincere, considerate and mean at the same time, and I knew Flora was drawn to that kind of complexity.

Raymond grimaced. "I don't mean I like her," he clarified. "She's fun to be around, that's all. Besides, anyone who's heard of the way she talks about you knows that she's a lost cause. I don't want you to get the wrong idea."

"It's okay. I understand."

"I have a crush on someone else," he said. Raymond was certainly up for sharing tonight. The strange thing was, talking to him wasn't half bad. "She's partly the reason I throw a party every semester, in hopes that she'd come."

"That's a lot of effort for one girl," I said. I was lazy and I'd never go to so much trouble. "You can just ask her out."

He shook his head. "No, this one is very difficult. She's always unavailable, too, and it's against my policy to try anything. I have enough respect for the boyfriend," he said, and a grin spread across his face. "I mean, ex-boyfriend."

"Oh. There's your chance."

"Yup. I'm going to make my move tonight."

"Good luck. This is your party and home advantage is very important."

He laughed. "True. Hey, so we're cool, right?"

"Why wouldn't we be?"

"I just want to make sure." He gave me a pat on the shoulder. "It's great talking to you. I wish we had done it sooner."

There was no way to tell if he meant it, but at least I knew I meant it when I said me too. A while later, I watched our Prom King and Queen stumble in a room together.

They were in there for a long time, and I couldn't help but feel amused. Sandra Jenkins, with her perfect hair and sophisticated manners, had stooped to our level and done something so entirely high school. Didn't I already predict this and tell Flora they should bond over their common hatred for everyone?

I never knew that parties could be so interesting.

***

Flora and I didn't talk anymore after graduation. I wanted to, but it seemed that we had already exhausted all that could be said. I spent the summer without her, but I kept in touch with her in my own way, madly and secretly.

It was hard at first. Thinking of her was like a broken rib--it hurt with every inhale and exhale. Gradually, I'd learned to coexist with the idea of missing Flora. It was something that I had to carry with me at all times even though it wasn't there, like a phantom limb.

I was still sad, but it was a tolerable kind of sadness that I had gotten used to, the way you don't hear the sound of a buzz after it goes on continuously, the way fragrances lose their scent. I lived and breathed her even though she wasn't with me anymore.

At least I had the freedom to think of her all I wanted.

When summer was close to an end, a plane took me and all my longing across the ocean. Germany was wonderful. I didn't normally like chatting up strangers, but now that I was on foreign grounds, I was much more out-going as stories were shared among fellow backpackers.

There were the two Korean guys who stayed up all night playing bridge with Dylan and me, while Jake was out doing whatever it was that Jake did. The French middle-aged woman we met at the bar was a small celebrity where she was from after one of her YouTube videos went viral. The Jamaican man sitting in the hotel lobby was an obstetrician who decided to take a year off clinical practice so that he could see the world.

The people I met and the things I saw were transformed into words on postcards. I wrote one to Flora every day, even though I knew I was never going to actually post them.

"This is exciting," Dylan said one afternoon. We were standing in the tattoo parlor, and he decided to get another tattoo to signify our trip abroad together.

"I'm touched, but I really don't want my initials on your body," Jake said.

Dylan pulled out his passport and found the page with the custom stamp. That was what he wanted on his arm. He grinned at Jake. "You want one too? You can tattoo your address and ask people to drop you off, in case you're wasted and lying in a puddle of your vomit on the side of the road."

"Dill, how can anyone not love you?" Jake shook his head. "You think of everything. Hey, but you know what? I think I do want one."

He sat down on the stool and started flipping through pictures of designs. It was just like Jake to decide on a tattoo two minutes before getting it, like he was just ordering at a fast food joint.

"I want something exotic like Chinese characters," he said.

"It's not because of Jessica, is it?" I asked. He admitted a while ago that he had a strange infatuation with her and he couldn't even explain it himself.

He frowned. "No, she'd freak out. Jess is the most infuriating girl I've ever met. She said we were soul mates but insisted on keeping everything strictly physical."

"Jessica is more Jake than Jake," Dylan said.

"She's not like Flora, that's for sure," Jake said to me. "If you tattoo Flora Morgan right across your heart, she'd probably love it."

Feels like I already did, I thought. As the tattoo artist placed the machine over Dylan's bicep, I sat down and started writing a new postcard. I wrote one before we biked along The Rhine river, and I wrote one in front of the bonfire, after we built a tent on the campsite in a botanic garden. I wrote one telling her about canoeing on Lake Titisee, and I wrote another to report on how we helped an old lady move a couch into her apartment. She made us some delicious grilled trout, and Flora would be impressed if she were there.

It was my therapy, to get over her, but also to hang on to her.

"Can I read it?" Jake asked one evening while I was sprawled on the bed writing. There was a stack of already written postcards in front of me. Dylan was off calling Sydney even though he claimed he was single, but he was still allowed to care about her.

"Go ahead."

He grinned. "Is there anything dirty?"

"Oh yes. I mentioned you and Dill a couple of times."

He smiled as he read, and I explained, "I just want to put down what we did, like a diary. It feels more natural to write dear Flora instead of dear diary, but I'm not really mailing it to her."

"Is that so?" He raised one eyebrow. "I think it's the other way around. You want to talk to her but you don't know what to say, so you're writing about our trip." He sounded like he pitied me, but there was also a hint of envy in his tone.

I shrugged and changed the subject. "You were out for an awfully long time last night."

"I met a girl," he said. This part wasn't surprising, because Jake was always sharing his sexpeditions with us. It was not to brag, according to him, but because we were bros and bros tell each other everything. "We almost made out, but it felt wrong because we couldn't communicate. I ended up showing her every picture in my camera, then she showed me hers."

"How disappointing. I expect a lot more from you."

"I expect a lot more from myself, too. I thought I'd be planting my offspring all over the European soil." He handed back my postcard. "But it's nice to have someone to think about, isn't it?"

***

I packed up everything for university. Linda refused to get out of my room. She stood there dabbing her eyes every now and then, because she was crying tears of joy and she couldn't wait to see me go.

I chuckled. "Would it kill you to tell me you're going to miss me?"

"Fine. I'm going miss you." She huffed. "Just a tiny bit."

"I'll miss you too, sis."

She handed my yearbook to me. "You forgot to pack this."

There was a picture of Flora and me dancing in there. It felt like a cruel prank, and I deliberately skipped that page every time. Janet told me that we were an epic couple and it made sense to have it in there as a fragment of history, as if it was a UNESCO World Heritage site of Riverside High.

Flora hadn't signed my yearbook. When I got it back from the cheerleaders, I skimmed over the last few pages and saw that every one of them signed except for her. I was disappointed but I wasn't surprised.

We were too much of everything to be summed up in a few sentences.

I wished her luck when I signed hers, and I managed to be honest without saying anything I really wanted to say. I thanked her for everything, but I didn't tell her how much I still loved her, that right now I couldn't picture myself ever being happy without her, but I was also scared because I didn't want to drag this on when we should have closed this chapter.

I just wanted her to be happy and to have a good time in the city. It must get lonely there sometimes, even if it was somewhere as fabulous as Manhattan.

I touched the cover hesitantly, and then I flipped to the page with us dancing. A thin piece of paper was there, one I never noticed before.

I recognized Flora's handwriting right away.

"Dear Sean,

This is a letter written by Simone de Beauvoir to Nelson Algren, but it conjured up what I want to say nicely.

I want to tell you only two things before leaving, and then I'll not speak about it anymore, I promise. First, I hope so much, I want and need so much to see you again, some day. But, remember, please, I shall never more ask to see you--not from any pride since I have none with you, as you know, but our meeting will mean something only when you wish it. So, I'll wait.

But know that I'll always long for your asking me. No, I cannot think that I shall not see you again. I have lost your love and it was (it is) painful, but shall not lose you.

What you gave me meant so much, that you could never take it back. And then your tenderness and friendship were so precious to me that I can still feel warm and happy and harshly grateful when I think of you. I do hope this tenderness and friendship will never, never desert me.

Don't make writing letters of any kind a duty, just write when you feel like it, knowing every time it will make me very happy.

Your own Flora

I hope our story doesn't end here x"

The letter dug up a fresh supply of emotions that I'd been trying to bury for so long, and it wasn't just because my baby was now quoting Simone de Beauvoir. My throat tightened as I swallowed. Linda left me quietly, and I read the letter again, and a third time.

You silly girl, I thought with fondness.

What had I ever done to deserve this kind of devotion? She still cared so much about me. She wanted to contact me, but she left the choice to me. She was respecting my wish and keeping her distance. I looked over at the stack of postcards I'd written to her, and knew that we never lost contact with each other.

We were lucky to get some time and space apart. She could learn to be more independent and figure out herself in New York, and I could learn to loosen up and live a little.

Perhaps there were differences that just couldn't be solved with negotiation, by compromising, by tears. We couldn't find a way to be together now, but maybe we would gradually change our opinions. If we did but didn't change how we felt about each other, then maybe, someday...

Meanwhile, maybe we could try to be friends. As much as I needed her, Flora might need me in her life too.

I picked up the phone and dialed the number I could remember by heart. It rang three times, five times--

"Who's this?" An annoyed male voice picked up. "Flora can't come to the phone right now. She's in the showers."

I was wrong. I did not want her to be happy, not so soon. She couldn't find someone else to replace me that quickly. "I'm her--"

He laughed. "Sean, I was just messing with you. This is Jeremy," he said. "Flora's brother? We met once for dinner."

My heart rate started to slow. I took a deep breath to calm myself. "Hi, Jeremy. How are you?"

"I'm great!" he said. "How about you? You're going to MIT, right? It's only two bus stops from Harvard and I can show you around the area if you want. I know all the great places--"

"Jeremy!" Flora's horrified voice cut in. I could hear them wrestling over the phone. "Oh my God it's Sean. What did you say to him?"

Jeremy laughed and yelled in the background that I should hang out with him sometime.

"Sean," Flora said breathlessly on the other end. "Sorry about that. Jeremy's being an idiot as usual."

"It's fine. He's funny." Just a few sentences in, and I realized how much I missed her and her crazy family already.

"Are you back from Germany?"