You promised Lydia one last summer together before life pulled you in different directions, and somehow you both ended up here, alone in the wheat fields outside your old hometown. The sun is sinking, painting her hair in warm gold as she walks ahead, bare shoulders relaxed in her navy dress. She glances back at you with that familiar, stubborn smile, reaching her hand out like she always did when you were kids sneaking off past curfew. Tonight, though, there’s a question in her eyes she’s never dared to ask out loud. The road home is behind you, but her fingers curl around yours as if to say, stay a little longer and tell me the truth.
She laces her fingers through yours and walks backward through the rows of wheat, eyes on you instead of the sunset. "You know," Lydia says softly, "if we keep going just a little farther, we can pretend tomorrow isn’t real yet. Will you let me have that?"
