“Jenna, follow me!” he calls, darting into the woods. And she follows. They’re five years old, in the fields behind her farm. “Let’s play Lost Indians!” he says, plopping down onto a tree stump. “I’m gonna be called Running Deer.”

“I’m Dancing Swan.” She smiles excitedly, sitting on a clean patch of grass. “They were out hunting for buffalo and wandered too far away from their tribe, so now they have to catch gazelles and build a fire so they can survive.”

For the next hour they run around through the trees. He wields a stick, slashing at the invisible bears that threaten to kill them; she carries a pocketful of rocks, dangerous stones that only Dancing Swan can throw with deadly aim. By the time their parents call them in, they’ve killed not only enough gazelles for the entire Mossy Rock tribe, but also destroyed the pack of ogres that infested the woods. Together, Running Deer and Dancing Swan can do anything. It's written in the stars.

***

“Matt?” she calls, standing near the top of the stone steps near her barn. “Matt, I have a question for you.” The words feel strange on her seven year old tongue. “Yesterday Mom was talking about how when I was older, I’d get married to someone, and I think it would be easier to marry you. So when we grow up, can we?”

He fidgets for a moment, then shrugs. “Sure. If you want to.”

“Great,” she replies, face splitting into a wide grin.

A couple hours later, when he has gone home, Jenna doesn’t understand why her mother laughs so hard when Jenna tells her that she and Matt will be married when they grow up.

***

She picks uncomfortably at the fringe on his familiar blue and green bedspread. “Wanna play Lost Indians?” she asks, shrugging.

He laughs. “That’s a kid game, Jen. We’re almost ten now.”

They lapse into silence. “How about Sorry or Scrabble?” he wonders halfheartedly.

“I hate Scrabble.”

After a long silence, he flips open his Game Boy and starts playing Pokémon, the game that’s gotten on Jenna’s nerves for as long as Matt’s been playing it.

“That’s a kid game, Matt,” Jenna says nastily. “We’re almost ten now.”

Letting the jibe roll off him, he adapts an injured expression. “But I can’t leave my Charizard now, right when we’re about to beat the League! That would kill him!”

Jenna rolls her eyes, biting back a laugh. “I’m going home, Matt. See you tomorrow.”

***

On the day of fifth grade graduation, their parents make them stand together for a picture. “Come on, Matt, put your arm around her or something,” calls his father in his booming voice, the one that makes everyone in the gym turn to look at them. Face burning, Matt gingerly drapes his arm around Jenna’s shoulders as she awkwardly stands as erect as possible.

When they get the picture developed everything looks wrong, and Jenna only glances at it for a moment before pushing it back into her mother’s hand.

***

It’s the beginning of eighth grade when Jenna gets her first boyfriend. As soon as she gets off the phone with him, she runs to Matt’s house, just going in without knocking the way she always does. He’s lying on his bed, but sits up when she comes in. “Hey Jen,” he says, looking at her apprehensively.

“Relax, Matt!” she laughs. “I’m not contagious!”

He raises his eyebrows at her. “Ricky?”

She blushes furiously, but can’t stop the hint of pride from creeping into her voice. “What’s wrong with Ricky?”

Two days later when they break up, Matt doesn’t tell Jenna he told her so. He just passes her tissues as she sits there in his desk chair, not wanting to go home. “Can I sleep over tonight?” she asks. “Like we used to?”

He nods. “If our parents let us.”

That night they pitch a tent and camp in the backyard. For the first time in years, when Jenna asks to play Lost Indians, Matt doesn’t scoff at her. Tonight they’ll be Dancing Swan and Running Deer, protectors of their tribe, slayers of ogres. For a couple hours, they escape the confines of middle school and journey far away, everywhere from the vast plains of Wyoming to the wild jungles of Brazil.

***

In high school they rarely see each other. He joins the soccer team while she gets a part in the school play. Still, she’s standing there on the sidelines when he scores the winning goal, and he’s the first to hand her a bouquet of roses as she comes out the stage door, face still aglow from performing.

And always, they have their long talks at home. When the guy she likes turns her down, Matt is the first to tell Jenna that he was obviously not thinking straight, and even if he was, he was crazy. Then, the day Matt comes home late, smiling because he has his first ever girlfriend, Jenna is genuinely happy for him, and bombards him with all the proper questions about what she’s like and compliments about how good they’ll be together.

***

“Truth or Dare?” he asks her one night, well into their junior year.

She looks down at him curiously from her perch in the tree branch right above his head. “Dare, I guess.”

His reply is almost inaudible. “Kiss me.”

Her eyes dart to the side as she tries to laugh it off as a joke.

“Uh-uh, Jenna,” he laughs, waggling a finger at her. “You can’t back out of a dare, or you will be forever shunned and banished to the regiment of girl next door.”

With a shrug, she replies, smiling. “I guess I have no choice, then.”

When their lips touch, there are no sparks, no fireworks, and nothing changes between them. Even so, there’s something safe, something dependable, about that kiss.

“G’night,” she breathes, climbing around him and down the tree, then dropping softly to the ground.

“See you, Jen,” he replies, looking after her into the darkness. “See you tomorrow.”

***

The day she leaves for college he stays in his room until the last moment, putting off goodbye. It’s only when he looks out the window and sees her looking down their street for the last time, tears sparkling at the corners of her eyes, that he leaps off his chair, pounds down the stairs, then runs across the street and gathers her in his arms.

“Love you, Matt,” she chokes out, squashed into his chest. She can feel his breathing, ragged against her ear.

“Love you too, Jen,” he says. “It’s gonna be weird being so far away from you.”

“But we’ll keep in touch, right?” she asks, looking up at him. “You’ll call me, won’t you?”

“Everyday,” he promises before crushing her in one last hug, one that they never want to end.

***

Winter holidays are the first time their schools have a break together, and even then, it’s only for two days. For those forty eight hours, they’re not separate people, but jennandmatt, one unit, like they used to be.

“I don’t want to go back,” she murmurs sleepily, reclined on the couch with her back against his chest as they watch late night reruns of Seinfeld.

He smiles into the darkness, a smile just for himself. “I wish you could stay too, Jen.”

Muting the TV, she twists to look at him. “What’s it gonna be like, Matt? Once we graduate, have careers, families. How will we stay close?”

Always the reassuring one, he rubs her shoulder gently. “We just will. Because we love each other.”

She nods at that and turns back to the TV. “Yeah. We do, don’t we?”

***

After college, Jenna goes back to the town they grew up in to teach, while Matt moves to New York City and takes an office job.

“Come home,” she asks one night when they’re on the phone. “Please,” she adds inaudibly.

“You know I can’t, Jenna. I can’t just leave my job, apartment, everything I’ve worked for.”

“But you’d be coming home to me,” she begs, trying to keep the desperation out of her voice. Nothing feels the same without him. She doesn’t feel the same without him.

“Jen.”

It’s not much, but that one word, spoken with such finality, is enough to send the conversation away from that subject.

That night is the first time Jenna cries over Matt.

***

On the outside, nothing changes after that, but on the inside everything’s different. And over Christmas break, Matt brings Amber-from-work home to visit.

“So, tell me everything,” Jenna sing songs to him, laughing. It’s Christmas Eve, and they’re walking up and down their road, necks scrunched down in mufflers and hands pushed deep into pockets.

For a moment she’s reminded of the look she gave him so long ago, when she told him Ricky had asked her out all those years ago: He gets that same pleased smile as he shuffles nervously. “It’s not that serious. We hit it off pretty quickly. She’s fun, good at taking my mind off things.”

“Like what?” Jenna asks slightly waspishly, imagining the ways slender Amber might have of taking his mind off things.

“Oh, not like that,” he says, laughing as he reddens. “She just – she cheered me up, y’know?”

Wordlessly, she shakes her head. The mood between them changes from light teasing to tense silence.

“When I decided to move to New York,” Matt begins, choosing his words slowly. “It wasn’t because I didn’t like it in our town. It was because I had to get away.”

“Why didn’t you take me with you? We could have escaped together.”

He chuckles, biding his time before dropping the bombshell. The one that shouldn’t surprise her, but will, because she’s who she is.

“I had to get away from you.”

There’s no affectionate ‘Jen’ on the end, no warmth in his tone, only cold matter of factness.

“Do you love me?” she whispers, not sure if she wants to hear the answer. “Love me as more than a friend?”

“I did. I don’t know anymore.”

Any doubts Jenna had for her feelings for him leave her as her heart jumps to her throat, then plummets to the ground. “Oh.” She meets his gaze for a minute, then quickly turns away.

“Come on, Jenna. You can’t pretend you ever had any real feelings for me.” Matt’s tone is heated now, escalating as he gets into the moment.

“You know, I thought I didn’t.” Her tone is pensive now; she refuses to be drawn into the argument. “But then something changed.”

“What?” he asks, still terse.

“When you –” she pauses, quiet for a moment, then pushes on, words spilling out quickly, almost incoherent. “When I realized how empty my life was with you gone. I know how cliché that sounds, okay? But it’s true.”

He sucks in a deep breath. “We’ve been out a long time, Jen. If we’re not back soon, they’ll send a search party.”

Shaking her head, she turns for the house, not waiting for him to follow. She’s had enough.

***

Matt and Amber-from-work break up less than a week after the holidays. When Matt calls Jenna to tell her, Jenna only mutters a quick apology before hanging up. As the phone rings again and again, she ignores it.

***

A week later, he’s sitting on her doorstep when she gets home after work.

“What on earth?” she asks incredulously, trying to figure out if she wants to see him yet.

“We have some unfinished business,” he says. “Can we finish that conversation? The one over Christmas?”

Wordlessly, she unlocks the door and steps inside, leaving it open for him to come through as well.

“I ended things with Amber. I know you already know, but I thought it would be a good starting point.”

“Starting point for what?” Jenna busies herself with tidying her counter, anything to keep from having to look at Matt. Overnight, they’ve become complete strangers.

He makes a frustrated sound. “For us, Jen. For us.” He stands up now and walks to her. “For everything we could be.”

“I don’t –”

“Forget it,” he says, turning away. “Forget I even came. Just go back to your life, and I’ll go back to mine.” He’s almost to the door before she stops him.

“Matt, wait. I need time. That’s all, just some time to – to think.”

He walks out to his car, starts the engine. As he begins to pull out the driveway, Jenna appears in the doorway.

“Wait,” she says again. “Please, wait.”

He gets out of the car, and she flies off the steps, launching herself into his arms. “Please stay. I don’t need to think anymore. I’m lost without you. I just want to be with you, be with you forever.”

***

That night they pitch a tent in the backyard for old time’s sake and stay up all night talking, trying to make the transition from friendship to romance.

“Love you,” she murmurs into the darkness as they drift off.

His hand finds hers. “Love you too, Jen.”

Neither of them says it aloud, but both are remembering the days of Dancing Swan and Running Deer – remembering them with happiness as they marvel at how far they’ve come. But they end the same way they began all those years ago.

Written in the stars.

Something I wrote over a year ago, and decided on a whim to post. I'd love any feedback you can give me!