I’m all grown up now.

I’m all grown up now, and so is he, but he was always the grown up and I was always the naïve, innocent, inexperienced one. Maybe that draw is the whole reason why all this ever happened, and so much more never happened.

He looks the same, but I know I don’t, because I’m not a 15-year-old content to have a main concern of only him. I’m weary and worn and world-wise, and I have the high-school and college degrees to prove it now.

Standing next to him, though, I’m 15 again, I’m trailing after him with a stupid grin and living off every accidental touch to his arm. I’m falling again, and I was broken enough last time; now it’s doubtful I’ll ever be put back together.

I’m taller now, two inches taller, and I’ve got neater hair and lighter eyes and sometimes-glasses; I wear lipstick and mascara and eyeliner and I laugh in the right places and I don’t fall down so much. You wouldn’t even recognize me, except you’re you and you’ll always recognize me, as I could pick you out of a crowd of red-hatted, gray-shirted, blue-eyed blonde guys in a nanosecond. You’re you.

You’re you and I’m I, and that was always the problem, wasn’t it?

It doesn’t have to be the problem anymore.

I’m all grown up now, we’ve both grown up now, and as scary as it was before it wasn’t a possibility before, but it is now.

There’s a possibility here that makes it all the more horribly terrifying.

Initial shock over seeing you is so bone-jarringly emotional that I want to weep or laugh at the highest level of elation. You hug me, tighter than necessary, and I’m 15 superimposed over 24 and you just might have seen me that way the whole time.

You let go and I think I feel reluctance and I think maybe it is yours as much as mine and I think my head is spinning but I can’t tell because I’m a step behind and every time I reach out to grab a thought it skates away from my grip.

So all I do is grin, straight into your blue blue blue eyes with my own blue blue blue eyes and God, I may not always know you, but I know I’ll always love you. I haven’t seen you in years and you’re here and I love you again and still.

So much. So deeply and strongly that I’m scared and so not at the same time.

You knew me when I had baby fat and chubby thighs and that’s all gone now, and the look on your face as you take this in is wow. The same looks you gave me then, really, only more, only not hidden under words and glances and shy smiles.

So you grin, too, you absolutely grin, as happy as I’ve ever seen you. Happier. A perplexed look, an ‘is this right?’ look crosses your face, followed by an ‘I don’t care’ look and I know what’s coming, I’m ready and floating on the wave of anticipation before you ask what I’m going tonight and I answer nothing and think apparently I’m going to fall in love with you for the 80th time and you say, let’s have dinner, let’s catch up. I love ketchup, I joke but you’re nostalgic and you say I remember.

I remember too. I remember it all.

But that was the past. This is the future, this is the now. Better than the past.

When you said goodbye to me the first time, you mumbled ‘good luck,’ and it was, indeed, that luck that brought us here now, gave us this chance, this last chance to make it real.

Thank you for the luck and for this chance, and we can make it work, I know and you know, because we’re all grown up now.