“Are you going to go?”  I whispered to Riven three days later, curled up next to him on the bed.

He hesitated, lying on his back staring at the ceiling.  “I think so,” he said at last.  “He seems nice, and Adair trusts him, and well, he wants to be my dad, even with everything my mom did, so I kind of want to give him that shot.”  He turned to look at me.  “I’ll miss you, though.”  His face was troubled.  “I can probably come back here for college but we’d be apart for a while.”

I grabbed his hand tightly.  “It’s okay.  I’ll – I’ll miss you a lot,” I admitted, blinking back tears, “but I’m happy for you, too.  And look, Dad got us matching phones, see?”  I pointed to the boxes on my dresser.  “He said he’s got you set up on a plan so you have unlimited calls and texts with me so we can talk as much as we want.  And your dad said video calls are fine.”  I really didn’t want to cry.  I knew this was good for him, and it wasn’t going to be forever, but it still kind of sucked that I’d found my soulmate, that he was such an amazing person, that we’d gotten past issues with Brian and his mom…only for him to have to leave me.  Not forever, though.  And we’d still talk.  We had to.

“I might want to video call every day,” I admitted, embarrassed but also wanting to make sure he knew how much I cared.  “You know I love you, right?  I – I need you in my life.  Even if it’s just texts, that’s fine, but please don’t forget me.”

Riven’s eyes were soft as he leaned over and kissed my forehead.  “Ren, I could never forget you.  Don’t be silly.  And of course we can talk every day, as much as possible.  There might be times one or the other of us is busy but we can text, call, video chat – maybe sometimes we can hang out with video chat and watch movies together or something, okay?  And,” his face turned a little pink, “I love you, too, you know.  You’re kind of the most important person in my life, my dad and all included.  This won’t be the end of us, I promise.  I won’t even give up if you get tired of me.”

I shook my head fiercely.  “I could never get tired of you.  Never.  I think I could be with you every day for the rest of my life and it still wouldn’t be enough.”

Riven smiled at me, put his forehead against mine, and closed his eyes.

We just lay there, quietly, appreciating each other’s company.  Things were going to change soon, but it’d be okay.  Riven would always be my best friend – that wasn’t going to change even if he lived hundreds of miles away.  I was sure of it.

I was a little less sure of everything when we were at the airport a few short days later, Riven’s stuff all packed up.  Mom was crying as she hugged him goodbye, Honey made him promise to call and text her, Sorrel promised Riven he’d look after me, and Dad said something in Riven’s ear I couldn’t hear, but his eyes went to me and he blushed slightly.

Then it was my turn to say goodbye and I had no idea how to do that.  I’d barely gotten Riven in my life and it wasn’t nearly enough time.  Yes, we were going to call and text and I would do my best not to annoy him with how needy I could be, but still, in this moment, I was supposed to let him go, and that – that felt impossible.

I threw my arms around him and squeezed him as tightly as I could without hurting him, willing that hug to stop all the tears that I felt swimming in my eyes.  “I love you so much,” I murmured softly so no one else could hear, “and I will never ever stop being your friend, okay?  No matter what.”  I backed up a bit to look at him, surprised to see he looked a little tearful, too.  “I won’t accept anything less than at least some contact every day, okay?”  I told him.

Riven laughed, but his laugh had a hint of sadness to it, and he nodded.  “I promise, Ren.”

I hesitated, looking at his beautiful face, wondering how long before I’d see it in person again – and then on some impulse, without thinking it through, I tipped up and kissed him.  On the mouth.  In front of his dad and my entire family.  I put my lips gently on his soft, warm ones, reveling for a moment in the feel of his surprised breath in my mouth, then finished with a bit of intensity as I stepped back.

“There,” I told him, satisfied, “now I have your first kiss and you can’t possibly forget me.”

“Ren!”  He gasped.  He started to sputter out something else before the announcement for their flight came, and before we could talk any further there was a mad flutter of activity – and then he was gone.

~~~~~

“So how is it there?”  I was sitting on my bed, eagerly watching through my phone as Riven gave me a tour of his house.  “Did you meet your aunt, uncle, and cousin yet?  What are they like?”

“It’s by the sea, so the temperatures are a little different, and the air kind of tastes salty,” he explained, walking through the living room out to the several-acre backyard.  Nice – woods for as far as I could see.  “I haven’t gotten in the water yet – it’s too cold for that.  Uncle Bruce has some friends who have a heated pool so I could learn how to swim there, before it gets warm enough to get in the ocean.  Uncle Bruce is pretty nice, he reminds me of your dad in some ways.  Aunt Gwen is a little more on edge, I don’t think she was too happy to find out about Mom at first, but Dad explained about the lawsuit and everything that I went through and then she got all sad for me and somehow we ended up watching a feel-good movie while wrapped in like a dozen blankets?  I think that means she likes me now.  Sterling is fun, he talks a lot, kind of like Benji, but he’s thrilled to have someone his age who knows what he is.  Everyone else thinks he’s human and I think sometimes that’s kind of frustrating for him because he can’t just be himself except for around his parents and Dad.”  Riven paused as he walked through the woods.  “What’s this?”  He pointed his phone towards a flower cluster growing along the path.

“Yarrow,” I responded.  “You should get your dad to plant some gaillardia and lantana before summer, they have bright flowers and they’re good in that climate.  Oh, hydrangea, too, and lavender looks pretty and smells nice, so that would be good.”

“Uncle Bruce is actually more into gardens than Dad is,” Riven crouched next to the flowers, investigating them with gentle fingers.  “I bet he’d help if I told him I wanted to plant some stuff.  Text me what you said, okay?  I’ll probably forget the names otherwise and ask you again later.”

“Okay!”  I beamed at him.  He was actually going to try to plant something on my recommendation?  That made me ridiculously happy and I wasn’t even sure why.

“What about school?”  I asked, worried that he wasn’t going to like it there.  I had kind of hoped that he’d be able to finish out the year with me, but I could understand why they couldn’t wait to relocate him for another few months.  It wasn’t practical for him or his dad, but moving in the middle of the school year wasn’t fun, either.

“It’s a pretty small school, but it seems nice.  Sterling’s helped a lot, since he knows half the people there – mostly all the merfolk kids, apparently.  The high school is across the street from the junior high so he just runs over in between classes a lot.  It’s kind of funny, all the teachers know him and just sigh and shoo him back when he tries to hang out with me in class.  But it’s nice to have someone I know already starting out.  I haven’t made any new friends yet, really, but it’s only been a couple days and I have been meeting people, thanks to Sterling, so hopefully I will after I get more settled in.”

I did hope he’d make friends, he was awesome, people would realize that, especially since he didn’t have to worry so much about hiding from people now that he understood why he saw what he saw and he was protected.

I mean, was I a little jealous that he might make other friends?  Of course, but as long as they weren’t soulmates, it was okay, right?  I’d still be his number one friend?  Or was I being too selfish?

“I’m trying to talk Dad and mom into visiting this summer,” I told him.  “I don’t think they’ll take much convincing – we all like you, so everyone wants to see you again and it’d be nice to meet the rest of your family, too.”

Riven looked slightly embarrassed.  “Your family is pretty awesome,” he said softly.  “I’ve never been accepted that easily before – but it meant a lot to me.”

I beamed at him.  As fairies, family units were pretty important to us, so the fact that he liked mine meant a lot to me.  “You’re such an awesome person, it’d be hard not to like you,” I pointed out.

He rolled his eyes.  “You’re just saying that because you’re my soulmate and you’re biased.”

“Still true.”  I stuck my tongue out at him.  “So there.”

He laughed.  We ended up talking a few more minutes before he had to head off for the night to work on homework before bed, and I sighed when I hung up – a mixture of happiness from getting to see and talk to Riven and sadness that it was over so quickly – even though we’d actually talked for most of an hour.  An hour wasn’t good enough, though.  I wanted more time with him.

I was being stupidly greedy, I needed to stop.  I didn’t want to annoy him with my affection, I had to make sure I was reasonable about this.

But that didn’t stop me from wishing I could spend all day, every day with him.

~~~~~

“So,” Riven was explaining a few months later as he weeded the little garden of flowers I’d suggested for him, “they kept insisting on inviting me to this party even though I’m not a party person, but apparently they figured out Dad is rich so that matters to them?  I finally just gave up and told them my boyfriend wouldn’t like it, so they quit.  I might have to use that excuse more often.  Oh – wait, is this a shoot from the plant or a weed?”  He flipped the phone so I could see what he was talking about.

I answered him automatically, but I was feeling kind of agitated underneath my calm.  This wasn’t the first mention Riven had made to a boyfriend.  I wasn’t sure if he actually had one, though, or if he was just using it as an excuse – it was just vague enough I could never tell, and I was afraid to ask.

I did know Riven was gay by now, and somehow learning that had set off fireworks in my heart, like it was eagerly informing me that I could have even more of Riven if we ended up turning things romantic between us, but…if he was dating someone else, it would kill this new hope that had sprouted in my heart.  I kind of wanted to ask so I wouldn’t hope for impossible things but at the same time, I didn’t dare ask in case the answer broke my heart.

Instead, I kept quiet and kept trying to pick up clues as to whether this boyfriend was real or imagined, and if real, which of his new friends was it?

Was it Garrett, the one he described as goofy but loyal?  Or Seth, quiet and reliable?  Or perhaps Isaac, but he was dating one of the girls, so hopefully not?

“I think something might be wrong with Uncle Bruce,” Riven’s musings brought me back.  “I accidentally caught him the other day taking a bunch of medications.  He didn’t see me and now I’m not sure if I should say something – Sterling hasn’t mentioned that Uncle Bruce is sick, and he would if he knew, so now I’m not sure what to do.”

I was lying on my stomach on my bed, my phone propped up in front of me, my feet in the air behind me.  “Maybe you should just talk to him and ask?”

“Maybe.”  Riven frowned a bit as he looked at the hydrangea.  “He’s really nice, I don’t think he’d be bothered if I asked him about it, but I never know where the boundaries are with relationships – I feel so new to friendships in general that it’s hard to know if I’m overstepping by accident.  It’s easier with you,” he flashed me a smile, “because I know you’re pretty much fine with everything, but I’m still pretty new to this family and I don’t want to mess things up.”

I couldn’t hide my happy smile over him admitting I was special.  “But he’s nice and he likes you, right?  And it’s not a bad question – you’re worried about him, it seems reasonable to me.”

“I guess.”  Riven bit his lower lip, drawing my attention to his mouth and reminding me of that kiss at the airport.  I kind of wanted to do that again, only slower, with more time to savor it.

I blinked.  No, no – don’t think about that.  Riven might be dating someone, and I couldn’t risk making things worse now that we were good friends.  I quickly tried to find a topic to distract me.

“How did swimming lessons go?  Will you be ready for our visit?”

“Hmm, yeah, I guess.”  Riven switched the phone back to forward view so he could show me some of the flowers.  “I mean, I can kind of swim now, but Morgan – that’s Uncle Bruce’s friend – said I remind them of a dog floundering in the ocean, which I think means I’m really awkward about it?  Alex – she’s about 10, I think – she kept laughing at me and then swimming around in oceanid form and making a point of how fast she is when she’s several years younger than me.  To make it more embarrassing, the younger one, Jessie, can also swim, and even their toddler, but he’s an oceanid, too, so I’m not sure that counts – he couldn’t drown if he tried.  They’ve promised me some more lessons, but since you guys are getting here in a couple weeks, I doubt I’ll have improved much by then.”

I was appreciating the beauty of the flowers Riven was showing me, but I was more impatient to see Riven’s face.  Under normal circumstances, flowers were great because I’m a fairy, but Riven > flowers, so….

“I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I told him.  “But we don’t even have to go swimming if you don’t want to.  I’m just looking forward to seeing you in person again.”

My comment was rewarded by Riven flipping the phone back to him and giving me a smile.  “Yeah, me too,” he said softly.

“We don’t have to go swimming, by the way, if you don’t want to,” I added.  Sorrel was looking forward to swimming, but I was just more concerned with spending time with Riven.  “We can go walk in your dad’s woods or just sit and talk or whatever.  I don’t care.”

He smiled kind of shyly and told me that was sweet of me, which made me blush, but we had to end the call soon after when Mom called me for dinner.

I really was looking forward to getting to see him in person again.  Okay, I was just a tiny bit terrified, too, that I’d find out he really did have a boyfriend and be forced to watch their interactions and pretend like I was okay with that, but I’d even put up with that as long as I got to spend time with him.

This trip had better turn out to be awesome.