My mom lingered at my bedroom door for a good while then, unsure if she should leave me alone. “Well,” she said, after a long silence. “I guess I’ll let you get settled.”

I sat very still for a long time. Twenty minutes? An hour? Maybe I was in shock. All I know is, I couldn’t grasp how on earth my life’s path had led me back here. I couldn’t think about the past, but I couldn’t see a future, either.

When the doorbell rang, I wondered if it was my dad.

But a few minutes later, my mom clicked down the hallway, swung open my door (without knocking), and presented—of all people—Ian.

I think she said something prim, like “You have a visitor.” I feel like she might also have offered Ian a wine spritzer, which he declined. All I remember was the sight of him.

Because as soon as I looked up, I was alive again.

Ian Moffat was in my bedroom. In a blue T-shirt and button-fly jeans.

“Hello,” he said, after my mother left, hooking his thumbs in his pockets and looking around. “Nice place.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea why he was here.

“I’ve come to apologize,” he said then, shifting his weight. “I think I’ve made your life harder, not easier—though that was never my intention.”

I waited.

“I just wanted to help you get better—as much as you could.”

Okay.

“I should never have let myself care for you the way I did.”

I looked up. “You let yourself care for me?”

But I suddenly felt like I’d focused on the wrong part of that statement. Ian didn’t answer. He studied the rug.

Right then, a foolish little hope lit up somewhere in my heart. Maybe that’s why he’d come. Maybe now that I wasn’t his patient anymore, we could—what? Hang out? Kiss again? Date? Be together?

“I’m also here,” Ian added, “to share the news that I’m officially fired. Myles submitted it yesterday.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

“Both.”

I smiled.

He went on, “I will miss it, though.”

“Are they going to take away your license?”

“Yes.”

If he lost his license, he lost his visa. “Does that mean you have to leave the country?”

He paused a second on this one, walking over to sit down on the bed beside me. “I think so. Yes.”

I blinked. “They’re making you leave? The government is going after you?”

He shook his head. “Myles is going after me. And he’ll win, too.”

“You’re not going to fight him?”

“There’s nothing to fight. It’s over. Your sister posted it on Instagram.”

“Oh, my God.” I put my hand over my eyes. “Kit.”

“It’s not her fault,” he said. “I kissed you in front of a hundred people in that room. It was hardly a private moment.”

“But it wasn’t your fault! It was the mistletoe!”

Ian shook his head.

“It was a pity kiss!” I went on. “You were just being nice! I’ll testify!”

Now he smiled at me like I was deluded—but in a cute way.

“You weren’t even technically my PT anymore!”

“Doesn’t matter. I worked there. You were a patient.”

It seemed insane. “That’s it? One kiss, and you’re exiled?”

Ian gave a half-smile. “Apparently.”

Ian suddenly seemed very close. Just inches away, really. Having him right here—so near—made the idea of his leaving feel excruciating. “You can’t go,” I said.

He gave a shrug. “I can’t stay. My visa was for a particular job that requires a particular license.”

“What will you do?”

“Go home. To Edinburgh.”

I felt a cramp in my chest.

He went on, “I’ve got four brothers there. Two of them are doctors. One’s already found me an interview at a hospital.”

I tried to keep my voice steady, like we were just chatting. “That’s good.”

But he didn’t answer. He just reached out and took my hand. At the touch, I drew in a shaky breath. Then he let it go.

“The interview’s on Monday,” he said.

I blinked. “This Monday?”

He nodded.

“So that means you’re going—when?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

Panic. I genuinely could not imagine my postcrash life without Ian in it. It was too pathetic to say out loud, but he was just about the only thing in the world that made me anything even close to happy. My whole life was in black-and-white until he walked into the room—and then everything bloomed into color.

Losing Chip? I had barely blinked. Losing Ian right now? I could barely breathe.

“You’re going to be all right, you know. You’re a lot stronger than you think—”

But before he could finish, I did something that shocked the hell out of both of us.

I said, “Marry me.”

His mouth opened, but no words came out.

It was kind of a great idea. “Marry me,” I said again, “and then you can stay.”

“You want me to marry you?”

I nodded.

“For a green card?”

“You want to stay, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

“It’s sunny here, and the people are friendly, and we have tacos. Do they have tacos in Scotland?”

“They do have tacos in Scotland,” he said, “but they’re not the same.”

Why were we talking about tacos?

I went on. “I had this great idea a few weeks ago about opening a summer camp for kids in wheelchairs.” I was thinking fast now. It was all coming together in my head. “Maybe we could do it together—build it and run it, I mean. We could be partners. You could mastermind all the PT stuff and do your thing and get all outside-the-box, and I could do all the fund-raising, and we could create, like, just, a utopia for kids who’ve seen so much pain—with a garden, and a wheelchair racecourse, and a splash park, and movie nights, and popcorn, and juggling classes, and cookie baking, and Pop-A-Shot, and therapeutic horseback. And a choir!”

I was on fire now. I went on, “We could have classes for adults, too, in the winter, and hold retreats, and sponsor art fairs and teach adults crafty things, like how to knit slugs, and help create a source of light and hope and connection for people who really, really need it. I know you kind of lost interest in your other business, but this would be different.”

I had some momentum now. I could see this idea really working.

Plus, and this is not a minor point, I was utterly, breath-stealingly in love with him. It suddenly seemed like I needed to tell him that. Whether I was ready to or not. If he was leaving the country in the morning—if I was truly never going to see him again—how could I let him go without stepping up and speaking the truth?

I’d done a hundred brave things since the crash, but I swear, not one of them was as scary as this.

“Ian,” I said then, my breath swirling cold in my lungs like water. “The thing is, I’m in love with you.”

Ian held very still.

I watched his face for some kind of response. Was this good news to him or bad? Was it something he’d been hoping to hear—or hoping not to hear? Most likely, of course, I was just a sad, shriveled client to him. But those kisses—those heartbreaking kisses of his—had given me a spark of hope I couldn’t ignore. I had no idea how he really felt, but there was no time to guess. He was too good at being unreadable.

Without a response, I just pushed on. “Like crazily, swooningly, heart-burstingly in love. Like the kind of in love I didn’t even know was possible. The kind of in love that makes every other emotion look tiny and dollhouse sized. The kind that feels like sunshine and fills you up with excitement somehow—even when there’s nothing to be excited about. The kind that makes everything better—no matter how bad it is—and even utterly ordinary things like brushing your teeth feel tinged with magic.”

It was hard to know how strongly to state my case. I could also have said, I think about you at night when I can’t sleep. Or, What I felt for Chip never even came close to what I feel for you. Or, You are the best thing in my life.

The longer he didn’t respond, the more I felt like I should push even harder. The more I felt like begging. I came very close to saying, Please, please marry me. It wouldn’t have to be love! I’d take him for less than that. I’d take him for friendship. I take him for anything—just to keep him close.

But I never said any of that, and later, I was glad. As the expression on his face finally came into focus, I stopped. If any part of me had been hoping for a yes, that was the moment when it disappeared.

He was holding his breath. He let it out, and stood, turned away, and shoved a hand into his hair, all at once.

“I didn’t ‘kind of lose interest’ in my business,” he said.