a year could be a hell of a long time, nevertheless he had never forgotten her face, her soft lips on his skin and the bittersweet promises they had whispered to each other at that time. and then things had turned out differently than expected, their paths had separated abruptly and finn had almost sought the distance, tried to forget her while being in the middle of new york city. and at some point the messages had stopped, the ones he had never answered and yet had read every night. it had been on such a night, a week ago, when he had finally decided to write to her, the alarm had lightened up and shown that it was two minutes past midnight and it had felt right. but now that their meeting was imminent, finn could hardly deny that he was in doubt and that he was nervous. after all, he barely knew the sound of her voice anymore, he didn’t know what she was doing at the moment, what she was interested in now and, above all, what she thought of him. for days he had imagined the worst scenarios—the pessimist in him couldn’t help it but in the end, he guessed, that it would turn out completely different. it could even be possible that mackenzie didn’t even show up, which he honestly could understand after all that had happened, he wouldn’t be mad, because if at all, then he owed her thousands of apologies. and ironically, they had chosen meeting at the place where everything had started. it was the small bookshop near the train station, many antiquarians were sold here. they had talked a lot, understood each other immediately and he missed her. quite a lot actually. he entered the shop and glanced around, he had arrived way too early – one of his sometimes helpful habits – and accordingly he strolled through the many shelves for a while, stopped in front of one, he pulled out one of the books and flipped it open. there were pages, many words and yet he couldn’t concentrate enough to read even one, all he was thinking about was her and what would be the best way to approach her.