I woke up just once in the night, certain it all been a dream. I rolled over, a gasp in my throat, and Adam's thick, hot forearm whacked me on the side of the head. His shallow breathing, slightly sour breath—we had both forgotten to brush our teeth—and feet that were dangling off the end of my too-short bed were all real.

He was mine again. I could finally sleep.

I put his arm around me for a blanket, causing him to snuggle in closer, and dreamed of wires in my brain, reconfiguring themselves like electrical circuits, but this time zipping with a newfound energy, making the machine complete.

*

"And this is Mahmud," Adam said, propped up in bed with me the next morning while I cradled a mug of hot coffee and rested my head on his shoulder. He was showing me pictures on his phone, hundreds of them, apparently, of his time abroad. "He's crazy. You'd love him."

I smiled, seeing the joy on his face as he relived his worldly travels.

"The guy used to crack me up, seriously." He flipped to the next picture. "Um, this is Jason. He's Australian. He was pretty cool too. Oh, this is a temple in Laos. They do offerings here on this plate, and monks serve you tea. It's so beautiful there. I'll show you someday."

I was only half looking at the pictures, to be honest, and half looking at him. He had a youthful energy about him again, one that he had lost when I first met him. There were flecks of gold in his hair and a small tattoo of a bird behind his left shoulder that hadn't been there before.

"What?" he said playfully when he noticed me staring.

"Your hair is long."

He smiled, rubbing his head. "I just haven't cut it yet."

"Leave it. I like it."

"And this is where the Vietcong used to torture deserters," he continued, flipping through the next couple photos very quickly.

"Are you really gonna take me there?"

"Of course."

Most of the pictures were of him and the two guy friends he had mentioned. Lots of shots of them in exotic eateries, always with one of them about to plop something that looked like it might still be alive into his mouth, while the others laughed. But they weren't the only ones in the photos.

"And who's that?" I asked, my finger landing on the one recurring person that he hadn't identified.

He chuckled silently, shaking his head as though I had posed an impossible question.

"What?"

"I knew you would zero in on the one pretty girl in the pictures."

I swallowed, trying to keep any impending jealousy at bay. "Well?"

He sighed. "Her name's May. We went out for a few weeks. It wasn't serious. It's over now. That's all you need to know."

I nodded, trying to pass my face off as cool. "Okay."

He smiled at me, knowing my tone too well to believe me. He dropped the phone on his lap and reached over me for his cup of overly sweetened coffee. Then he gave me a look that challenged me to keep talking, the glint in his eye telling me he knew I wasn't done.

"Okay, it's fine," I insisted. "Listen, I didn't think you were living in a monastery. It's fine. Was she nice?"

"She was okay."

"Cool."

I realized that I actually was fine with the fact that he had dated other people, and even with the fact that he had inevitably slept with those people. Well, maybe not "fine," per se, but I had come to terms with it long ago. Adam wasn't the celibate type. There was one detail eating away at me, though.

"Did you—never mind."

"You can ask me."

"Did you like her?"

"I guess."

"I mean really like her?"

He brushed my hair away from my eyes, planting a soft kiss on my head. "No."

"Did you... lie in bed like this? Talking and stuff?"

"No, not like this." But something in my face must have let him know that I was going to need more details. He smiled sheepishly. "I mean, maybe for a minute. Just to not be rude."

"Right."

"It wasn't the same as this," he insisted.

"Why not?"

"Because I love you."

I was surprised how quickly the tears flooded into my eyes when he said it out loud like that. I had told him I loved him the night before, but somehow I didn't expect him to say it back. Maybe because I had never gotten to say it to Kieren, or even to Brady. Thanks to my time in the Yesterday door, I had missed so many milestones with both of them—so many first kisses, first "I love you"s.

Could Adam and I be different? Could we actually build something together this time?

"Hey," he said gently, wiping away my tears and waiting for me to look him in the eye. "I'm never gonna lie to you, Marina."

I nodded.

"Never. I mean that."

"Good."

"Can you promise me the same?" he asked. I realized he had taken my coffee out of my hand while I was crying, and now he placed them both back on the table. He lingered over me while I answered.

"Yes," I said, "I promise."

We kissed for a little while longer, our lips tasting like coffee. Then he gestured to his phone. "I wish you'd been there with me."

"I wish I had too," I confessed. The pictures were so beautiful and vibrant, and my heart ached to know how much of his life I had already missed.

"I thought about you a lot," he said. "Every day. I googled pictures of the MIT campus so I could imagine you walking around it."

"You know, they have this thing called social media."

"I'd rather be tortured by the Vietcong."

"Since we're being honest," I said, readjusting myself a little and wiping away the last of the tears. "Can I ask you an honest question?"

He sat up a little straighter before I continued.

"Have you been... through any of the doors... since I saw you?" I was nervous suddenly. But he answered quickly, with no hesitation.

"No. I promised you I wouldn't."

I nodded.

"Have you?"

"No. How could I? I've been at school the whole time." But I cleared my throat before continuing. "I should tell you, though, that I went by East Township when I was home for Christmas."

"Okay."

I took a deep breath. "What do you know about Principal Farghasian?"

He sighed. "What did she do now?"

*

Adam didn't seem fazed by my description of Principal Farghasian's cryptic warning to me in the hallway of our old high school, or by the fact that Brady had mentioned her on the phone just before disappearing. Although I realized as I was telling him all this that he might just not have wanted to discuss Brady at all.

But it was her mysterious connection to my aunt Amalia that I really couldn't make sense of. Amalia had insisted that she barely even knew Farghasian, but her yearbook told another story. Why would she lie?

As for Adam, all he knew about Farghasian was that she was always snooping around the boiler room when he was a student. But as far as he knew, she just thought it was the make-out room, and that's why she had been so determined to close it up. If she had been clued in to what was really happening down there, she had kept it pretty well hidden.

We were in the kitchen munching on some toast in last night's T-shirts when I told him I had to get ready to go.

"I thought we could spend the day together," he said.

I smiled, wanting nothing more in the world. But it wasn't up to me. "There's a post-wedding brunch," I said, my nose squishing a bit at the strangely posh-sounding word. "My dad and stepmom are leaving tonight, so I can't skip it or I wouldn't get to see them."

He nodded, a strangely sad look crossing his face.

"I'll be back right after. Are you..." I didn't quite know how to ask this. "Are you staying... in Boston?"

Instead of answering, he pulled me onto his lap and started tickling my sides.

"Don't!" I squealed. "Stop it. I'm being serious now." But I couldn't help how much I loved feeling his hands on me, how I kept blushing and laughing even after he stopped.

He rested his hands on my thighs. "Did you think I just came for the night?"

"I don't know your plans."

"Marina," he chided, "I'm not leaving you again." He waited a moment for this news to hit me, obviously sensing my relief. "I've been earning points towards a masters online, but it's time for the student teaching hours. I'll do them here. I was going to look for an apartment later. You could come with me."

I nodded, suddenly flooded with warmth. "I gotta get in the shower," I said, climbing off his lap and heading out of the kitchen. But he stood before I could leave.

"Hey."

"Yeah?"

"Can I come to the brunch with you?"

My face must have revealed the explosion of neurons happening in my brain. The idea struck me as ridiculous, impossible. "What?"

"I'd like to meet your dad and your brother."

"Piper will be there," I stammered. "She might remember you. And..."

But he walked toward me before I could finish the thought. He took my hand once he reached me. "There's going to be some awkward parts to this, Marina. It's just the way it is. They'll be easier if we do them together."

"They'll ask how we met."

"And we'll tell them the truth—we met back home, we reconnected here."

I could only swallow down the million other questions that flooded my thoughts. What was he thinking? My family would never let it lie that easily. Considering what Kieren had told me about Adam's high-school persona, Piper alone would probably murder him once she saw him at her wedding brunch.

But all my fears were allayed, temporarily anyway, when he pulled me into his strong chest and wrapped me up in the warm muscle shield of his arms.

"Come on," he whispered into my ear, "let's go get in the shower."

And without stopping to see how his words affected me, he grabbed my hand and led me back upstairs.

****

Yeah, I know what you're thinking. The Down World books are all PG, especially now that DW is being published. But suffice it to say that in an alternate dimension, there's a version of this chapter that doesn't skip the shower scene. ;)