It Starts with Us by Colleen Hoover

years being a teenager and then it will all fall back into place when the
timing is right.
“I’m going to make a promise to you,” he said. “When my life is
good enough for you to be a part of it, I’ll come find you. But I don’t
want you to wait around for me, because that might never happen.”
I didn’t like that promise, because it meant one of two things. Either
he thought he might never make it out of the military alive, or he didn’t
think his life would ever be good enough for me.
His life was already good enough for me, but I nodded my head and
forced a smile. “If you don’t come back for me, I’ll come for you. And
it won’t be pretty, Atlas Corrigan.”
He laughed at my threat. “Well, it won’t be too hard to find me. You
know exactly where I’ll be.”
I smiled. “Where everything is better.”
He smiled back. “In Boston.”
And then he kissed me.
Ellen, I know you’re an adult and know all about what comes next,
but I still don’t feel comfortable telling you what happened over those
next couple of hours. Let’s just say we both kissed a lot. We both
laughed a lot. We both loved a lot. We both breathed a lot. A lot. And
we both had to cover our mouths and be as quiet and still as we could
so we wouldn’t get caught.
When we were finished, he held me against him, skin to skin, hand to
heart. He kissed me and looked straight in my eyes.
“I love you, Lily. Everything you are. I love you.”
I know those words get thrown around a lot, especially by teenagers.
A lot of times prematurely and without much merit. But when he said
them to me, I knew he wasn’t saying it like he was in love with me. It
wasn’t that kind of “I love you.”
Imagine all the people you meet in your life. There are so many.
They come in like waves, trickling in and out with the tide. Some waves
are much bigger and make more of an impact than others. Sometimes
the waves bring with them things from deep in the bottom of the sea
and they leave those things tossed onto the shore. Imprints against the
grains of sand that prove the waves had once been there, long after the
tide recedes.