Page 3 of Lease to Love

Spelman. Georgia. Fall.

Leaving.

My eyes dropped to the sidewalk. The cracks suddenly became fascinating. Autumn noticed immediately, because of course she did. She bumped her shoulder against mine.

“Hey.”

I didn't answer.

“Sunny.”

I sighed. “You don't have to keep reminding me you're leaving.”

The words came out smaller than I intended. Autumn's expression softened even more.

“I'll be home every break.”

“Mmhm.”

“We'll FaceTime every day.”

“Mmhm.”

“You won't even notice I'm gone.”

I stopped walking. “But you will be gone.”

The admission felt childish, but I didn't care. “You'll be ten hours away. You'll be neck-deep in classes and internships and making friends who are just as smart as you are. You're gonna forget all about me.”

Autumn stopped too, then she grabbed my face with both hands and forced me to look at her.

“First of all,” she said firmly, “friends? Ew.” I laughed, so she kept going, “I hate people. You know that.

My laugh turned into a full snort.

“My only friends are you and my laptop, and I'm planning on keeping it that way.”

That one was true. Autumn was brilliant. Valedictorian. Student body president. Multiple scholarships.

She was also painfully shy.

Meanwhile, I would've started a conversation with a brick wall if it looked lonely.

“Second,” she continued, giving me a look, “Spelman may be my dream school, but my life's dream is here. With you. In that notebook you're always carrying around.”

The words landed somewhere deep, and my hand drifted toward my bag. Toward the spiral notebook tucked safely inside.

The notebook. The dream.

Pages full of fabric swatches and sketches and floorplans and ideas. My handwriting covered every inch of every page in pencil. Autumn's notes filled the margins in neat red ink—budgets, “someday” suppliers, timelines, business plans.

Vision and blueprint. Dreams and directions. Me and Autumn.

“Two Seasons Fashions,” I said with a smile.

A matching smile appeared on her face. “Exactly,” she squeezed my arm. “Four years. That's it. Four years of me learning how to find investors and suppliers and funding and all the boring business stuff… Then we open up shop together.”

I wanted to believe her.