he cancels his Uber to talk to a pretty girl a little longer (“best $5 I’ve ever spent”) she draws him a map of Boston, dotted with all her favorite haunts, because she learns he’s new to the city she convinces him to take a Friday afternoon off to drive up to New Hampshire for a hike and make it back to Boston in time to catch the sunset on the Charles (“I think this is when we knew we had something” “me too”) he allows her dog in his car, muddy paws and all, even though there used to be a strict “no eating” policy she looks down at her “on repeat” playlist to realize half of it is filled with his favorite songs he picks her up from the train station at midnight, with a Tupperware of homemade chicken parm he takes her dog for a walk and sends her detailed updates and photos while she’s at a wedding without him she learns the words to the songs he’s learning to play; he learns the tabs to the songs she wants to sing he lets her drive his car back home from a ski trip in stop-and-go traffic and a snow squall (“you have to tell them that you stalled, though” “I stalled ONCE”) she takes him to a latviešu tautas dejās, and they stumble through the steps together he stays up late to help her finish a presentation for the interview she has the next day he writes her a google sheets macro, so she “stops wasting so much time manually categorizing every single credit card transaction…because she refuses to buy a license for microsoft excel” “her dog” turns into “their dog” by way of a hand drawn adoption certificate he picks her up five miles from home when her “long run day” didn’t go quite as expected she’s the breadwinnner and source of encouragement during his layoff (they trade places two weeks later) he encourages her to pick the job that gives more joy than money because “baby, we’re rich in love” they hold hands at weddings and funerals, hospital lobbies and waiting rooms she learns to care less about the things that don’t matter, and he more about the things that do he asks her to spend the rest of their lives together, in a quiet wood surrounded only by snow, and she has no other answer than “yes” they built a life filled with not just “good morning”, “i love you”, “did Lem eat yet”, turned to “she would have loved this”, but also...

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