when we collide ✰ l.h.

Chapter 49

I loved Manhattan. Even with the thousands of tourists and lights that are almost always too bright. The sound of the city and the paint on the concrete pathways will never get old, though. It didn't matter who I was with, whether it was a complete stranger or anyone close to me. I was currently walking hand in hand with Luke and I enjoyed every single second of it.

"What about Mexico?" I asked Luke, clinging onto his arm as we weaved through the sea of people rushing by us.

"Well, I say if we're going to do this whole 'traveling the world' thing, we should visit places in our own country first then move out." He suggested, peering down at me. We'd been talking about future plans together, mostly weird things like if we'd ever have ten cats or not.

"That make sense." I sighed, stopping at the crosswalk signal. We were on our way to a small restaurant that we usually went out to on nights that we had free.

"So we can go to Baltimore or Dallas or wherever we want first then just move out." He told me. The sign in front of us had changed telling us we could walk, "Unless you want to switch that then that's okay too." He added as we stepped off the curb.

"How about this," I began, swinging Luke's hand back and forth. "We can go to the Taste of Chicago which is right around your birthday. It's like a giant festival for food. We can start our traveling there." I suggested. We were now coming up to the place where we were eating and Luke stepped in front of me to grab the door.

"Fly or drive?" He asked, pulling the door open as we both stepped inside.

"Do you really want to sit in a car for 12 hours?" I looked up at him as we seated ourselves.

"Do you really want to pay four hundred bucks for a ticket?" He laughed, leading us towards a both in the back that we always went to.

"I'll risk it to go to Chicago for a few days just to eat food." I joked, sliding into the seat in front of him.

He raised his eyebrows at me, "That's a really good point," he said. I silenced my giggles as our waitress had come up to our table and asked what we had wanted to drink. "So," he began. "What are we doing about this whole living situation for next year?" He asked.

My nose crinkled at his question. No matter how clingy it sounded I didn't like the idea of being separated from him. "I don't know." I sighed. "Can we just figure it out, like, not right now?" I questioned. As much as I shouldn't, I just decided to push it aside whenever it was brought up.

"When then? Final exams are in a few days and then we have about two months to figure it out," he said. "I'm sure it's going to take a while to figure out what we want to do and jump on it." Luke added.

"I don't even know where to start," I quietly said, tapping my fingers on the table. He laid a hand on mine, picking it up and putting his palm against mine as our elbows rested on the table.

"I'll help you." He began playing with my fingers as he looked around the restaurant. "One of us is going to keep the apartment we have now." He told me and I nodded my head. "Which I figured would be you." Luke added.

"There's no problem with you staying there." I told him, slightly shaking my head at him.

"It was yours in the first place and it would be easy for me to go get a cheaper one since I'll be paying more than I have been for what we have now." He backed himself up with this which made me think that he probably had a good idea in his head what he was going to do already.

"But my parents said that they'll pay for-"

"I know they said they can help, but I think we're both at a spot where we should start figuring things out on our own. Like, yeah, it's really nice to know that your parents like me enough to give me some help if I need it. It's just that I want to more independent." He explained, his fingers still wrapping around mine.