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.

I nodded my head, "Okay." And it was all had I said before Luke spoke up again.

"Not that I don't want to live with you because I still do and it's really disappointing that we can't." He pouted, squeezing my hand once. "Because you know if we could afford to live out here by ourselves without the help of our parents then I definitely wouldn't mind spending another year of you yell at me about leaving my clothes all over the place." He joked, getting a smile to form on both of our faces.

"I just hate that we can legally do it and it should be our decision, but it's just that we're stuck where we were when we were 16; needing our parents approval." I sighed and Luke gave me sheepish smile.

"Money won't be the issue once we graduate." He assured me. "We can find actual jobs instead of ones just that are just enough to get by. AKA, the ones that are perfectly fit for college students like us." He chuckled.

I sighed again, stopping myself from speaking once our waitress showed up with our drinks. We gave our order since it was practically the same every time, and she quickly left as she scribbled away on her notepad.

"So," I spoke. "You think it'll be the best for us if you're the one who moves out?"

Luke let go of my hand and buried his face in his own. "We sound like a couple in our mid-30s splitting up." He muttered, his gentle laugh being heard.

"Is that what we're not doing?" I questioned, raising my eyebrows at him as he picked his head up. "I'm 34, what am I supposed to tell the kids? What about you, why aren't you playing your part in this, huh?" I said, getting an unimpressed look from him.

"Shut up." Luke replied, eyeing me every few seconds.

"Stop looking at me like that," I said before taking a sip from the straw in my cup.

He shook his head at me "I cannot believe I'm dating you sometimes." I raised my eyebrows at what he had said and continued sipping from my straw. After a moment I stopped and replied back.

"That makes two of us."

-

"Now is not the time to ask questions." I whispered over to Luke as our professor started talking about our final that we were about to take. It was our only class together and we somehow managed to get through it.

"But I don't get it." Luke whined, pretending to listen to the older man talking about how this English final was going to go.

"Then why didn't you ask 6 months ago when we were learning this?" I asked, peering over towards him.

"Because I understood it then." He quietly said, not trying to draw attention from the people around us. Most of them were doing the same thing as us; asking last minute questions. Literally.

"Oh, fuck me." I grumbled, running my hands over my face.

"Gladly." Luke instantly replied, as if it was an instinct. I turned to him and saw a smirk on his face as he faced our professor.

I glared at him, "I was going to answer your question, but since you've decided to be a little shit about it, I won't." I said, sticking my nose in the air just to annoy him.

"Autumn." Luke quietly groaned, turning to face me in his seat. I shushed him even though I'm sure our teacher wouldn't hear us since we were those kids who sat in the back of the room.

I rolled my eyes and leaned over to him, giving him the answer to his question about an author he was confused over. We were both pretty nervous for this exam, but eventually the feeling had been replaced with the whole "I don't care" attitude. Which wasn't smart, we just really wanted to be done with this stupid class and get straight into summer.

A short moment later we had jumped right into taking our exam and it wasn't as horrendous as I thought. Luke kept bugging me during it just because that's him being him, but I chose to ignore him because we were told no talking or else our tests get torn in half and we receive a zero. I would not be happy if I failed this class because of Luke and his inability to stay quiet at certain times.

But we had successfully finished our tests without getting booted from the class and having to explain to our parents that we failed a class because we couldn't keep our mouth shut for a few hours. That wouldn't make anyone too happy.

We were able to leave right after we finished, and I was done just a few minutes after Luke. So when I finished we both scurried out of the room along with a few others in our class tagging along.

"Oh my God, I can't stress how happy I am that we never have to go to that class again." Luke said, seconds after closing the classroom door behind us.

"You just glided through that class," I laughed. He was one of those people who, for a given subject, could stay up until 4am doing something really stupid and then take a test at 8am and pass it.

"Just because I'm good at English doesn't mean I enjoy English." He replied, turning around and walking backwards so he could face me.

"I wish I could say that. I don't like English and I'm pretty bad at it if you ask me." I laughed, looking behind him to make sure he wouldn't run into anything.

"You aren't," he said, shrugging his shoulders as he gripped onto the straps of his backpack.

"I am." I told him, raising my eyebrows at him.

"You maintained a B pretty much throughout the whole entire year. That's pretty good." He turned back around and was walking by my side again.

I looked up at him, "Can we switch off the topic of school? It kind of makes me want to throw up," I said. He glanced over at me and threw an arm around my shoulders, pulling me in a little too tightly to him.

"Reasonable." He laughed, letting me go a little. I tripped over my feet a little, mostly because we were walking so close together. "So tomorrow is our last day, what do we do?" He asked, shooting a smile at me and it told me he had something up his sleeve.

"Well, Ashton was telling me about a little get together he wanted to have with all of us." I replied, my shoes scuffing the concrete as I walked.

"But I want to have a little get together with you." Luke told me, which he should've just insisted first instead of being horrible at dropping hints.

"After." I chuckled, grabbing his hand that was still dangling over my shoulder. "We'll have the whole summer together and then a few more years after that to have a little get together with just us." I pulled his arm off from around me and switched my hands so we were now swinging our hands back and forth as we made our way off campus.

"Please?" He asked, as if it was really going to change my mind.

"We can get there late and leave early if you want." I offered, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear from the breeze.

"I don't mind going, really. I'm just clingy," he said, squeezing my hand once.

"I know that." I snickered. "We're just hanging out anyways so there won't be too much chaos." I informed him. He nodded, "I hope." I added.

Ever since Luke had confessed to me about not being necessarily happy with things, which he still couldn't figure out why he felt unhappy, we seemed to have broken down some type of fifth wall that made us even closer. If that was even possible. It sounds cliche and like I'm supposed to save him or something, but that's not the case. He wants to figure things out on his own and said he'll run to me when he fees like he should.

Nothing has changed, except I'm keeping a better eye on him. Just really making sure I buy his favorite cereal and that he always has a clean towel or that he still makes sure to look both ways before crossing the street because he's an 8 year old child in college. He notices it and he's grateful for what I'm doing, he just hasn't said 'Hey Autumn, thanks for being great.' and he should never have to. He shouldn't have to thank me just for making sure he's okay. Which we're still working on.

-

Luke was up again.

It was 4am and God knows that he can't get out of bed without waking me up. I realized that I wasn't actually dreaming when I went to throw an arm over his chest and all I felt was the blankets and empty air around them.

I slowly opened my eyes and was greeted by a sliver of light peaking through my door. I took in a deep breath and let it out as I sat up. I looked around and waited for a minute, wondering if he was just in the bathroom or getting something to eat.

My legs felt heavy as I forced myself out of bed. If it was a normal night I would've just ignored it and let hi be, but something told me I should see where he was. I made my way across my room, hugging my torso to try to keep myself warm. It barely did anything, but it was enough.

I poked my head out into the hallway, looking both ways to get a glimpse of the bathroom door to my left and the kitchen to the right. The lights were off in both and that's when I picked up on the faint sound of music playing from Luke's room. His door was shut and as I looked down to the crack in his door I saw the faintest bit of light shining through.

I stepped out into the dark hall and reached for his doorknob, twisting it once, or at least trying to since his door was locked.

"Luke?" I sleepily called out. I got not response and I rattled his door this time. "Luke?" I repeated, a little louder this time. I let go of the knob and waited a few moments to see if he responded. I knew he was in there from the familiar beat to a Red Hot Chill Peppers song that he played often.

I raised a hand and knocked on his door a few times, still not getting a response. "Luke." I said sternly as my voice raised. An unsettling feeling set into my stomach and it made my nerves kick right in. Instead of bothering to knock on a door I'm sure he wouldn't be opening, I went into my room instead.

I hurried to grab my purse that had my wallet in it and I pulled out my credit card that I rarely ever used. I tossed my wallet aside and left my room and went back to Luke's door. I slid the card through the crack and heard the lock click which meant I could open his door. I swung it open to find him laying on his bed with his back turned to me.

I peered around his room that was now clean and neat, unlike how it usually was. He had a single dim lit lamp on as well as speakers playing out his music. I sighed as I looked back at him. His knees curled into him the slightest bit as his back moved up and down slowly from his peaceful breathing while he slept.

I rubbed my eyes and walked over to him, leaning over to make sure that he was actually sleeping. He was, thankfully, and wasn't doing anything strange like rearranging his room that one time. When I stood back up I wasn't surprised when he suddenly grabbed onto my arm. I knew I more than likely woke him up.

"Autumn?" He mumbled, a single eye opening then shutting so he could get a peak at me. "Why are you up?" He asked, still half asleep.

"I should be asking you that." I sighed. He didn't respond and just tugged on my arm. We'd been through this a few times and it went just about the same every time.

I crawled into his bed with him, careful not to knee him or anything. Usually I would purposely do this, but we were both too exhausted to be messing around. As I laid down on one of the pillows I noticed him watching me carefully.

"What?" I quietly asked. He stayed quiet once again and just wrapped his arms around me, practically engulfing my body with his. His head was buried in the crook of my neck and his lips tickled against my skin as he took in a long breath.

We fell asleep like this, no conversation or explanation exchanged. I didn't want either of them, I just wanted Luke to be content and comfortable and that's what I got. I was quite content and comfortable myself and I knew that this was not a spot I'd ever want to leave.

Thinking back I couldn't imagine how I left myself rest in someone else's arms.

-

A/N:

wooooweeeee

sorry for the wait school is insANE

but wow next chapter is the last chapter yeet !

then the epilogue which i already wrote and will probably make u cry oops

i love u fam and hope u like this!! :~)