Quentin Jacobsen had done his best to move on and live life. He had told himself that Margot Roth Speigelman had just been a girl, troubled and trying to find herself and that he should do the same. He had thrown himself into college life, attempting to reclaim just an ounce of that heart pumping feeling he had experienced on the night he and Margot took over their town. That feeling she had told him proved he was having fun.

He had resolved in heart and mind that he would never again see Margot in person. And after she started appearing on magazine covers, and billboards, cinema screens and his own television, he knew for sure that he had lost her for good and that the time they had spent together was an amazing dream.

He had to wake up.

And then she walked onto his college campus…

...

"Bring your own lampshades, somewhere there's a party. Here it's never ending, can't remember when it started..."

'This song reminds me of you.'

'It does? Why?'

'I'm not too sure why. I think it might have been playing the first time I saw you.' Except he doesn't think; Quentin knows without a doubt in his mind that this song was playing the second he laid eyes on the girl standing opposite him. She looks the same as she had been in Agloe. She's wearing cut off denims and black converse shoes, a black and white striped shirt and a dark leather jacket. Time had lay its hands on everything except for Margot Roth Speigelman. It was completely unfair and yet it made perfect sense to him. He was glad that fame hadn't seemed to change her, at least not in any visible way.

He wanders around the bookstore and walks through some of the shelves, always careful to leave a fair bit of distance between them for fear he might scare her away. When she had walked in two minutes ago, casually like she'd been here all along, he almost lost it. Thankfully the bookstore on campus wasn't pumping with students at that moment. There would have been an uncontrollable mob of screaming fans if any of the students realized Margot Roth Speigelman had just stepped onto campus. He wonders for a moment how she managed to slip past without anybody recognizing her before remembering she was the greatest ninja he had ever met. At first he hadn't shifted, thinking he had finally lost his mind and slipped into hallucinating about her. But when she stood in the entryway, smiling at him slyly, he finally pulled himself together.

'You look different,' she says simply. He had missed her voice.

Quentin laughs, 'Two years of college will do that to you.'

'Which is why my way is so much better.' She spins a postcard holder around lazily with a flick of her finger and watches them whirl around and around. He could watch her forever. 'How have you been, Quentin?' she asks without breaking her gaze from the postcards.

'I've been happy,' he answers straight away. 'And I've been sad, and I've been angry and alone and cheerful, and bitter. I mean, it's been two years, Margot, I've felt a lot of things in two years.' His words come out harsher then he had intended them to. He couldn't blame her for her absence considering he was the one who had walked away from her. Once upon a time she had asked him to come with her. Leaving had been the right decision for him at the time. They were both young, and like Margot had been right. Neither knew who they were back then. Quentin certainly felt like a different person to that guy in Agloe who had chased vainly after the idea of the girl in front of him.

He doesn't let himself wonder what his life would be like if he had taken up her offer. He doubted manning the bookstore cash till at his college would have factored into that future.

Of course, Margot was far too awesome to bring that up. Either that, or she didn't care about dwelling in the past. Quentin didn't want to think about that. But he can tell that she is a little surprised at his reaction. For the briefest moment her eyes darken and she frowns, the look of someone seeing a side of another person they hadn't been expecting.

He doesn't want that look on her and quickly asks, 'What about you? Are you happy?'

The mood lightens, her frown disappears and she gives him a knowing smile. 'I've been happy.' She offers no more explanation and instead closes the distance that had been dancing between them with three long strides. After a split second hesitation, she throws her arms around him and pulls him into an overwhelming hug. Her hair hits his face, bringing along with it her smell and the soft texture of her cheek on his, and instinctually he wraps her small frame tight against him and buries his head into the crook where her neck met her collarbone.

'I've missed you, Margot.' He says it quietly. He doesn't care if she responds or not. It was the truth and sometimes the truth just needs to be said. He wonders for a small moment why she was here at his college, what was going to happen next and most importantly, whether his fragile heart could take another split from the girl in his arms. All the work he had put into moving past her had shattered into a million tiny pieces.

'Are you happy now?' Margot pulls back and looks up at him beneath those long dark lashes. She is wearing make up around her eyes, not a lot, but he notices it. He reaches up and shifts her hair from her face.

'I'm a paper boy with a paper girl, right?'

She laughs and slips her hand into his. 'Come on ninja, I want to show you something.'

He lets himself be dragged along because when Margot Roth Speigelman wanted to take you somewhere, only a fool would turn her down. A few students looked on. He had been a relatively quiet guy, went to class and studied. Even at parties he had been pretty reserved. Watching Quentin get dragged through campus by a drop dead gorgeous girl made his fellow students, especially the guys, curious. Thankfully his anonymity, and the fact that Margot had pulled the long dark hood of her jacket over her face, kept people from noticing that he was getting dragged along by a movie star.

Margot led him to a 1968 Pontiac GTO parked casually in the campus loading bay. The number plate was simply 'mRs'.

'I see your capitalization hasn't changed.' He got into the passenger seat, while she slipped through her driver window without opening the door, and started the car up. Music started playing as soon as the engine fired up, and Quentin recognized the song as 'Wait' by M83. It was a perfect song for a perfect moment, and he reached forward and turned the volume up. He watched the passing landscape and cars as they drove, while stealing brief glimpses at the girl by his side. Why, after so many years, with no correspondence between them at all, did it feel so normal to be by her side, together once more? There was something special between them, a link born right from the moment they had found Robert Joyner in the park as kids. Where he had taken a step back and she had taken a step forward.

He was in love with her, in spite of the years passed and the fact they were both still growing and changing. In his head, she played out like the worlds most beautiful melody, over and over again. She built and grew louder until she exploded into brilliant white-hot stars, filling his vision. All he could see was Margot. And driving with her now became a moment experienced so few times in a person's life, one that transcended time and space, where the stars aligned and everything was perfect for that one minute. It had only happened with Quentin once before and it had been with Margot.

'Here it is.'

She turned her Pontiac off road and rolled to a stop right on the edge of a massive lake, parking beneath a huge willow tree. He had visited this lake before a hundred times while he had been at college but he had never seen it from this angle before. Alone, isolated from everyone and everything, Margot had made new something that was old and tired. He opened the door and walked to the edge of the lake, looking out across the water. He heard her walk up and stand at his side, one hand shielding the brilliant sun from her equally brilliant eyes. Her hair blew and danced in the wind and she had the smallest smile playing on her lips, like even though she didn't know what they were doing, she was excited.

'This place is prettier up close.'

He raises an eyebrow at her. 'You said everything gets uglier up close.'

'I was 16,' she turns to him. 'I had no idea what I was talking about.'

'Well, I was 16 and 6 months and I knew exactly what I was talking about.' Quentin reaches out and takes her hand. He spins her gently, and holds her like they are at a school dance. She follows his lead, moving from side to side slowly. 'You are prettier up close, M.'

'Mmm'

They dance in silence for a moment, the grass bed their floor and the trees their audience, before the music in their heads fade and they are left standing in relative silence, their faces close and hands clasped within each other. Quentin is breathing like he has run a marathon, and his heart is pumping double time. He was definitely alive at this moment. Alive and wondering what he had said or done that had led him from the bedroom in his dorm room this morning to this place right here. It didn't matter that they were from different worlds and they hadn't seen or spoken in two years, that he was a college student and she was a movie star. Margot may not be a myth but she would always be special to him. 'You're still pretty something.'

Prompted by his words and with nothing between them, Margot closes the gap and kisses him. It's not like the first kiss they had shared. Her right hand grasps his cheek and the other holds the back of his head and pulls him closer still. This was a kiss of abandon and want and Quentin lets himself get lost for a moment because he had dreamt about this for so long and he feels he deserves to enjoy it.

When the kiss ends and they finally break apart, neither really separate too far. He keeps his forehead pressed to hers and looks down at their feet. He hears her breathing, ragged and short, and her voice comes out sounding much the same. 'Come with me Quentin.'

He laughs helplessly. God must have a sense of humor if He thinks Quentin had the strength in him to deny this girl twice in his life.

Except he has to. Yes, he loved her and that would probably be something he would have to accept and live with for the rest of his life. But Margot lived life at a million hours an hour and Quentin lived it like a child taking their first wobbly steps. He couldn't keep up and he didn't have it in him to hold her back from the extraordinary life she deserved. Seeing what she had accomplished in two short years as a high school runaway gave people a small idea of what she was capable of.

'I have got class.' He starts off sounding like a broken record. 'And a life here. And I know to you it is probably boring and mediocre but it is literally all I can handle right now. And you did just kind of appear out of nowhere.'

'And I don't have 'Stable, Secure, Future' stapled to my forehead,' Margot says sarcastically, taking a step back. He keeps her hand in his though since he is afraid to let go just yet. Her next words literally stop his heart.

'You know I love you, right?'

There, said so matter-of-fact, as if his whole world didn't just turn on its axis with those simple five words. He wants to yell and scream and shake her and say of course he didn't know that, how could he possibly have known that considering how they had left things. Instead, with the raging emotions going on within him, the best he can manage is silence and to her credit, Margot didn't seem fazed in the slightest.

'I love you Q. It took me 16 years and too many paper towns to count, because I had been searching for something that had been there all along.' She pulls her hand free from his and walks to the lake edge. 'You know, I read books and watched movies and I took every opportunity thrown my way." She looks up at him. Her hair blows over her face in the light wind. "My life is a series of decisions made in an attempt to find the version of myself that I love and that I can live with and that version is the one I am when I'm with you. You're my anchor, Quentin. You keep me grounded. Without you I'm just blown around by the wind and the tide and the crowd. I am strings tied to nothing.'

Quentin looks at her for a long moment. This was all too much and it was definitely too soon. He felt like he was going to explode and he couldn't tell if it was out of happiness or terror. If he sent her away now, she may never come back. But more importantly, 'How do I know you aren't going to change your mind tomorrow?' He asks her, taking a step back. 'Or later today?' She tilts her head to the side curiously at his words, but he keeps talking regardless, 'How can I be sure that you're not going to get into this car and drive away without a second glance, because you're Margot Roth Speigelman and you are too amazing a person to live a less-than-extraordinary life?'

'I still want to live a more-than-ordinary life, Quentin, I just want to live it with you.' She looks so beautiful that he has trouble listening to her actual words. She belongs on the cover of magazines, on plasma screens, on a red carpet laid out only for her, with thousands of admiring fans screaming adoration. She was a miracle. And she was right here in front of him saying she wanted him. This had to be a dream. He had dreamt it often.

'I want to live an ordinary life though. I want a house and a wife and a kid and a dog.' He says, though his resolve is clearly starting to falter.

'And a white picket fence with the soccer mom SUV parked in the garage,' she cuts in with a grin.

'Our fence doesn't have to be white.'

'I don't want a fence.'

'I want a fence.'

'You are 18 years old Q. There is plenty of time for fences in your life.' She holds out her arms and spins once. 'That's all that life is. Fences that keep us in. I jump them and I want you to jump them with me.' She steps forward and takes his hand in hers, bringing it to rest on her cheek. 'We can be ninjas for years before you have to settle down. I want to travel the world and go on adventures every single day, and have sex on the hood of our car in the middle of night under the stars.'

Quentin almost choked at the thought.

'I want to live this life, but I want you there with me. And I can't promise you that down the line I will want to same things as you. But why do you have to live life with every step planned out and every decision made.' She held up two fingers, measuring out. 'All I'm asking for is one more step out of your comfort zone. One more day with me. And if it's not the most amazing time of your life, and I'm still not what you want in this life, then I will leave.'

Quentin laughs since he knows as well as her that whatever they do will be the greatest thing he's ever done, and that she has been the only certain thing in his life. He feels his resolve cracking and she knows she's playing the winning hand now.

She puts one hand to his cheek and tilts his head to hers. 'One day Q?'

'Alright. One day.'

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