Cora was fairly certain her blood pressure was about to spike as she left her apartment to go meet up with Simon.

Convincing him to come into town just a couple of weeks before Thanksgiving without making it sound like she needed to see him because something was wrong was a bit tricky. She ended up telling him that she really wanted to see an exhibition at the Met that was due to close soon and she thought he'd enjoy it more than her other friends would. It was only a partial lie—she did want to see the show, but Rasmus or Sie or even Anais would have been happy to go with her.

On the bright side, it would be nice to see him one more time before the chaos of the holidays ensued. She didn't always get to hang out with him all that much at Thanksgiving or Christmas since she was also trying to spend time with her parents, and this year, their performance schedule would only allow her to go home for forty-eight hours at most.

She knew that it might be an atrocious idea to wait until the very end of the day to spring the news about Rasmus on him, but Cora selfishly didn't want anything getting in the way of them enjoying their afternoon together. If she put him in a foul mood right at the beginning, the entire day was going to be miserable.

It was with this in mind that she plastered a smile onto her face as she exited the 86th Street subway station. It was another few blocks to the museum, but it was a pleasantly warm and sunny day for early November, so she didn't mind the short walk. She always enjoyed seeing corners of the city that were outside of her regular radius of orbit—you never ran out of things to explore in New York City.

Simon had somehow beat her to the Met and she could see him waiting for her on the front steps as she approached. His fair hair was rumpled in the breeze, his eyes squinting against the sun. Cora really couldn't tell if he was looking for her in the crowd or simply trying not to go blind.

She jogged over to meet him—knowing that they were going to be wandering around the museum for hours, she'd worn walking shoes—and smiled when he noticed her. "Long time, no see."

It was something they used to say as a joke when they'd meet up after school after not seeing each other since before first period. Now, of course, it was actually true, at least in a relative sense. Still, Cora knew plenty of friends who got to see one another a lot less often than she and Simon did, and she was grateful that they were never drifting too far apart.

Hopefully, that wasn't about to change.

"You ready?" he asked.

Her heart stuttered. "Why wouldn't I be?"

It sounded a little too defensive; Cora tried not to cringe at herself.

He paused, as if confused by her reply. "I just meant you have the tickets, right?"

"Oh," she said blandly. "Of course, they're right here..."

She quickly rummaged through her purse for her phone—how had it disappeared into the void so quickly?—and fished it out, opening the app where their tickets were waiting for them. They walked the rest of the way up the front steps side-by-side, Cora shoving her free hand into her jacket pocket to stop herself from nervously fidgeting with anything.

Simon surely noticed that something was up with her. He knew her like the back of his own hand, but at least for the immediate moment, he was being polite enough not to ask if anything was bothering her. But their knowledge of one another went both ways, and she knew Simon like the back of her own hand.

So it wasn't lost on her that something seemed to be up with him, too.

He was subtly shifting his weight from foot to foot, something he didn't regularly do unless he was feeling restless, as they moved forward in the line to have their tickets scanned. Maybe he'd just had too much coffee on the drive into town this morning; maybe he was just reflecting the energy that she was giving to him.

Or maybe he had a secret, too.

Cora lightly shook her head. Don't be ridiculous. Simon had never been great at holding onto secrets unless they pertained to someone other than himself.

He glanced over at her as they stepped into the museum. "What?"

"What?"

"You were shaking your head just now."

"I was just thinking about something stupid, sorry." Then, before he could ask what said stupid thing was, she added, "My brain isn't working well enough to look at art yet—wanna grab a coffee in the café first?"

The last thing Cora needed was extra caffeine and she'd already had a cup of coffee this morning, but since her job kept her out so late at night it was a believable enough lie that she hadn't been awake for nearly as long yet today as she actually had. And now she was committed to the lie, so the two of them went to the café and ordered lattes, and she had no clue if either of them actually wanted to be drinking them.

She hated this feeling. She was supposed to know Simon as well as she knew herself and today she didn't. She needed to hurry up and spit the truth out so that they could go back to understanding each other. Even if they got into a fight about it, at least they wouldn't have to be stuck in this purgatory of wondering what was going through the other person's head.

The exhibition she wanted to see was about the Impressionists, so they headed there first after finishing the last frothy dregs of their coffees. Cora knew that a lot of people found Impressionist artists to be overrated, but she loved the way they weren't afraid to use color, the way they managed to convey so much emotion with such vague brushstrokes. She enjoyed looking at blurry figures in the backgrounds of paintings and imagining who they were or trying to envision what mood the artist was in while they were painting. Simon hated that she rarely read any of the placards about the artist lest she ruin her own imagination. Some of their greatest differences were brought out in museums—he loved to have as much information as possible; she loved to come up with the stories herself. They were quite the pair, the actress and the architect.

Simon knew by now that she'd plug her ears if he started talking about what he'd read about the artist, so instead, he'd talk to her about the composition, the formal aspects he appreciated. He had an eye for design, could tell her right away if the reason a painting was compelling was because the elements interacted with one another in an interesting way. Cora was embarrassingly blind to such things, but Simon never would have noticed the way a man in the distance was painted with a slight hunch to his shoulders, or that the woman in the forefront's eyes were melancholy even though she was smiling.

She liked stepping back and watching him watch the art. With his calm silence and his fair, unassuming, unobtrusive appearance, it almost felt like he would blend straight into the art itself if he stood there long enough. When he really loved a painting, he wouldn't start chattering on about it. He'd just take a few steps back and admire it in quietude, letting it do its thing without his opinions interjected.

It was an excellent quality to have, knowing when to speak and when to shut up.

Cora ended up being really glad that she caught the exhibit, as it ended up being her favorite thing she saw in the museum all day. It wasn't that she didn't love anything else, of course, but the more something was up to interpretation, the more appeal it usually had to her. Simon preferred sculptures to paintings, which she couldn't blame him for one bit. As someone who designed buildings for a living, it was obvious why he'd be drawn to three-dimensional objects.

The sky was already turning orange by the time they emerged, so they decided to grab sandwiches from the nearest to-go place they knew of and eat them in the park. Simon had suggested it just as a way for them to find dinner without it taking an hour or more, but Cora was relieved that now she could tell him about Rasmus in the semi-privacy of a picnic. They got their sandwiches—ham for her, turkey for him—and then meandered into the park, sitting on the first bench they found that wasn't directly adjacent to a crowd of people.

He waited until she was on the last bite of her sub to look over at her and carefully say, "I can tell that something's been bothering you today, Corrie. What's up?"

The food she'd just eaten suddenly felt like a rock in her stomach, but in the back of her mind, she knew it was for the best that she was cornered now. How much longer would it have taken her to find the courage to bring it up herself?

"There was something I wanted to talk about, yeah," she confessed, not quite meeting his eye.

"I thought there might be. Since you invited me here and all."

So he'd been able to see right through her this whole time. She shouldn't have been surprised. "I've been putting it off because it's going to make you hate me."

Simon laughed a light laugh, but as he did, she watched his eyebrows start to scrunch with confusion. "What? C'mon, nothing's going to make me hate you. We already survived the whole dating and breaking up thing, remember?"

"Yeah, about dating..." Might as well rip off the Band-Aid. Here goes nothing. She took a breath, and then as calmly as possible stated, "I'm, um, dating Rasmus."

To her complete horror, he chuckled again. He thought she was joking. "Seriously, what's this really about?"

"This is serious, Simon," she said, not harshly, but firmly enough to get him to wipe the smile off his lips. "I'm being dead serious."

There it was, the real reaction she had been waiting for. The widening of the eyes, the slight motion of his Adam's apple as he swallowed a silent gulp of air. His lips opened, then closed, then opened again. "What?"

"I know I sound fucking insane. I know it is fucking insane. But it's true."

"You hate him."

"I did hate him," she softly corrected him. "But then I actually took the time to get to know him."

He went quiet again as he looked at her, as he took her expression in and processed that all of these words were truly coming out of her mouth with sincerity.

"How long...?"

That was the part that made her want to put her face in her hands, that made her feel ashamed, that made her feel like a terrible friend.

"A few...months," she mumbled.

"A few months? And you didn't tell me?"

He looked mildly hurt, as he deserved to. Just because they were grown up didn't mean it had gotten all that much easier to accept that they didn't immediately tell each other everything anymore.

"Look, I feel like shit for hiding it from you, but I didn't know how to say it," she explained, almost tripping over her words like she was running out of time to say them. "I knew you were gonna think I'm crazy and feel hurt and then it just got worse the longer I waited–"

"I don't think you're crazy," he stopped her. "And I...well, I honestly don't get it yet, but you were obviously prepared for that much, and...What I'm saying is, I get why you'd be scared to tell me."

Cora nodded, her fingers toying with the paper wrapping that her sandwich had come in. She set it aside, realizing that she'd been making an obnoxious crinkling noise with it without realizing it. "If you need to be mad at me for a little while, I get it."

"What good what that do?" Simon questioned, shaking his head lightly. "And that would be hypocritical of me."

She opened her mouth to reply, but then after a prolonged moment of silence realized that she was officially lost. "...Hypocritical?"

When he gave her a sheepish smile, she suddenly remembered the strange sense she'd had back in the museum that he was nervous, too. And now he finally came clean about it. "It's possible that I've been talking to someone for a little while now, too."

Oh. She grinned, suddenly feeling like she had back in middle school when he told her about his first crush. "Why didn't you say something? It's not like that's the same thing as me and Ras–"

"It's Nat."

Cora just about choked on thin air, a small squeaky noise releasing itself from the back of her throat. Her first thought was exactly what Simon's had probably been when she said she was with Rasmus, which was that makes absolutely no sense at all.

Didn't it make sense, though? Nat's head was so high up in the clouds sometimes that she needed someone to pull her back down to Earth. Someone calming, someone who could ground her in those moments when she wanted to experience anything and everything all at once. And didn't she deserve the nicest guy in the world, someone who would love her just the same when she took risks and they failed? Cora knew from experience that Simon was all of those things. And he needed someone who was willing to take those big risks with him so that he wasn't so afraid of change.

"What? When? How?" Cora spluttered.

A splash of pink had risen to his cheeks, but the smile tugging at his lips gave away that he was at least a little bit pleased to be the one throwing her off guard for once instead of the other way around. "Remember when she came to see your show back in the summer? Well, she obviously wasn't gonna come this far and not go to Rothbury to give her parents a quick visit, too. I happened to run into her in the coffee shop on her way out of town—remember that coffee chain Spill the Beans?—and we kinda just hit it off, you know? Then she needed to catch her flight, so I offered to give her a ride to the airport. She scribbled her number on the back of my hand before she hopped out of the car."

That sounded exactly like something Nat would do. And it was obvious from the way Simon spoke that once they'd started talking, they hadn't stopped for a day since then.

"So...are you guys officially dating? Like, you're doing the long-distance thing?"

"Yeah," he grinned, and now that he had gotten that off of his chest, it hit Cora that he looked happier than she'd seen him in a long time. "That's why I didn't tell you earlier. I didn't want to get your hopes up about us staying together because doing the distance thing is really hard and I wasn't even sure for a minute if she wanted something serious, but..." he shrugged. "It seems like it's working. It's been really nice, actually."

Cora felt herself smiling just as much as he was, and now that she was in the loop, she was going to pry for whatever details she could. "Have you been able to go see her at all?"

"Not yet," he admitted. "But she'll be in town for Thanksgiving and then I get a week off of work at Christmas, so I...might have already booked my plane ticket."

A whole week off of work sounded so nice. Cora still had yet to go visit her in Nashville, but she was dying to do it one day and finally get to meet her friend group there. "Color me jealous. But if I'm ever between jobs and you ever want a travel buddy, you know where to find me."

"There was something else I wanted to run past you, actually," he added quietly. "I'm not trying to say that I'm gonna go make any drastic life changes right now, but assuming we stay together for a while longer...do I sound insane for saying that I've already thought about going to be with her?"

Cora's heart skipped in her chest as she processed that he was talking about moving away. Away, away. "You wanna leave Rothbury?"

The way his smile pulled at his lips now was wistful. "I know, I know. You always tried to get me out of there and I swore that I wanted to stay. But I think I'm finally starting to want something new, you know? I don't know if staying in the same small town my whole life is going to make me happy anymore. I think I'm ready to see what else is out there."

"If you're looking for an adventure, you'll find no shortage of those with Nat."

"I know I'd be so far from you, but I assume you'll eventually be taking jobs all over the world, anyway–"

Cora reached out and placed her hand on his shoulder, interrupting him. "Simon, of course I'd be sad if you moved away. But if you're gonna do it, then it sure as hell better be for Natasha Wilde."

The sun was quite low in the sky now and she knew that they would have to get up soon unless they wanted to freeze, but Cora wasn't ready just yet. She shifted closer to him so that she could pull him into a hug, resting her chin on his shoulder and breathing in that familiar clean laundry scent that always lingered on his clothes.

"Thank you," she murmured.

His voice fluttered against her ear, carrying the soft lilt of a curious laugh with it. "For what?"

"For forgiving me so quickly," she told him. "And for being good to her. I can't think of much that makes me happier than my two best friends being happy together."

Cora had once thought she belonged with Simon, just as Rasmus once thought he belonged with Natasha, and then it seemed that life had broken them apart, pulled them all their separate ways for good. And for four long years, it had stayed that way. But as she lingered there on that bench, resting comfortably on her oldest friend's shoulder and knowing that she would go be held in her boyfriend's arms after this, she couldn't help but believe that the universe had always intended to draw the four of them back together in ways more beautifully surprising than they ever could have expected.

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A/N:

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