author's note: hey, everyone! i'm back with the ending of this story, and holy crap, it's 3.2k words long. i'm really, really tired right now, so yeah i'm really glad that i'm finally finished with writing the ending, since it really did bug the hell outta me :'D but yeah, thank you all so much for the wonderful reviews you left on the last chapter. they made my day!

i'm gonna stop talking now, lmao. here is chapter 2 for you all to enjoy! x

...

"I'm reading a new book," Tessa announced just as Will picked up on the other end. She seated herself onto her bed, getting cozy on her favorite pillow-covered spot. It was, however unofficial, her place to nestle in when she received phone calls from her virtual friend.

"Really?" he answered. Tessa had a feeling that she knew what was coming. "Now, is it that modern trash they actually consider literature?"

She was right. After five-and-a-half months of conversing with him, Tessa was rather familiar with the way he thought. She'd reached the point where she had the ability to guess at what he would say next — and often so, she was right, for Will was predictable — yet unpredictable at the same time.

Tessa rolled her eyes in exasperation. She knew he had a mild distaste for modern contemporary, but still, she decided, somebody like Will could not be so narrow-minded. "It's a genre, Will, like any other. There are good ones, and there are, well, crappy ones."

"From my experience—"

"You've read a total of two books that belong in the genre," Tessa interrupted. She'd read those specific two books, too, and sadly had to agree with him. Both of them had been crazy roller coaster rides.

He sighed. "What's it called?"

It was indeed a modern contemporary novel. She told him of the title, read him the blurb on the back, and left him the rest to decide. The book was about a girl, a boy, a vacation, and of Paris, the city the vacation took place in.

Will left comments as she read, neither of them being entirely good nor exactly bad.

"I've never been to Paris," Tessa admitted. "I've always wanted to go there, though."

"Neither have I," he responded. "Surprising, as I have already lived eighteen years of my life."

A side of her lip quirked up. "Another one to add to my 'list of things to do before I turn eighteen'."

"Maybe we could go together, Tess," he started, and Tessa's heart gave a sudden, strange leap — "So there will be an opportunity to visit the exact place where Sydney Carton was guillotined. Together, of course."

She groaned, and covered her face with a hand.

"You are insufferable."

She could hear the grin in his voice. "Imagine it. I could scare away all the French passersby with my declarations."

Tessa did. She visualised not only the silly scenario Will had mentioned, but instead she too imagined travelling with a dark-haired, blue-eyed boy, sipping coffee with him, wandering through museums and old, worn bookshops with him. She imagined standing atop the heart of Paris, enjoying a panoramic view of the city with him beside her. Tessa was, without a doubt, sure that he would be seeing, and feeling, what she saw and what she felt. She and him, they were alike.

It would definitely have been easier if she actually knew precisely what he looked like, but still.

It sounded marvellous.

"Tessa?"

She jolted from her reverie. "Yeah?"

"Thinking about me again, were you?" he inquired, cheekily.

She blinked. "Well, you told me to."

"Good point," he responded. "But do please consider it, Tess."

"Yeah, sure," Tessa replied casually, with a smile at the nickname he'd given her. However, there was a feeling in her gut that she was taking it more seriously than Will probably did.

The feeling disheartened her, when it shouldn't have had to.

...

"Earth to Tessa. Eaaarth to Tessa," a voice droned, shaking her from her daydream.

"Yeah?" she turned, giving Sophie her attention. Her friend had been talking to her earlier on, and she had, subconsciously, drifted away into pleasant thoughts.

Thoughts which, unsurprisingly, involved Will and the conversation they'd had last night. Well, conversation was one way to put it. After having gotten into a spat with her brother (which was something that almost never happened in the household), Will had cheered her up, and had done one hell of an awesome job with it.

She was fine now, and had already fixed things up with her brother.

Briefly then, she wondered about whether there actually was a time, within the past few months, when Will hadn't been hanging on to her every thought. Maybe not.

It was just a little bit hard to imagine daily life without him.

"Tessa!" Sophie said again a second time, waving a french fry back and forth before her eyes.

"So— Sorry," Tessa responded, her mind back in the the bustling school cafeteria. "What were you saying?"

Her friend wasn't on her previous topic anymore, though. "What are you thinking about?" Sophie inquired instead, her hazel eyes glinting with curiosity.

"Somebody," Jessamine responded quickly for her, flashing Tessa a grin. Instantly she shot Jessamine a cutting glance from across the table. "It's obvious."

Tessa rolled her eyes, dipping a french fry into a pool of ketchup. These were the very people who had laughed and gushed over the "love notes" she had received. Of course.

Nevermind the fact that Jessamine was actually correct, though.

...

She'd finished the Paris book, some days later, when her ringtone blared through the atmosphere of her room. It was around 5pm, an hour after she'd gotten home, so immediately Tessa knew who it was.

She lifted her phone, smiled, and accepted the call from Will.

"Hi!" she spoke brightly.

"Hey, Tess," he said her nickname in that way of his.

"So, I finished the book," Tessa said. "It wasn't at all trashy."

"Oh, no," he feigned fear. "I see myself reading it in the near future. Very near future."

She laughed. "You won't regret it. Now, I know you're a sucker for romantic, heroic stories, so it'll be a good one for you."

There was a short pause on the other end of the line, before he spoke again. "Alright, Tess. I trust your judgement."

She grinned, for she knew she'd gotten her way. There were some good books, belonging in the same genre, that he'd flat-out refused, so Tessa was definitely pleased with the current situation. She repeated the title to him, and waited as he went away to scribble it down.

"How's Nate?" Will asked.

Tessa rolled her eyes, though she was smiling. "I took your advice, and it worked. He says he wants to meet you."

"Really?" he spoke. "It would be a pleasure."

Tessa began to reply but was then interrupted as Will raised his voice to a shout. "Nathaniel!"

"Ow!" Tessa exclaimed, covering her ear. "He can't hear you, you oaf."

Will was laughing, that delightful, rumbling sound she lived to hear.

"You and your stupid antics," she mumbled.

He stopped laughing, and all was quiet for a moment. However, she knew that he was smiling on the other end, too.

"Tessa?"

"Yes?" she shifted on her bed, crossing a leg over another.

"Since you have requested for my advice, which worked, I must, right now, request for yours."

"What?" Tessa frowned slightly. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing," he responded swiftly. "I have not gotten into a fight with my brother, since I don't have one. Well, a biological one. But… I have recently been asked out by a girl, and I replied with yes."

She stopped short, just as the temperature in her room gave an abrupt drop. "Huh?"

"Uh, dating advice?" he said meekly. Noticing her failure to give him an instantaneous answer, he pressed, "Perhaps that was one of the most idiotic things I have ever said. Well, to you."

Yes, yes it was.

Tessa's mouth was suddenly dry. Pushing down an unanticipated swell of displeasing emotions, she stuttered and mustered a response. "Oh — Um, I don't know. I mean, I've never, um, dated anybody before. But —"

"Tess," he started.

"Be yourself, I guess," she finished, in an attempt to sound light. Her features spread in a weak smile.

Will, with his silly anecdotes, his stupid, corny, unbearable jokes, his witty book references and occasionally brilliant, philosophic thoughts — and his ability to make her laugh anywhere, anytime.

But it most likely would be all for somebody else, that somebody being a girl. The thought was an unwelcome one.

Another unwelcome thought caught her off guard. Maybe it was never just her, it never had been. Maybe. Probably.

Tessa lifted her mug and took a sip, relieving her parched mouth with water. She was being selfish, and she knew it. Why should it have bothered her so much, anyway? It had been one simple sentence.

It was only then, Tessa realised, with a sinking feeling, that she liked him. She'd had been aware of it for a while now, but had never gotten herself up to actually admit it. She liked him, in a different way than what was proper. Will was somebody on the other end of telephone conversations.

She didn't even know his last name.

"Thinking again, Tess?"

"Oh." Again she snapped out of her daze, at the sound of her nickname. Will he give her a nickname, too? Does he already have one for her? "Yeah."

"Thank you, by the way," he said. "For the advice. If I work with that, though, it is guaranteed that I will either scare her away, or charm the pants off of her. There is, really, no in-between."

"Or both," Tessa uttered.

"Come again?" She could hear the grin in his voice.

"Or both," she repeated.

"Like I said, there is no in-between."

Tessa gave a little half-smile. Will was charming in his own way, after all, but he had yet to figure it out. She doubted he ever would. She could, only then, begin to wonder if the girl he would meet was shallow.

A dark, selfish part of her hoped she was.

...

Tessa left the house, at 5pm, to return her library books.

Will wouldn't be available for the phone call today, he'd informed her, for he would currently be on his date. How convenient.

Maybe it had been a wrong decision to leave the house, especially to head to the library. Inwardly, Tessa flinched, but promptly she shook it off. What had become of her now? Would everything and everyone remind her of him?

With an arm wrapped around the Paris contemporary novel, Tessa stopped at the Starbucks halfway to the library. She walked past a seated couple and joined the line of people.

Her thoughts still of Will, Tessa grabbed her coffee and turned around. It was when she properly saw the boy, who was one half of the window seat couple. He had dark, unruly hair, tumbling over his forehead and down towards his eyes, which were a shade of nighttime blue. He was handsome, tall, his features elegant.

Like an idiot, Tessa stopped in her tracks. Something, she didn't know what, made him familiar to her, even though she was absolutely sure that she'd never once seen him before. The name she could associate to his face —

Not possible.

But it was.

She knew her daydreams of Will would, from now on, have his face in it.

Tessa's eyes darted to the girl. A pretty, petite brunette, her green eyes wide and adoring, fixated on solely the boy. Passion. Infatuation. Absolute devotion.

It took Tessa a small moment to realize that he was staring at her as well. Her eyes flickered away from his girl, her head ducking slightly. She felt a soft blush creeping up her cheeks, and so hastily she willed it away.

She thawed after a few seconds, gave a small shrug and continued on her merry way, though she was still blushing. Not possible. Nothing special. They are simply a regular couple, like the ones you see all the time.

Her thoughts were now concerned with Jessamine, and how she would immediately act upon a situation like this. She would, definitely, insist on snapping a photo of him to save in her camera roll. "Take a picture," Jessamine would probably say. "It'll last longer."

Tessa grinned.

She was about to brush past the couple and head towards the door when the sound of her name, spoken like a question, made her pause again.

"Tessa?"

She turned.

She had not expected her name to come from the boy's mouth.

His exquisite blue eyes were trained somewhere below her face — her book, she realized with after a small moment. Her book. Her Paris book, the library book which she was about to return. The library book, which she'd told Will she was about to return.

"Um," she stumbled, "Do — Do I know you?"

A wondrous look crossed his features. "Tessa," he said again, his full lips parting in a broad smile. "It's you. Is it you?"

Her grey eyes were wide. "Will?"

His smile spread wider, his blue eyes gaining a spark.

Tessa stood there, awestruck. She had no idea what she was expecting, really. He was there.

What a coincidence.

The girl, his date, was watching Tessa, her green eyes hard, no longer glazed over in sheer adoration. "Will, who is she?"

He stood from table, took three strides towards her and pulled her into an embrace.

Tessa returned his gesture after a moment, trying not to let his cologne distract her as she placed her arms tentatively around his neck. In her mouth she felt words bubble up — words she'd wanted to say to him, special, careful, selected words. Stripped of worry, she then faded into extreme relief, and joy.

It was as if he was a lost friend of hers. She realized, then, that she'd found him.

Tessa withdrew her arms from his neck after a while, for they were standing in the middle of a bustling coffee shop, hugging. There was no doubt that she wished to stay longer, so much longer in that moment. Perhaps even forever.

They went to the library together, so that Will could borrow her contemporary novel.

"I didn't realise you would be this tall, you know," Will said, in person, grinning as he reached out to ruffle her hair. She revelled in his smile — it was big, bright and real.

Just like their future.

Tessa snorted. Hilarious.

After that, they ended up wandering the aisles of the library, and for the first time Tessa realised how great it was to have company. If it had been anybody but him, though…

"Sorry I took you away from your date," Tessa muttered as they rounded a corner. "Sorry to her, too. We just left her there. Maybe we should have asked her to join us."

She was, clearly, opposed to that, but still she said it for the sake of it.

Will wrinkled his nose, which she, uh oh, found adorable. "She hates reading. I was trying to talk to her earlier, but my attempts were futile. Besides, I have another date now, don't I?"

Flushing, Tessa swatted at his arm. She didn't say anything in response, though.

His smile was mischievous. "Tess?"

"Coincidental — Friendly — get-together is more like it," Tessa replied, hiding her deepening blush as she turned away from him. She stood on her tiptoes to retrieve something from the shelf.

"If it must be," he chuckled.

Wuthering Heights was shelved at the same place it had been that fateful day, five-and-a-half months ago.

"If I were you, I would have re-borrowed it multiple times," Will said, coming over to peer over her shoulder. "What a life-changing book."

Tessa smiled, rolling her eyes. "My life for better, and for worse."

She'd definitely made the right decision to head out of the house today.

...

Summer had kicked in, and school was out. Will was going to Brown University, like he'd told her.

They no longer had conversations only on the phone. Instead, they spent whatever time they could meeting up with each other, talking about everything they loved.

Honestly, it did take a while getting used to. But she wasn't surprised to find that she, like how it had always been on the phone, found joy in his company. Her ever-growing crush on him posed as a problem, though.

Her friends, of course, had noticed. They'd requested to meet him, her "secret boyfriend" from Alicante High, the other school in town, but she hadn't made any promises.

Today, they were meeting up at a park near Tessa's house. They were sprawled across the grass, a pile of books sitting on the picnic cloth beside them, sunlight shining on their faces.

"Tessa, do you see that guy over there?" Will's voice cut through her thoughts. She was, for the hundredth time the past month, startled by the sheer clarity of his words, for they weren't transmitted through a phone call.

She lifted her head, and instantly saw who he was talking about. Somebody with curling brown hair stood nearby, a polaroid camera raised to his face, concealing the majority of his features.

"Hi!" Tessa called above the rushing of the stream. "Are you taking pictures of us?"

The young man walked over to them, the camera dangling off his neck. "Oh, sorry if I'm interrupting something. But I'm doing a project for a photography course, and that is to accumulate self-taken photos of, well, lovers enjoying themselves."

Her cheeks went bright red. "We're not lovers."

Will, on the other hand, responded with, "You've gone down the innocent route to interpret 'lovers enjoying themselves', have you?"

Tessa blushed again.

The photographer laughed. "Well, compared to some of my friends, yes."

There was a soft click as a polaroid photo slipped out from the dispenser. He held it out. "Do you want it?"

Tessa took a good look at it. It was a nice shot of them, relaxing by the stream. She was leaning towards Will in the photo, a small, blossoming smile on her lips.

Will slipped it into his jeans pocket in one deft motion, grinning up at the photographer in thanks. "I'll keep that one, but you are free to take another."

He nodded at Will. "That'll work. Thank you!" Then, he turned to her. "Does the lady agree?"

"Uh," Tessa started, her face half a smile, half a grimace. "Sure. Do we… pose?"

"Do whatever you want!"

Tessa turned back to Will as the photographer backed away from the two of them. There was something on his features, something tentative and gentle tugging to broaden his smile.

"So… We pose." She almost snorted at the idea.

"Well, I think we should give him something."

"Give him what?"

"Well, you know, there's something I've been wanting to do for a while, Tess," he remarked. "Something perfect for this occasion."

"Yeah?" She was nervous, for — Oh — Is he going to —

His cerulean eyes darted up before he tucked her hair back and leaned in. Slowly, surely, he pressed his lips against hers.

Something sparked inside of her. Thoughts, memories, and emotions began swirling around in her mind, then — her first conversation with him, with his fascination for classic novels and his library-stalking tendencies, of the time when she'd phoned him at 2am, asking of his opinion on the words that had, out of the blue, popped into her head, of when he'd spent an entire twenty minutes reading her jokes he'd gotten off some crap Comic Sans website, yet had set her laughing for hours. All of that, down to this.

She smiled, winding her arms around his neck, pulling him closer to her. There was a click of a camera in the distance just as he smiled against her lips. Tessa felt the sparks in her chest turn into full-blown fireworks, then, for she knew that they were the two main characters sharing a passionate, perfectly-written moment, within a beautiful, joyful ending scene.

author's note: i hope that this wasn't too cringey. but yay for wessa wooooo

the kiss scene up there would not exist if it weren't for my amazing beta reader/best friend, embercrown (clara), so tHANKS DUDE for the continuous friendly reminders, motivation, and nutella jokes. oh, and thanks for being there for me all tHE TIME!111!

do please review. i would love to hear your thoughts on this story:D

p.s. yes, that sydney carton guillotine scene actually is canon.

see you all again soon! x