Almost Always: a novel

Patrick O’Brien and David Chen meet during two magical weeks at the University of Chicago in the mid-1980s—a connection so profound it feels like coming home. Then tragedy strikes, and David disappears to California, leaving Patrick with nothing but memory and longing.

Over the next fifteen years, their lives orbit each other in agonizing near-misses: a weekend in New York where everything feels possible again, a lunch in Chicago heavy with unspoken words, late-night phone calls that circle around what they really want to say. The geography is impossible. The timing is always wrong. They’re always almost—but never quite—together.

Patrick builds a careful life in Chicago: successful career, family obligations, the quiet routines of a man who’s learned not to want too much. David thrives in New York’s financial world, collecting lovers and accomplishments while secretly filling journals about the one person he can’t forget. Both measure every relationship against those two perfect weeks, wondering if they’ll ever feel that complete again.

When a desperate late-night call finally shatters years of careful distance, they face an impossible choice: dismantle the safe lives they’ve built for a love that’s already failed them twice? But even when they finally find the courage to try, Patrick and David discover that some obstacles can’t be overcome by love alone—no matter how deep, how patient, or how hard-won.

Almost Alwaysis a decades-spanning love story about the different shapes love takes and the price of living authentically. For readers who loved Call Me By Your Name and The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo—a devastating, beautiful reminder that love’s true measure isn’t duration, but depth.