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I listened and waited. Told myself I was doing the right thing, but all I could think about was the look in her eyes when, after she’d put her heart on the line, I started rattling off a bullshit top ten of things to do in Paris, France.
She looked so fucking sad.
It took everything I had not to pull her back into my arms and beg her to stay. To choose us. But that meant asking her to give up the future, the choices, the chance to grow she’s been telling me she’s been waiting for from the start.
And more than I want her to be with me, I need her to be happy.
So, I stayed in my bed, even when I heard the soft pad of her feet passing my door on the way to the room I never wanted her to sleep in again. The next morning, I waited until I heard her moving around the apartment and pretended not to know that she hadn’t slept in our bed, the same way I pretended not to notice the drawer to Stella’s crypt was ajar. Or that it wasn’t fucking killing me to let her go.
But that’s what I’m doing. Today.
“I can send you anything you don’t have when you get there.” She’s got two fucking bags. Small ones. Even after four months of her living with us, I hate how little it takes for her to pack it all up.
She won’t look at me as she zips the second one up on the bed in her room. Won’t smile or yell at me or do any of the things I’m aching for her to do.
“I don’t need anything, but thank you.”
I nod. Frown. Stare at the smooth line of her back. “But just in case. I’m here.”
“I know. You’re here for me.” She finishes, turning around. “Thank you.”
My molars grind together. I want to tell her to stop fucking thanking me, but like so many other things, I hold it back. Instead, I take the two bags and walk them out to the door. Because she isthatclose to leaving.
When I walk back, I find her in Otto’s room, holding him against her chest. The tears I’ve seen her wrestle back over and over this morning spill freely down her cheeks, each one like a slice through my heart.
“He’s going to miss you.”I’mgoing to miss her.
She nods tightly, trying to smile but failing. “I’m going to miss him too. So much.”
But she’ll get over it. Just like he will.
Me? Christ, I don’t know how I’m going to survive.
* * *
Nora
Boomer and Bowieshow up to watch Otto so Axel can drive me to the airport.
A part of me wishes we’d brought him along so I could have had those last precious minutes with him, but I’m not sure I would have been able to get out of the car if he was still in it.
So, it’s just the two of us driving silently down the Kennedy.
I keep hoping. Keep waiting. But there is no miraculous revelation. Axel doesn’t beg me to reconsider. Doesn’t tell me he wants me to stay.
He just grips the wheel, navigating the midday traffic with a singular focus like it’s his sole mission in life to get me to that airport whole and three hours ahead of my flight departure time.
“Axel,” I whisper, my voice breaking on his name. “Talk to me.”
Forever isn’t on the table for us. I understand. But for as much as that hurts, I don’t for a single second think that this is easy for him. That he doesn’t care for me.
He does. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in his kiss.
I know it to the depths of my soul.
And even if it’s just these last few minutes we have together, I want them. I want us.
His fists tighten, the white of his knuckles standing out. “You going to call me when you arrive? Message me. Something. Don’t care what time it is.”
