Page 40 of Remain

That’s Pineview for you.

I swallow, emotion rising unexpectedly, sharp and sudden. “You don’t have to do this.”

“I know,” the words are simple. “That’s why I am. One day you’ll learn to ask for help, but until then, I’ll just keep showing up.”

She reaches for my coat, helps me into it the way my mother used to, smoothing the collar, tucking my scarf closer. The familiarity of the gesture feels like a hug from both of them.

“This is the last morning I get you for a while,” she places a hand tenderly on my cheek. “I’d like to keep it.”

I nod, unable to trust the strength of my voice.

“Don’t be a stranger this time, Savannah.” She smiles then, gentle and resolute, picking up my suitcase as if it weighs nothing at all. “Shall we then?”

We step out into the cold morning together, the door clicking shut behind us, Pineview still half-asleep and hushed under a dark winter sky. The air smells like frost, a stark contrast to the exhaust I’ll inhale later today. I let myself linger in it, walking slower than I usually do when I’m back, as if moving carefully might stretch the moment.

Something inside of me shifts and I reach for my phone in a panic.

Can you please meet me at the airport? I don’t want to leave without saying goodbye.

17

Erik

Airports makeliars out of people.

Everyone pretends they’re fine. Pretends they’re not counting seconds, not memorizing faces, not wondering which goodbyes are permanent and which ones just feel that way.

I’ve never liked them. Airports or goodbyes.

I stand near the curb with a coffee I don’t want, watching the automatic doors swallow people whole. Families hug too long. Business travelers check their watches like feelings are an inconvenience. The whole place reeks of leaving.

Savannah steps out of Aunt Carol’s car and the world narrows.

She looks tired. The kind of tired that lives behind the eyes, swollen and pink, the aftermath of crying she hasn’t quite shaken. There’s a bag slung over her shoulder, and asmall suitcase at her feet. She’s packed light enough to tell me she isn’t carrying much of Pineview with her.

Still.

She came back.

I hang back, instinctively giving them space. Carol pulls Savannah into a hug that’s firm and unyielding, the kind meant to hold someone together rather than comfort them. Savannah leans into it, just for a beat longer than she means to.

When they part, Carol looks up and catches me watching. There’s no surprise in her expression. Just a brief look that tells me she’s clocked everything from how I’m standing, to how I haven’t moved, and how my attention never left Savannah.

Her mouth curves into something small and knowing. I nod back before I can stop myself.

“You didn’t have to come but I’m glad you did,” Savannah insists when she reaches me, like she hasn’t always known I would.

“I already planned on it and I wanted to,” I tell her, because wanting feels safer than need.

Aunt Carol doesn’t linger, she never does. She drives off as if she understands exactly what kind of moment this is and knows it isn’t hers to witness. She’s always known when to step in, and when to quietly step away.

For a second, Savannah and I just stand there, inside Ashford Local Airport, close to the doors and closer to the end of something she didn’t mean to restart.

“I’m really going,” she says, the words meant more for herself than for me. “My flight boards in twenty minutes.”

“I know.” I always know when she’s about to leave. Still doesn’t make it easier.

“I didn’t want to go without talking to you, without seeingyou,” she continues. “Without saying something that wasn’t… running.”