Page 42 of Remain

When we pull back, our foreheads rest together. Her breath shakes. Mine does too.

“This isn’t goodbye,” she whispers.

“No,” I agree. “Just… later.”

She steps back before I can speak, before hope can make a sound. Before I can ask for the ring, the house, the future I’ve never stopped picturing, even when I pretended I had.

She turns toward the doors, then stops and looks back at me.

I don’t wave. I just stand there, hands in my pockets, watching her walk away, not like someone being left behind, but like someone who knows this story isn’t finished yet.

When the doors close behind her, the ache hits, but this time, it’s threaded with something new. It’s threaded with hope.

First time in many years, I don’t feel like staying means losing. It just means trusting that what matters will find its way back.

18

Savannah

New York doesn’t easeyou into Christmas. It keeps moving, lights blazing and streets crowded, daring you to notice anyway. I used to think that meant it didn’t care. Now I think it’s asking you to choose it, to find meaning without being handed a pause. Maybe the magic here was never in stopping at all, but in the way the city carries on, making room for meaning even as it moves forward.

It’s time to let the magic in.

I take a cab home through streets that feel familiar again, but changed somehow, less cold, less lonely than they used to.

As soon as I’m in the cab, I text Jack. I consider seeing him in person, but I know this conversation doesn’t need more than that. Ending things with him is quieter than I expect. There’s no anger and no blame, only honesty. I tell him he was never a mistake, just a moment I needed whilemy heart caught up to itself. He understands, and I’m grateful for the kindness in his response as I let him go. Some goodbyes don’t hurt because they’re wrong, but because they finally make sense.

As I’m about to stash my phone back into the pocket of my coat, a text comes through from Lena.

Do you want a peppermint latte or are you still pretending you don’t love Christmas?

I do not pretend. I simply enjoy denying joy on principle.

I know you do, which is so weird given you are literally named after joy. So, peppermint latte it is then.

You didn’t even wait for my answer.

I know you.

Also, it’s cold and you’re sad in that quiet way you do.

Rude. Accurate. But rude.

Five minutes. Don’t go anywhere.

Your latte has extra whipped cream because I love you.

I don’t deserve you.

Correct. See you soon

My apartment doorsticks when I unlock it. Inside, everything looks the same at first, and then it doesn’t. The life I built here, the one I carefully designed, feels suddenly distant from who I am in this moment, after everything I carried back with me from Pineview this Christmas. It’s beautiful in an intentional, aesthetic way, but what it lacks is grit. Heart.

I study the photographs lining the wall, each one thoughtfully chosen and carefully curated, and realize how little emotion they hold. I imagine what it would look like to have my mother there instead, or any of the moments I found tucked away in that box of photographs, lives and histories caught mid-beat.

I drop my bag by the door and shrug out of my coat. The quiet settles in around me, louder than Pineview ever was.

Lena knocks twice and then lets herself in like she lives here, balancing two peppermint lattes in one hand and her tote bag slung over her shoulder. I don’t know how she keeps getting past building security, but at this point I assume she’s been unofficially adopted by them. Her charm has always been disarming, especially when paired with the certainty that this is her apartment too, just slightly less often.