Chapter 22
Gwen
The airport was all white noise — wheels clattering on tile, boarding announcements echoing off high ceilings, people hurrying all around them.
They stood in a loose circle near the security checkpoint they’d just shuffled through, between where their gates diverged, everyone rumpled and puffy-eyed from too little sleep, arms looped around carry-ons like lifelines.
Pete and Izzy, the seasoned fliers of the bunch, looked calm and relaxed, while Danica held her boarding pass and her passport in her hand despite only being on a domestic flight.
They were all traveling to Denver together, and Maggie and Gwen’s gate was in another area, leaving slightly later.
The hugs started. When it was Maggie’s turn, Gwen watched as she folded each of them tight into her arms, mascara smudging at the corners of her eyes. By the time she pulled back from Kiera, her voice cracked.
Pete patted Maggie on the shoulder, looking like a proud dad with a belt bag around her torso. “This is the first time we all made it to the airport at the end of a trip without someone weirdly bailing first.”
“And I didn’t want to jinx it, but this is also the first time I’ve made it through a trip without a terribly embarrassing injury,” Maggie added.
They laughed, because it was true. Maggie had come home from their Telluride trip with a broken arm and showed up after the San Diego trip with a broken nose and two black eyes.
Gwen also knew that usually someone disappeared before the last night, sneaking out early to avoid conflict or resolution.
This time, against all odds, they were all here.
Gwen watched Maggie wipe at her cheeks, laughing through tears. It hit her in the chest — how much Maggie loved this group, how much she was already mourning the end of this trip, how much Gwen wasn’t sure she could give her.
She wanted to reach out. Say something. But she only adjusted the strap of her bag, keeping her face carefully composed.
“Text when you land,” Danica said, hugging them both again for good measure before tugging Pete toward their side of the gates. Izzy and Kiera trailed after, still hand in hand, still glowing with their renewed wedding excitement.
And then it was just Gwen and Maggie, the noise of the terminal rushing back in around them.
The others melted away, swallowed by the shuffle of shoes and the hollow calls of the boarding agents over the loudspeaker. It was just the two of them now, hovering by a row of molded plastic chairs, their bags at their feet.
Maggie sniffled, swiping at her cheeks with the heel of her hand. Gwen’s chest squeezed.
Without thinking, she reached out, brushing her fingers over Maggie’s shoulder. “Hey,” she said softly. “It’s okay.”
Maggie flinched — not a big movement, just a shrug sharp enough to make the contact fall away. Her mouth twisted into something that was almost a smile but didn’t reach her eyes. “I’m fine,” she said, voice raw. “Don’t you have some work to catch up on?”
Gwen’s hand fell back to her side. She swallowed, steadying herself against the sudden hollow. “Maggie…”
But Maggie was already grabbing her bag, eyes narrowed on the departure board like it had personally wronged her.
Gwen stood there for a beat, rooted, the ache settling in her ribs.
All her giddiness from that dawn light was gone now, replaced by the sharp reminder of why they were here, why Maggie had walked away in the first place.
Gwen shouldered her own bag, forcing her face into its usual composure, and followed her toward their gate.
They walked in silence, past random clusters of slot machines with their volume up way too loud, families corralling kids, other couples dragging roller bags.
Maggie hitched her bag strap higher on her shoulder with a jerky movement. Her face was blotchy from crying, but her jaw was set.
“I think when we get back to Austin,” she said suddenly, not looking at her, “you should get your own apartment.”
The words sliced through the terminal din, clean and merciless.
Gwen stumbled for half a step before catching herself. She stared straight ahead, throat thick. She’d known this was coming — hell, she’d been bracing for it for months — but hearing it out loud was different. Final. “Maggie—”
But Maggie was already speeding up, weaving through a knot of travelers, not giving her room to answer.
Gwen forced her legs to move, her breath steady, her face composed the way she’d trained it to be. Inside, though, it was unraveling. The fragile hope she’d let herself taste in that hotel bed, the giddiness that had bubbled up at dawn — it all collapsed under the weight of Maggie’s disappointment.
Her own apartment.
Separate keys. Separate lives.
By the time they reached their gate, Gwen’s chest ached so fiercely she thought she might actually break open. She sat down across an aisle from Maggie, folding her hands in her lap, pretending she wasn’t dying inside.
Gwen didn’t argue. The words sat on her tongue, heavy and hot, but she swallowed them back. Maggie’s shoulders were tense, her jaw locked — nothing Gwen said in an airport terminal was going to soften that.
So she stayed quiet.
Through boarding, through stowing their bags, through two and a half hours of recycled air and the low hum of the engines.
Maggie leaned against the window, earbuds in, eyes closed.
Gwen sat rigid in the aisle seat, staring blankly at the book in her lap she never turned a page of.
Every so often Maggie shifted, brushing against her, and Gwen’s heart would leap stupidly before it settled into the ache again.
They didn’t speak once. Not in the air, not during landing, not while shuffling off the plane with the rest of the herd.
The silence didn’t budge until they walked down the escalator into arrivals, the buzz of Austin wrapping around them — Spanish mingling with English, guitar licks from someone inexplicably playing electric guitar in an airport bar, the smell of coffee and BBQ from the food court.
“Mama! Mommy!”
Three voices at once, shrill with excitement.
Their kids came barreling across the terminal, backpacks bouncing, sneakers squeaking. Gwen barely had time to drop her carry-on before they collided into her legs, arms thrown tight around her waist.
Maggie crouched low, pulling all three kids against her, laughing through fresh tears. “I missed you, I missed you, I missed you,” she said, kissing their hair, their cheeks, their sticky faces.
Gwen dropped to her knees beside them, smoothing a hand over Rosie’s hair, pressing her cheek to Arlo’s as he hugged her, reaching to tug Jude into the fray. The ache in her chest shifted — still heavy, but different now.
Maggie glanced up, just once, eyes red and wet.
And then one of the kids pulled free, waving frantically toward the baggage claim. “Come on, Grandma brought cookies.”
The spell broke. They all stood, moving as a family toward the carousel, the sound of the terminal folding around them. Side by side, but with miles still stretched between.
The apartment smelled like paint and carpet glue. Brand-new construction, all beige walls and echoing corners, the kind of place staged for the “empty, picture your things here” photos in a realtor’s slideshow.
Gwen set her suitcases just inside the door and stood there, staring at the empty expanse of it. She’d signed the lease yesterday, filled out all the online forms, transferred the deposit with a few clicks. Efficient. Orderly. Necessary.
It didn’t feel like hers.
She sat on the edge of the bed she’d panic-ordered to be delivered on time, palms pressed to her knees, and let her mind circle the weekend like a wound she couldn’t stop touching.
Vegas. Two nights they couldn’t keep their hands off each other, months of anger dissolving into heat and hunger.
Then that angry sex, the slower love the morning after, sunlight soft across Maggie’s bare skin, when Gwen had felt stupidly and recklessly certain.
Certain they could find their way back, certain this wasn’t the end.
She’d let herself imagine rebuilding, one kiss at a time.
Now here she was, surrounded by beige walls and freshly laid carpet, nothing but her folded clothes and the hum of the empty fridge to keep her company.
She reached for a laundry bin to begin to put a few things away, startled to find Maggie’s Rice University shirt tucked near the bottom.
A faint bleach stain near the hem, a stretched-out collar…
She held the fabric to her nose, knowing it would smell like all of her other laundry, but she could have sworn the sweatshirt held just a hint of Maggie’s perfume.
Blinking back a tear, she tucked the sweatshirt onto a high shelf of the closet.
She’d thought separation would be big and loud, all slammed doors and shouted arguments. But it wasn’t. It was silence.
Just her.
She lasted less than an hour in the silence before picking up her phone. Her thumb hovered over Maggie’s name, then her mom’s, then finally landed on Logan.
Her brother answered on the second ring. “You sound like someone who’s either drunk or about to be.”
“Neither, unfortunately,” Gwen said. Her voice came out steadier than she felt. “I just moved in to the new place.”
There was a pause, a low whistle. “So it’s official, then.”
“Yep.” She looked around the sterile one-bedroom — blank walls, bare counters, not a single thing that betrayed anyone with a personality had ever set foot inside. “It’s official.”
Logan let out a sigh that crackled through the line. “How’s it feel?”
She swallowed. “Quiet.”
“Quiet good or quiet bad?”
“Quiet… loud, somehow,” she admitted. The words slipped out before she could stop them.
Logan didn’t fill the silence right away. He never rushed her, which was both comforting and unbearable. “You want me to come down this weekend? Help you hang shelves or… something?”