Chapter 17
Erik
Airports make liars 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 a small 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 seeing you,” she continues. “Without saying something that wasn’t… running.”
That lands differently.
I let out a breath. “Savannah Diane Joy, you were always good at dramatic exits.”
She smiles a little smile. It doesn’t reach her eyes. “I’m trying to grow out of that.”
“I can see that.”
We move to the side, away from the rush. The noise dulls, but it never disappears. It just waits.
“I’m not staying,” she declares. Straightforward. Brave. The way she always is when it matters most. “New York is still my life. My job. My dream. Everything I built and worked so hard for.”
I nod. I don’t look away. I don’t flinch. I’ve learned how to hold hard truths without breaking them.
“But I’m not disappearing either,” she adds. “Not again. Not with you. Not with… all of this.”
Something loosens in my chest that’s been tight for years.
“I don’t need you to choose Pineview,” I cut in. “I just didn’t want to feel like I imagined us.”
Her eyes soften. “You didn’t. You never did.”
God.
I step closer without thinking, close enough to breathe her in, the familiar, scent of her anchoring me. Close enough to feel the weight of every version of her I’ve ever loved, standing right here in front of me.
“I don’t know what this looks like,” she admits. “Distance. Time. Figuring it out as we go.”
“I can do patience,” I tell her. “I’ve had practice.”
She swallows. “I don’t want you waiting.”
I shake my head. “I won’t. I’ll be here. Living my life. You’ll be there, living yours. And we’ll see what fits, when it fits.”
It’s not a promise. It’s better than that. It’s choosing.
The boarding announcement crackles overhead, loud and final and rude.
“This is me,” she says.
I nod once. My hands are sure when I lift one and brush my thumb along her jaw. Her skin is warm despite the cold. She’s real. She’s still here.
“Come back,” my words light, not with demand, not as a plea but with hope.
“I will.” The way she says it, like she’s choosing the words carefully, like she understands the weight of them, makes me believe her.
I kiss her forehead and feel the truth rise up, unguarded.
“I love you, Savannah,” I profess. “I never stopped loving you.”
She stills. Then exhales like she’s been holding that breath for years.
“I know,” she whispers. “I’ve loved you for a long time. too I just didn’t know how to carry it without losing myself. Without feeling stuck here.”
“You never lost yourself,” I reassure her. “You were learning how to bring yourself back.”
She leans in first.
The kiss is gentle at first, then grows surer, like it remembers us even if we try not to.
She tastes of coffee and cold air and everything I never truly let go of.
My hands settle at her waist without thought, familiarity grounding us both.
For a moment, there is nothing else. No impending flight. No time. Just us.
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.