Chapter 39 Never Goodbye, Just See You Again Soon
NEVER GOODBYE, JUST SEE YOU AGAIN SOON
NORA
“Nora, come on. We’re going out and seeing daylight.”
Camilla’s voice carries that particular brand of aggressively cheerful concern that means she’s staging an intervention.
I pull the pillow over my head. “No. I’m fine.”
“You’re not fine. You’re wallowing.”
“I’m processing.”
“You’re rotting.”
The door swings open—no knock, no hesitation.
Camilla never cared for boundaries when she thought someone needed saving. Marcus and Mia’s voices filter in behind her, the full rescue squad assembling like this is a coordinated extraction.
“Nora, I love you,” Mia says gently, easing onto the edge of the bed. “But when’s the last time you showered?”
I try to remember.
Tuesday?
Wednesday?
Everything has blurred into one long ache.
“Exactly,” Camilla says, arms crossing like she’s delivering a verdict. “We’re going to the pier. Fresh air, terrible deep-fried food, and you’re going to pretend to be human again.”
“I don’t want to pretend.”
“Nora,” Marcus says quietly, leaning against the doorframe, “whatever this is… staying in here isn’t helping.”
“Two hours max,” Camilla adds. “Then you can come back and wallow until tomorrow.”
Camilla does the hauling, Marcus picks clothes, and Mia brushes my hair with saintly patience. I let them—because fighting feels impossible, and because some small part of me knows they’re right. This is a battle I’m not winning.
The pier is exactly as awful as promised—the wind slaps my face, seagulls scream like they’re auditioning for hell, and everything tastes like salt and sadness.
We sit on a bench overlooking the water. Camilla steals one of my fries without asking. “You know,” she says, chewing thoughtfully, “this is how you know you really love someone.”
“How’s that?” My voice sounds scraped thin.
“When you don’t hate them for breaking your heart.”
The words land like a knife twisting slow. Because she’s right. I should hate him—for the fear, for the pain, for leaving me in this limbo where grief and love blur together.
But I don’t, I just feel is hollowed out.
The outing exhausts me more than it helps, but at least the world looks slightly less grey when Camilla drops me home. I’m not sure where everyone is because it looks like no one is home. Did I miss something? Did we plan to be somewhere? I’m fumbling for my keys when my phone rings.
Liam.
I’ve ignored his calls the past few weeks, but something about his insistence slices through my numbness so I answer.
“Well hello stranger. And here I thought you’d deleted my number.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose, leaning back against the door.
“Hey. No, sorry. It’s been—” My voice sounds wrong. Hollow. “It’s just been a rough couple of weeks.”
“Oh.” His tone softens immediately, dropping the playful edge. “Shit, I’m sorry. I… didn’t know.”
Liam pauses momentarily.
“Well, I actually have news. Good news. And I’m hoping—maybe—it makes even one thing in your day suck a little less?”
“Sure,” I say, shifting the phone to my other ear. “Hit me.”
He exhales, a shaky breath like he’s been sitting on this for hours.
“Your manuscript—they want it. They want to publish it.”
The words should spark something in me—joy, pride, something warm in my ribs—but instead they glide past like I’m underwater, muffled and far away.
“That’s… amazing,” I manage but even I can hear the emptiness.
“Uhh,” he says carefully, “you don’t sound amazed. Is everything… actually okay?”
I rub at a tear I didn’t realise slipped loose.
“No—I am happy about it. I am. I’m just… there’s a lot going on. My life feels like a bit of a dumpster fire right now, if I’m being completely honest.”
He’s quiet.
Not long enough to be awkward—just long enough to understand I’m lying by omission.
“Right,” he says softly. “Well… I’m here if you want to talk about anything. You can call me or not. No pressure.” He lets out a small, nervous laugh. “I was just excited for you. And selfishly wanted to be the one to tell you.”
“Thanks, Liam,” I whisper. “Really, I do appreciate it.”
He clears his throat. “Okay. Well, when you’re back in London, we’ll celebrate properly. Dinner with no strings attached. Just something nice.”
“Yeah,” I breathe, though my throat tightens painfully. “That sounds great.”
“Good.” A smile in his voice now. “Then rest. You sound wrecked. I’ll check in in a few days, yeah?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
The line goes quiet, then clicks closed.
And the silence comes rushing back in.
Back in London.
The words echo through me like a reminder of a life I used to belong to and a future I’m not sure exists anymore.
I climb the stairs slowly, like each step might break me. But when I push open my door, I freeze.
Nate is sitting on my bed, holding Bones—my old stuffed toy—like he’s afraid to let go. He looks… I don’t know. His skin is too pale, eyes hollowed by exhaustion, hair unwashed, hands trembling.
“Nate?”
He looks up, and the shame in his eyes steals the air from my lungs.
“I… I needed to see you.”
I take a few hesitant steps forward, but something in me keeps my distance. He looks too fragile, too breakable.
“My mom came to see me yesterday,” he says with a bitter laugh. “She finally told me the truth, about everything. Just when I thought life couldn’t get more fucked up.”
“Nate—”
“I almost wrote you another letter instead of coming here but I owed you this in person.”
The tone of his voice—the raw finality of it—makes my stomach twist.
“I’m not okay,” he says quietly. “I haven’t been okay for a long time. I’m unwell. I’m fucked up in the head and I’m not helping myself. I know that.” He swallows hard. “Which is why I have to get help.”
Relief and dread twist inside me all at once.
“That’s good, Nate. That’s really good—”
The moment the words leave my mouth, he flinches. Then he pushes himself up from the bed—slowly at first, then fully rising to his feet like the distance is something he suddenly needs. Standing puts him at eye level with me and further away all at once.
“Nora,” he says, voice tight, “getting help means… this can’t happen. You and me.” He shakes his head once, jaw clenching. “It’s not healthy for me right now.”
It feels like the floor shatters beneath me.
“I know I’ve hurt you,” he continues, voice breaking. “Every time I swear I won’t, and then I do. And you deserve better than the mess I keep handing you.”
“I get hurt whether I stay or go,” I whisper without meaning to.
He flinches. “I know. And I’m sorry.”
Here’s the thing, there’s a difference between knowing something and wanting it. I know Nate needs to go. I know he needs to save himself in a place I can’t follow.
But wanting him to stay is its own kind of addiction.
“This isn’t fair,” I whisper, and the words taste like blood and heartbreak.
He nods slowly, jaw tight.
“I don’t know how to do this. How to just leave you.”
“You’re choosing yourself.” I say. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there? Because it feels like I’m ripping myself in half.”
“That just means it matters.” I whisper. “It means we matter.”
He laughs, broken and quiet.
“Fuck,” he exhales, forehead dropping briefly to mine. “Nora, I don’t want to go.”
“I know.” The word comes out tired, cracked. “I hate that timing is everything—and ours is all wrong.”
“Yeah.” A beat.
His hands come up slowly, like he’s asking permission even now. They frame my face, warm and steady—no tremor this time. His thumbs brush just beneath my eyes, soft, familiar, like he’s memorising me in pieces.
“Hey,” he murmurs. “Look at me.”
I do and for a second the world narrows to this—his eyes, the space between us, the almost.
“You know I’m not great at… saying things,” he says, a crooked half-smile flickering and fading. “But there’s this story I heard once. It’s a Japanese legend.”
I nod, breathing him in.
“They say the sun and the moon were in love.” He shrugs slightly, like he doesn’t want to oversell it. “But they keep missing each other and never meet because they’re never meant to be in the same sky.”
His thumb traces my jaw, slow, absent-minded. It’s intimate in all the right ways.
“That’s why God created the eclipse.” He says quietly. “It’s the one moment they’re allowed to meet. Just long enough for the world to notice. Long enough to prove it was real.”
His forehead rests against mine again, breath warm, uneven.
“Guess I like the idea that some things don’t have to last forever to be true. That just because it hurts doesn’t mean it was a mistake.”
My hands curl into the fabric of his shirt like I might anchor him here if I hold on tight enough.
“We were real,” I say.
He nods once. “Yeah. We were.”
And for a heartbeat—just one—we stay like that. Close enough to feel the echo of what we were, then what we became and what we’ll always be.
He pulls back, gently like letting go is the hardest thing he’s ever learned to do.
I could beg him to stay.
I could be selfish.
But love that asks someone to drown with you isn’t love—it’s fear.
“Maybe that’s it,” I say. “Maybe we just found forever at the wrong time.”
“In every other universe where we get to start clean—we would have made it.” He murmurs.
“But not this one.”
“No. Not this one.” He looks down at his shaking hands. “I’m scared I’ll forget what this feels like. What you feel like.”
“You won’t.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because some things get written into your bones.”
He reaches for my hand, and his fingers are ice or maybe mine are.
“Promise me something,” he says.
“Anything.”
“Don’t disappear while I’m gone. Don’t become a ghost waiting for me. I don’t want that for you.”
I swallow hard. “I promise. But you promise me something too.”
“Name it.”
“Don’t give up. Fight for who you want to be, Nate.”
He exhales shakily. “I love you, Leni. Not some future version of you. You—right now.”
I press my hand against his chest, feeling his heartbeat under my palm.
“When do you leave?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
“Tomorrow,” I echo. The word tastes final.
He nods.