30. Amos
AMOS
The office is a tomb of cardboard and bubble wrap.
Outside, the midday heat turns the cobblestones into a griddle, and the sound of students dragging suitcases over the uneven stone rings out like gunfire.
They’re frantic, obsessed with buying last-minute leather journals or squeezing in one final gelato at Vivoli.
I usually feed off this—the kinetic hum of a job well done, the puzzle of logistics finally snapping into place.
I swipe a stack of student evaluations into a folder and turn to my laptop. My inbox is a graveyard of "thank you" notes and frantic questions about lost passports. Then, a subject line catches the light.
RE: Global Initiative - Director of Expansion.
My mouse hovers. This is the unicorn. HQ doesn't just hand these out. I click, and the screen fills with words like pioneer, cross-continental, and strategic leadership. It’s a three-year contract.
London, Tokyo, then a hub in Buenos Aires.
It’s the highest rung on a ladder I’ve been climbing until my shins bled.
I lean back, the springs of my chair groaning in the quiet room. I wait for the familiar rush. The adrenaline that usually kicks in when I think about a fresh passport and a new city where nobody knows my name. I wait for the grin that should be stretching across my face.
It doesn't come.
Instead, my chest feels like it’s been packed with wet sand. I read the salary—it’s more than I’ve ever seen—and then I read the travel requirements. Eighty percent global mobility. In the past, that phrase sounded like freedom. Now, it sounds like a sentence.
I gaze at the empty chair across from my desk where Baleigh sat yesterday, her eyes rimmed with red, her hands trembling as she tried to make sense of a world that didn't end in North Carolina. I think of Max’s quiet intensity in the hall and the way Atticus looks at the three of us when he thinks we aren't watching.
The "Director of Expansion" doesn't have a home. He has a suite of luggage and a collection of loyalty points. He's the guy who solves everyone else's disasters while his own life sits in a storage unit in New Jersey.
I gaze at the blue "Reply" button. The cursor blinks, a rhythmic, taunting heartbeat. This is success. This is everything I told myself I wanted when I was twenty-five and hungry for the horizon. So why does looking at it feel like watching a door slam shut?
The heavy wooden door of the institute clicks shut behind me, the sound echoing in the vaulted corridor. I don't go toward the residence. I head for the river.
Florence is a city of echoes, and today, they’re deafening. I cross the Piazza della Signoria, weaving through the selfie-sticks and the frantic tour groups. Usually, I move through this crowd like a ghost, untouchable and unbothered. Today, every corner is a landmine.
I pass the gelateria where Baleigh first tasted stracciatella and looked at me like I’d handed her the keys to the kingdom.
I walk by the stone bench where Max and I stood last week, our conversation about her shifting from a professional courtesy to a confession of shared weight.
I even find myself looking toward the shadowed alleyways, half-expecting to see Atticus crouched with his Leica, capturing the light as it hits the rooftops.
Movement used to be my armor. If I kept walking, kept flying, kept planning the next semester, I didn't have to notice the silence waiting at the end of every trip. Now, the map is bleeding. I can’t look at the Duomo without seeing it through her eyes.
I can’t think of a quiet dinner without picturing the four of us, a strange, impossible constellation that finally feels like a foundation.
I find a tiny table at a café in a piazza even the tourists haven't bled dry yet. The waiter sets down a tiny cup of espresso, the crema thick and dark. I don't touch it.
I lean my head back against the warm stone wall.
My life is a series of well-executed exits.
I’m the guy who packs his bags before the lease is up.
I’ve traded birthdays, funerals, and potentially life-long friendships for the high of a new departure gate.
It was a fair trade—or I tried to tell myself it was.
I traded the messy, rooted complications of staying for the clean, sharp edges of leaving.
But looking at that job offer in my head, I realize I’ve been building a life out of paper.
One good gust of wind and it all scatters.
The thought of another airport lounge makes my stomach turn.
I’ve spent fifteen years hunting for the next horizon, only to realize I’ve finally found something I’m terrified to leave behind.
The espresso grows cold. I realize I’m not planning an exit strategy. I’m wondering how the hell to stay.
The sun is a dying ember over the Arno when I head back to the office to help Max finalize the student travel manifests.
He’s at his desk, the yellow glow of a reading lamp carving deep shadows into his face.
He looks exactly like what he is—a man of substance—and for once, I don’t feel like I can match his weight with a well-timed joke.
I drop the printout of the job offer onto a stack of grading rubrics. The paper slides across the mahogany. Max pauses, his pen hovering mid-air. He doesn’t rush to pick it up. He finishes his sentence, caps his pen, and then adjusts his glasses.
When he finally leans forward to read, I watch his jaw tighten.
"Director of Expansion," he says, the title sounding heavier in his deep baritone. "London, Tokyo, Buenos Aires. It’s a significant leap, Amos. Very few people in the field get this tap on the shoulder."
I should feel a swell of pride. I should be mentally calculating my housing allowance in Shinjuku.
Instead, I’m visualizing the six-thousand-mile gap between a high-rise in Tokyo and a morning coffee with Baleigh.
I see a life of filtered sunlight through airplane windows and the hollow echo of luxury hotel rooms. I see myself checking my watch in a different time zone, calculating if she's awake, if she’s with him, or if she’s with Atticus, while I’m nothing but a digitized voice on a screen.
The "old" Amos would have been halfway to the airport already. But that guy didn’t know what it felt like to be part of a set. He didn't know that success could look like staying put.
"The board wants an answer by Friday," I say, voice sounding thin against the stone walls. "It’s everything I told them I wanted during my last review. The prestige, the travel—it's the golden ticket."
Max doesn't offer the expected handshake or a celebratory drink. He leans back, his eyes studying me with that quiet, academic precision that always feels like he’s reading my soul instead of my face.
"You’ve spent your life collecting horizons, Amos," he says softly.
He taps the paper with a blunt finger.
"But I’m not asking about the prestige. Do you actually want it? Do you want to be there, or do you just want to have been chosen?"
The resulting silence isn't comfortable. It’s a vacuum. I see the names on the student manifest—Butler, Baleigh—and I realize I have no idea how to answer a question that simple.
The church bells of Florence don’t just ring; they vibrate through the bottoms of my shoes, a heavy, rhythmic tolling that marks the death of another day.
I’m standing on the balcony of the institute, the Arno snaking through the city like a vein of liquid gold under the deep navy of the twilight sky.
The air carries the scent of roasting garlic and ancient dust.
I pull my phone from my pocket. The screen is a harsh, clinical white in the gloom.
The "Accept" button for the Director position is right there. One thumb-press and I’m a ghost again. I’m the man in the sleek suit, disappearing into the silver belly of a Boeing 747, untouchable and untethered.
It’s the life I’ve perfected. No roots to pull, no hearts to break.
No broken hearts on this side, either.
I look out over the rooftops, toward the direction of Baleigh’s apartment.
I think about the way she looks when she’s frustrated, a tiny crease forming between her eyebrows that only disappears when she finally laughs.
I think about the strange, quiet brotherhood I’ve formed with Max and Atticus—men I should have seen as rivals, but who instead became the only mirrors I’ve ever recognized myself in.
I’ve spent fifteen years running away from the terror of being known.
The wind picks up, cooling the sweat on my neck.
In every other city, this was the moment I started mentally packing.
I’d be checking the weight of my suitcase and confirming my car to the airport.
I’d be thinking about the next skyline. But as I look at the Duomo, its massive dome anchored to the earth by sheer force of will, the thought of leaving feels like a physical ache in my marrow.
I’ve finally found it. The thing I pretended didn’t exist.
I don’t want a new horizon. I want the sunset I’ve already got, shared with the people who actually see me. I want the chaos of staying. I want the laundry, the arguments, and the terrifying beauty of being someone’s first choice.
I lock the screen, the blue light vanishing into the dark. I don't delete the email, but I don't reply either. I just lean against the stone railing, watching the lights of the city flicker on one by one, and I don't feel like I'm standing in a waiting room.