Chapter 35
I WORKSHOPPED IT ON THE DRIVE OVER.
DARCY
The email comes on Friday morning.
It’s Martin. My boss. Well, technically still my boss, since I never formally resigned.
I took an extended leave that we both knew was me running away but were too polite to call it that.
He needs me in Toronto next Wednesday for a meeting with a client I used to manage, but I have to be there Tuesday to prep, and then on Thursday to discuss my future at the company.
Just a few days, he writes. We’ll get you in and out. It would mean a lot to the team.
I read it three times, each time hoping it’ll say something different.
My thumbs hover over the keyboard, though I don’t type anything.
Instead, I set my phone on the counter and go about my morning, pretending I didn’t see it.
I make coffee. I check the grill. I stand on the back deck and look at the water and try to remember what my apartment in Toronto looks like.
The fact I can’t quite picture it is… troubling.
Billie shows up around six with takeout from the fish and chip place in town and a story about one of her crew members getting into an argument with a seagull she insists is “not funny but also the funniest thing I’ve ever seen.
” She’s mid-reenactment—arms flailing, sound effects included—when she notices I’m not laughing.
“What?” She lowers her arms. “The seagull part was funny. I workshopped it on the drive over.”
“No, it was. That was funny. The seagull thing.” I rub the back of my neck. “I got an email from work today. They need me in Toronto for a few days. A couple of meetings.”
Disappointment crosses her face. It’s fast—fast enough that, if I wasn’t already tuned to every micro-expression this woman makes, I would’ve missed it entirely. A flicker. A blink-and-you’d-miss-it tightening around her eyes.
Then it’s gone, replaced by something carefully neutral.
“Oh, yeah. Of course. When do you leave?”
“Monday. I’ll be back by Sunday, maybe Saturday.”
“Cool.” She opens the takeout bag on the counter and starts pulling containers out like we’re still having a normal Friday night. “That makes sense. You’ve been here a while, and they probably need you for stuff. And, hey, you’ll miss the worst of my PMDD week, so lucky you.”
She’s doing the thing. The thing where she acts like nothing touches her, like she’s built for easy goodbyes, like she could take or leave any of this.
I’ve watched her do it with other people—a casual shrug, a change of subject, a joke that directs attention away from whatever she’s feeling.
It’s a magic trick, and she’s good at it.
But I see it now. Her hands move a little too quickly as she opens the containers.
She doesn’t look at me. She said cool like it was a complete sentence, which it never is with her.
Billie doesn’t do one-word answers. Billie does paragraphs.
Run-on sentences. Thoughts that start in one place and end up somewhere entirely different, yet somehow still make perfect sense.
Cool means she’s holding something in.
“It’s just a few days.” Even as the words come out, I know they’re not for her. They’re for me. Because the thought of getting on a plane and leaving this kitchen and this woman and this version of my life—even temporarily— is making my heart beat hard enough to crack a rib.
“Darcy.” Ouch. Last name. She looks at me, finally, and her smile is convincing enough that anyone else would buy it. “It’s fine. Go do your thing. I’ll be here.”
I’ll be here. She says it as a throwaway line, but I catch it. I hold onto it. I turn it over in my head long after we’ve eaten and she’s gone home and I’m lying in bed staring at the ceiling.
I’ll be here.
She’ll be here. But for how long? And in what capacity? Because I know what I want—I know it with a clarity that should scare me—and I also know Elizabeth Cameron has built her entire life around not needing anyone to stay.
And I’m about to get on a plane and prove her right.
I’m sitting at the gate with my bag at my feet and my phone in my hand. I’ve typed and deleted four texts to Billie in the last ten minutes. Everything I want to say is either too much or not enough.
Miss you already. Too eager.
I’ll call when I land. Too domestic.
This is stupid, I don’t want to go. Too honest.
I settle on:
Left a key under the mat if you need anything at the house.
Her reply comes faster than I expect.
Beth:
Bold move leaving a key for a woman who literally locked herself out of her own car last week.
Then, a second later:
Thanks, Peter.
I stare at the screen, willing her to say something else.
Something that tells me she’s feeling even a fraction of what I’m feeling.
But that’s not her. She gives you exactly what she can in the moment and not a syllable more.
If you’re patient enough, the rest comes later, in small, unexpected ways that mean more than any grand declaration or gesture ever could.
The gate agent calls my zone, and I stand, slinging my bag over my shoulder. Through the window, the late-afternoon sun is doing that thing it does in Nova Scotia—painting everything pink, purple, and gold, making the whole world look like a place worth staying in.
I board the plane. I take my seat. I put my earbuds in and pull up the playlist I’ve been listening to all summer, and every single song reminds me of her.
Somewhere over New Brunswick, I stop pretending this is temporary.