19. Cyaire #4
Cameron waits beside the rental SUV parked behind us, giving us as much privacy as the driveway allows. Jasper is already on his way to Boeing Field, and the pilot is preparing the plane.
Everything is ready. I am the only one who is not.
Jamie turns toward me and for several long seconds neither of us speaks. The porch light catches the planes of his face, the tiredness sitting quietly beneath his eyes, the emotion he has held together all day because one of us needed to remain steady.
I step closer and take his face between my hands, his skin warm against my palms. “I don’t want you wondering.”
His brows draw together, a small crease forming between them. “Wondering what?”
“Whether this is real to me.” My thumbs move slowly across his cheekbones as I search for the courage to say the words that have lived inside me for longer than I have been willing to admit.
“Whether distance changes any of it. Whether I’m going to get on that plane and decide this was only something we did for the summer.
Something convenient and temporary that we dressed up as something more. ”
“Blue, you know that I—”
“I love you,” I confess. The words leaving me breathless, though the truth itself feels easier than holding it back ever did.
Jamie closes his eyes for a moment, leaning into my hands as though he needs the contact to keep himself standing. When he looks at me again, the emotion in his expression is unguarded in a way I have rarely seen from him, and it nearly breaks me entirely.
“I love you too,” he says, the words accompanied by a smile that reaches every part of his face.
A sound catches in my throat, somewhere between a laugh and a sob, and then he pulls me against him.
The kiss begins softly, our lips move together with none of the urgency that has defined so many of our moments this summer.
There is nothing left to claim or prove between us.
I hold him because I love him, and he holds me because he loves me back, and for a moment the rest of the world cease to exist entirely.
When we finally separate, Jamie keeps his forehead pressed against mine, neither of us quite willing to create the distance just yet.
“Communication is all we have now,” he says quietly. “So we use it.”
I nod against him.
“We call. We text. We video chat at ridiculous hours across time zones. We make the time for each other, Blue. I don’t want us getting so buried in our schedules and our jobs that we forget what we’re actually protecting.”
His hand moves from my waist to rest gently against my cheek, his thumb brushing the line of my jaw.
“Never,” he says, without a moment of hesitation. “We won’t let the distance eat away at what we’ve built here.”
I lean in and kiss him one last time, slow and deliberate, trying to memorize the particular weight of it before I pull back and rest my forehead against his for just a breath longer.
“I’m walking away,” I tell him quietly, with conviction in every syllable, “but only to come back to you. I promise.”
That promise follows us all the way to Boeing Field.
Jamie drives with our hands clasped between us while Cameron follows in the rental SUV.
By the time we arrive, Jasper is standing near the entrance with his phone pressed to his ear. He gives us a sympathetic glance before turning away and allowing the conversation to end without interruption.
Cameron retrieves my suitcase and carries it toward the plane while Jamie and I remain beside the SUV.
The engines are already running and I know from now on I will despise the sound.
Jamie reaches for me without hesitation, his hand rests against the back of my neck as he pulls me into one final kiss. I cling to him, trying to imprint the feeling of him in my arms because I already know it won’t be enough.
When we finally pull apart, he rests his forehead against mine for the briefest moment before reluctantly letting me go.
“You should go,” he says quietly. “Before I find a way to keep you here.”
I smile through the pressure building behind my eyes before taking a reluctant step backward.
Every step toward the plane feels wrong, like I’m losing a piece of myself as the distance between us grows.
Cameron waits at the top of the stairs, holding the cabin door open until I reach him. I pause just inside the doorway and look back.
Jamie is exactly where I left him, one hand resting against the open driver’s door of the SUV, his eyes fixed on mine.
I lift my hand and he lifts his in return, then I step inside.
Once the door closes, I take the seat beside the window and press my palm to the glass as the plane begins to taxi. The terminal lights move past in slow streaks while I search the tarmac until I find Jamie again, still standing exactly where I left him.
He grows smaller as the plane turns toward the runway, yet I keep my eyes on him until distance and darkness finally take him from view.
The engines surge, pressing me back into my seat as Seattle falls away beneath us.
I have spent years flying from one city to another without ever feeling as though I was leaving anything behind.
Tonight, I leave my heart.