Cecilia – Twenty-seven
The airport was colder than I remembered and it was too bright, too polished.
Nate and Rae had gone ahead while we were still crossing the car park. Rae had sleepily hugged my legs, her curls smelling of shampoo and strawberries, and Nate had given Theo a look that said more than words ever could. A nod. A clap to the shoulder. A shared understanding I couldn’t read.
He’d then said he’d meet his brother by the gate and gave me a hug goodbye too, promising that he’d see me again soon.
Siena had offered to wait in the car. “Take your time,” she’d said, gently squeezing my arm. She knew how I was feeling. Even without all the details, she always knew.
Now it was just me and Theo. Both of us walking toward the gate like we weren’t carrying a thousand unsaid things between us.
He was wheeling his small suitcase beside him, our fingers loosely linked, the rhythm of our steps slow and reluctant. I’d never realised how loud airports were until I tried to hold onto a quiet moment in one .
I watched him out of the corner of my eye — the crease between his brows, the way his jaw flexed every few seconds. He looked calm, but I knew him again now. I knew what tension looked like in his body. I knew the way he carried it — tight across his shoulders, silent in his throat.
He was holding it in. Just like me. Neither of us wanted to say goodbye, not after everything we had just shared with one another.
I wanted to say something — a joke, a story, anything to fill the silence. But nothing felt right.
So, I looked instead. Tried to memorise him. I knew I wouldn’t forget him, but what if he looked different again the next time I saw him.
The slope of his nose, the dark stubble across his jaw, the soft line of his mouth that had kissed me over and over this week like I was something he never thought he’d have again.
He looked over at me then. Caught me watching him.
“What?” he asked, his voice a low murmur, his eyes searching my face for answers, clues to his question.
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Just... looking.”
He squeezed my hand but didn’t press me further.
We reached the departure gate sooner than I wanted. The overhead board blinked out his flight number, glaring in fluorescent confirmation of what I already knew. He really was leaving.
We stepped to the side, out of the way of the other passengers. I wasn’t ready. Not yet .
Theo set his suitcase down and turned to face me, sliding his hands into mine. His thumb traced slow, absent circles over my knuckles.
We didn’t speak at first. We’d said everything we could say already — and all the things we couldn’t hovered like static in the air between us.
I wasn’t ready to let go of this feeling that had been rapidly growing between us. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be. I thought I would be ok on my own, that I needed to be on my own, but now maybe that wasn’t true.
The last week had felt like something out of a dream — slow mornings and messy croissants, sea salt on our skin, his voice in my ear as I drifted off to sleep.
He made me laugh like I used to, something I had forgotten. It was as if he made me feel like the best version of myself — the one I’d almost forgotten existed. He swooped back into my life and found all the parts I had wanted to remember, all the joy that so easily came out around him.
With him, things felt so perfect and I wasn’t naive to believe they always would be, but I knew everything would always be right with him.
Right in that bone-deep, quiet way. Like slipping into warm sheets. Like a song you forgot you knew all the words to.
“I’ll message you when I get to the next place,” I said. My voice wobbled despite how hard I tried to sound steady. “I’ll send you every stupid photo I take, even if it’s blurry. Every train delay that happens, I’ll update you. Every terrible espresso I consume, I’ll take a photo. ”
“Good.” He smiled — that small, lopsided smile I’d fallen stupidly in love with. “I want all of it.”
I swallowed. Looked down at our joined hands. “You really have to go, don’t you?”
He exhaled. “You know I do.”
I nodded. Because I did. He had business meetings that he couldn’t reschedule, a whole life back home that needed to be organised. I knew it the moment he told me about the flight that we couldn’t delay the inevitable. But that didn’t make it easier.
I wasn’t even sure if when he told me ten days ago that I thought it was going to be easy to say goodbye. I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed our friendship and him.
He leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to my lips — careful, like he thought anything more might undo me. And maybe it would have, but I didn’t care. He had already consumed me.
I looked up at him again and went to step back, turning slightly toward the gate, yet he stopped me.
His hand wrapped around my wrist, pulling me gently but firmly back into him.
And then he kissed me.
Really kissed me.
Not soft. Not sweet. But desperate. Deep. Like he didn’t know how to say goodbye any other way.
The kind of kiss that folded time in on itself. That made me forget where we were. How many people were walking by.
Everything narrowed down to the feel of his mouth on mine and the sharp, exquisite ache rising in my chest .
When we finally broke apart, I couldn’t breathe. He’d taken all the air from my lungs.
His forehead rested against mine. His voice was low and wrecked. “Walking into that bar and seeing you again… that’s the greatest thing I’ve done in the last six years.”
My eyes blurred. “I’ll call you, okay? I promise I’ll call.”
He nodded, his eyes searching mine like he was trying to memorise me too. “I promise I’ll answer, every time you call, no matter what.”
His hand came up, brushing a tear from my cheek. “Finish this trip, for you. Find yourself. Love yourself. You never got the chance. This is why you and Siena wanted to do this.”
That nearly undid me.
I cupped his face in both hands, holding him like it might make time slow down. Like maybe, if I held him tightly enough, we wouldn’t have to say goodbye at all.
He kissed my palm. Softly. Reverently.
“I’ll still be waiting for you when you get back.”
“Promise?”
He smiled. A real one, even if it broke my heart. “I waited six years for another chance with you. I’d wait six more if it meant you’d be mine.”
I kissed him again. Slow. Aching. Final. And then I let him go.
“Go catch your flight, Finch,” I smiled, swiping the last few tears from my cheeks.
I wasn’t sure why I was crying so much because I wasn’t sad, not really. I was overwhelmingly happy for the first time because we had something that felt so special – something not everyone got the chance to have.
I watched him walk toward the gate, shoulders square, hands clenched at his sides like he was trying not to turn back around and reach for me with everything inside of him.
He paused before he turned the corner and glanced back, giving me one final wide grin.
I smiled back and gave him a small wave, before I turned around and made my way towards the exit; my feet moving for me on autopilot. I didn’t trust myself not to run through the gate after him and buy a last-minute ticket, just so I could spend a few more minutes in his company.
I’d chase him all the way back to England.
But I couldn’t do that. Not yet. Like Theo said, there was still so much about this trip that was for me, but also for Siena and I’s friendship. There was so much we still wanted to see and experience.
I still wanted to take a cliché photo beside the leaning tower of Pisa, eat cannoli and tiramisu until I was stuffed, visit Capri, among everything else we had planned.
But I also was desperate to be on my own and prove to myself that I could enjoy my own company and discover all the parts of myself that I thought had been lost.
I was looking forward to being myself again more than anything.
My phone buzzed with an incoming text from Siena detailing where she was parked so I could locate her. She’d been – as usual – the best friend in the entire world by coming to get me, so I could have the final car ride with Theo to the airport .
I stared at the screen for a second longer, then opened the notes app.
July 27 – France (Theo specifically) Things I won’t forget:
The way he kissed me like I was oxygen. Almond croissants at sunrise. His voice in the dark. What it felt like to be chosen, every day, even without the words.
I didn’t need him to say he loved me to know it was there. I could feel it — sitting quietly between us like a secret we both refused to name.
But still, as I pushed open the exit door of the airport and was basked in direct sunlight once again, one thought wouldn’t leave me:
Why didn’t he say he loved me, when it seemed so clear in his actions and words. And why didn’t I say it too when the feeling consumed every aspect of my very being.
Once again, I hadn’t said what was on my mind, just like after our first kiss all those years ago. But a part of me couldn’t do it – not here. I didn’t want it to seem like a goodbye or just because he was leaving, I wanted him to know that I meant it.
I spotted the hire car and Siena’s red hair catching in the light breeze through the open window .
She didn’t say anything when I slid into the passenger seat. She just reached over and turned the music down that was blaring from the radio, until it became a soft melody in the background.
The air-conditioning hummed softly, but the rest of the world felt distant. Like I was still somewhere inside the airport. Inside that moment. Inside his arms.
We pulled out slowly, the car crawling through the maze of parked vehicles. She glanced sideways at me, her brows drawn just enough to show she was thinking about me but not pushing for information.
After a few quiet turns, she asked, “You, okay?”
I nodded too quickly. “Yeah. I mean... I will be.”
Her lips pressed together. “Did he say anything?”
I looked out the window, watched the lines on the road blur beneath us. “He said he’d wait for me.”
“Do you believe him?”
I hesitated for the briefest of moments and then the image of his face as he said it popped back into my mind. I nodded at her. “Yeah. I do.”
We drove for a few more minutes. Then, softly, Siena said, “I think that man loves you.”
I didn’t answer. I couldn’t. My throat had closed up again.
Because I thought so too.
And it was okay that neither of us had said it yet. Maybe loving someone didn’t always start with the words. Maybe it started with moments. With choosing each other exactly as we were. With croissants and dancing in the street and quiet mornings in bed .
With letting each other go, even when it hurt like hell.
I leaned my head back against the seat, the ache behind my eyes blooming into something sharp.
Outside the window, France blurred past in gentle, indifferent shapes — sun-drenched and steady, like nothing had shifted at all. But it felt as if everything had.
I didn’t know what came next. Couldn’t see beyond the next two months or what we’d be to each other on the other side of them.
But I knew how it felt to be met where I was. To be held, known, and seen in a way that didn’t demand anything more than honesty. And I’d never had that before — not like this.
He made a promise to me and I had made a promise to myself. It wasn’t the perfect ending yet.
But it was real. And for now, that mattered more than anything.