Chapter 27
ALICE
Iclose my car door and step onto the street, surveying the bars, closed businesses, and condos down the block. According to Google Maps, the address Oscar gave me is for an event space.
A dark event space, apparently.
Did he give me the right address? I double check the card. Double check the address next to the door. They’re both right, though this place looks closed.
Walking up the steps, I smooth my hair and straighten my dress. It’s embarrassing how much time I spent picking out something to wear. I wanted to look good – good enough to make Oscar regret ever letting me go – but also like I’m not trying too hard.
I’d thought the outfit was perfect, but now that I’m here I’m questioning everything from the midi dress with bell sleeves to the tiny gold hoops in my ears. Maybe I should have worn jeans and a sweatshirt. Show him I really don’t give a damn.
At the door, I peek closer at a window and discover the blinds are tightly closed. If there is any light inside, it’s not escaping the building anytime soon.
“Here goes nothing,” I mutter to myself as I knock.
A long moment passes, during which my heart threatens to climb its way up my throat. It’s long enough that I consider turning around, getting back in my car, and driving away.
I might do it too, except the door opens, and there Oscar is, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, his black hair tousled, his woodsy scent washing over me. My knees tremble, and it takes all my strength to stay standing up straight.
“Hey,” he says, stepping aside to let me in.
“Hey,” I echo, my voice barely audible.
I step past him into the building, and as soon as he closes the door behind us, I understand why the space looked abandoned from the outside.
The windows are blacked out — covered meticulously with thick black curtains and what looks like taped-up craft paper, blocking even the smallest cracks of outside light. But the space isn’t dark. Not really.
Battery-operated candles flicker from nearly every surface — lining the floorboards, tucked into the deep windowsills, clustered in corners, glowing on the edge of the stairs. The golden light casts long, gentle shadows across the open space, softening every edge. It’s warm. Dreamlike.
But none of that is what takes my breath away.
It’s the photos.
Hundreds of them.
They hang from the ceiling on invisible threads, gently swaying like leaves in a breeze I can’t feel. Photos of me and Oscar. From college.
For a moment I don’t move. I just stand here, stunned, while time collapses around me.
My hand lifts slowly as I reach for the nearest photo. In it, I’m sitting on a bench with a notebook in my lap, mouth open mid-laugh, Oscar a few feet away, his face turned toward me.
The next photo is at his parents’ house — I remember that lawn chair.
We’re crammed into it together, limbs tangled, laughing like we hadn’t yet learned how badly life could hurt.
Then there’s one of us passed out in the campus library, heads leaning together, books scattered across our laps.
One more shows us with friends at a basketball game, half the frame blurry, my face turned toward his like he’s the only thing I can see.
I take a few steps deeper into the room. The photos move around me, brushing against my arms, my hair, the tops of my shoulders. It feels like walking through the long green drapes of a weeping willow. Quiet. Surreal. Sacred.
I forgot these moments. Or maybe I buried them so deeply that they stopped feeling real.
Oscar’s voice breaks the silence, soft and reverent. “Sydney told me you tried to burn your copies.”
I flinch slightly but don’t turn around.
“She said you couldn’t stand to look at them anymore.”
My throat tightens, and I nod, barely.
“I couldn’t,” I whisper. “It hurt too much.”
He walks up beside me but doesn’t touch me. “I kept mine,” he says. “All of them. Every single one.”
I close my eyes, fighting a fresh rush of emotion. Of course he did. Of course he kept them.
Tears sting the corners of my eyes before I can stop them. I swipe at them quickly with the edge of my sleeve, because I don’t want him to see. I’m not ready for him to see.
“They meant something to me, Alice,” he says. “They still do.”
My eyes drift over another photo — us sitting on the floor of my dorm room, surrounded by ramen cups and printouts of a failed group project. I’d forgotten how messy and beautiful we were back then.
“I didn’t think you remembered any of this,” I murmur.
“I remembered everything,” he says. “Even the things I tried not to.”
He gestures toward the center of the room where a large picnic blanket has been laid out on the hardwood floor. A wooden tray holds two glasses of sparkling water, small dishes of olives and soft cheeses, and a small box tied with string. Truffles, maybe, or something like that.
I hesitate for a breath, still caught in the tangle of hanging memories, before walking slowly to the blanket. We sit down across from each other, the candles flickering around us like fireflies frozen in time.
He lets a quiet moment settle between us before he speaks again.
“I meant what I said,” he begins. “About Rooted Pantry. I want you back. Not as COO. Not as my employee. As my partner. My equal. You were always the soul of that company, Alice.”
I shake my head slowly, a faint smile ghosting across my lips. “You just liked it when I argued with you.”
His smile returns, crooked and boyish. “I still do.”
But then it fades, replaced with something deeper — raw and completely unguarded.
“That’s not all I want,” he says, voice steady but low. “I don’t just want you as a business partner.”
I blink, watching him closely, heart hammering in my chest.
“I want to be your partner in life,” he continues.
“I love you. I know it’s messy. I know I messed up.
But I love you, and I want to do this – for real this time.
I want to be your boyfriend. I want to take you on actual dates.
I want to argue with you over which route to take and what TV show to watch. I want it all.”
The words hit me like a rush of wind to the chest. My breath catches.
“I know I broke your trust,” he says. “But I swear to you, I’ve never stopped loving you. Not for one second.”
I stare at him, trying to find the catch. The too-good-to-be-true. But there’s nothing in his face except truth. And hope. And a little fear.
It’s a mirror, a perfect replica of everything that I’m feeling inside of myself.
“I love you too,” I say, voice trembling, and I can feel the walls inside me give way, finally, all at once.
And just like that, everything shifts.
He moves toward me, slowly, and I meet him halfway. The kiss is soft and careful, like we’re rediscovering each other. But it builds into something certain, something warm, something that tastes like forgiveness and feels like a first breath after drowning.
We kiss on the blanket, surrounded by flickering light and the silent company of our memories.
And just like that, I know that, yes, this is the end of one story.
But it’s also the beginning of a whole new one.