Chapter 46
Forty-Six
Piper
Griffin closes the trunk with a soft thud. It feels final in a way I’m not ready to deal with. The morning air is cool—too cool for August—and the hotel parking lot is quiet except for a distant highway and the wheels of someone hauling luggage across the asphalt.
Everything we have is in the car. We’re leaving.
I knew this day was coming from the moment I got into the Camaro outside the church. I knew this road had an end. Through gas stations, coffee shops, the county fair, and the festival—through every night and every morning—I knew.
You can’t run forever.
I knew that, too.
I stand by the passenger door and look at the town.
Griffin walks toward me with his keys in hand, jaw tight and shoulders tense. He’s trying to keep himself composed, like he always does when something matters too much.
The excitement from the phone call earlier burned off fast. Now there’s only a pit sitting in my stomach. It’s a heavy, sinking feeling I’ve been bracing for since the moment we checked into the hotel.
I’m glad I don’t have my phone. I know myself too well. I’d scroll every comment, every share, every tagged repost, and spiral straight into a panic attack. So instead, I shove my hands into my jacket pockets and try to pretend I’m okay.
I make a joke because I don’t know what else to do. “Well, at least if I ruin my life, I’ll be famous when I do it.”
It comes out light, but my voice doesn’t match my eyes.
Griffin hears it. He always hears it.
He steps closer and looks at me. “Don’t,” he pleads.
“I’m not doing anything.”
“Piper.”
“I’m fine.” I gesture at the car and the road. “End of the trip. Normal stuff.”
“Stop.”
I stop.
“I don’t want you to go back,” Griffin says.
It lands with the weight of absolute truth, hitting the part of my chest that has no armor left.
“Does that make me a selfish bastard?” he asks. “Wanting to keep you here?”
I shake my head hard and scrub a tear from my cheek before it has the chance to fall.
“No,” I whisper. “It doesn’t.”
His jaw works as his eyes close for half a second. When he opens them again, there’s something raw there. Something I’ve been ignoring because facing it means the day gets harder.
Two weeks ago, I was on the bathroom floor, pressing my palms against a door in a white veil, trying to remember which version of myself I was supposed to be performing. I spent years becoming someone I didn’t recognize when I looked in the mirror.
I recognize myself now.
That happened here. It wasn’t one single moment; it was the accumulation of small things.
It was Griffin handing me coffee before I was ready to talk.
It was him showing up outside a church and saying, “Get in, runaway.” He didn’t require anything from me except honesty.
Somewhere between the county fair and the festival, I found the thread back to myself, and I followed it.
I found my way home.
He looked at me like I was worth holding onto.
What he did for me?
What he was for me?
I don’t even have a proper name for it.
Life-changing feels too small.
And now the last day is here, and there’s that awful childhood feeling of the carnival shutting down.
The music stops, the lights go out, and you cling to the last minutes because you know when it ends, you go back to real life.
To bills. To work. To grown-up problems and responsibilities waiting like a cold bucket of water.
I need to find work.
I need to find a place to live.
I need to untangle the mess I left behind.
And Griffin? He bought into a firm. He has projects waiting. People waiting. Deadlines waiting. He put everything off for this trip because he couldn’t bear to leave me.
My chest aches so much it’s hard to breathe.
He steps closer, hands sliding to my waist, eyes searching mine like he wants to memorize the whole shape of me.
Then he kisses me.
It’s a kiss with finality threaded through every second.
A last-one-before-the-end kiss.
A kiss that feels like him saying everything he can’t find the words for.
My hands curl in the front of his shirt, and I pull him closer because if I think too long about goodbye, I’ll crack open.
When he finally pulls away, he rests his forehead against mine. Our breaths mix. His hands stay firm on my waist like he’s anchoring himself there.
“When you go back today,” he says, “I want you to remember something, okay?”
I nod.
“Promise me, Piper.”
“I promise.” My voice cracks, but I don’t try to fix it.
He lifts one hand to my cheek, thumb brushing away the tear I tried to hide. “You are a fucking force in this world. Don’t ever let anyone take that away from you again.”
I press my lips together and nod, feeling those words move through me, displacing the places where Ezra’s voice used to live.
Not anymore, I think.
I press up on my tiptoes and kiss him one last time.
Another tear slips, but I don’t hate it because he’s the first person who’s said something like that and made me believe it.
I sob through a laugh. “Gerald is getting hot in the car.”
He laughs, holding my face for one beat longer. Then his hands drop. He steps back and speaks in that voice that has become the most familiar sound in my life. “Come on, violin girl. Let’s get you home.”
And just like that, the carnival lights go out, the road waits, and I follow him to the car, wishing the trip could last one more day.