Chapter 14
I got to the terrace twenty minutes early. I told myself it was because the tram ran fast, but I'd left the apartment before I knew what to do with my hands.
The night looked the same as the night we'd started from. Same warm key light spilling out from the bar, same bokeh of white and amber across the marina, same railing, same smell of salt and fryer oil. The city hadn't changed its lighting for us. That helped. My breathing slowed a little once I was actually standing on the stone.
I didn't go to the bar. I stood near the low wall where the terrace dropped toward the transit pull-through, where taxis and the late shuttle idled. The stone was still holding the day's heat under my shoes. I had my hands in my pockets, then out, then I crossed my arms. The gold chain felt tight against my collar. I kept checking the corner where the street fed into the terrace, then making myself look away.
Her message had been short. En route. Meet where we said goodbye if you still want to. I hadn't answered with anything clever. I'd said I'm there.
A car door slammed somewhere below. I heard wheels before I saw anything. Not car wheels. Small hard wheels on stone, stuttering over the seams. That sound cut through the bar murmur and the water slapping the hulls.
I looked down toward the transit lane and saw it first.
The patterned rolling luggage. Same light wheels, same scuffed corner I'd stared at while trying not to cry the first time. It was moving alone for a second before the hand pulling it came into view around the corner of the railing. Someone had tied a little dark ribbon to the handle since I'd last seen it. I hadn't noticed that before, or maybe she hadn't tied it before.
I didn't see Amber yet. Just the suitcase catching the terrace light, rolling over the midnight stone, wobbling a little where the pavement wasn't level. My chest did something stupid and tight. I remembered how it had sat behind us while I'd held her face, a signal that she was leaving. Now it was coming toward me.
Then she was there.
She came around the corner pulling it, hair pulled back tight the same way, pink top under a thin jacket she hadn't been wearing that first night. She was scanning the terrace, not looking right at me yet. The silver hoop caught the light when she turned her head. She looked tired in the way travel makes you tired, not broken. She had one hand on the handle, the other holding the jacket closed at her throat.
She hadn't seen me. She looked past me toward the bar stools, toward our old spot, and for two seconds I got to just watch her look for me. I didn't call out. I wanted her to find me herself.
Then she did.
Her eyes lifted and caught mine across maybe fifteen feet of stone and empty tables. The same distance the camera had once held between us, but now there was no lens. Just air and light and that luggage between us.
We held it. I felt the same slow eye movement from that night come back without me trying. My breathing got shallow again. Her mouth parted a little, not a smile, not yet. Tears were already there. I could see them even at that distance because the key light hit her cheek the same way it had before. My own eyes stung. I didn't wipe at them.
She stopped walking. The suitcase stopped with her. The wheels ticked once more and went still.
Nobody moved on the terrace. A bartender inside kept wiping a glass, glancing out. Two people at a high table kept talking low. But the lane we were in went quiet.
Amber let go of the jacket. Her hand dropped to her side, then flexed. I took a step forward. She took one too, pulling the luggage with her, then she seemed to decide the luggage should stay. She let go of the handle and left it standing there on the stone, centered between the railing and the tables like a marker.
We closed the distance in small steps, not rushing. I could see the micro-expressions now, the way her chin tightened before she could stop it, the way my beard must have been catching the light the way it had when I'd been crying in extreme close-up. When we were close enough I could see the gloss on her lips and the tear track forming, same as before.
We stopped a foot apart. Same place we'd stood, but flipped. Last time we'd been saying goodbye for a few days and pretending it wasn't big. Now the few days had happened and stretched and gone quiet and brought us back here.
She looked up at me. I looked down at her. No one had said anything yet. I could hear her breathing, and then I could hear mine matching it without me meaning to. The tears that had been waiting the whole walk finally spilled for both of us at the same time, slow, restrained.
I lifted my hands a little, not sure if I should cup her face again like I had that night. She gave a tiny nod, barely there, and I did. My palms found her neck and jaw, warm from the travel, damp at the edge. Her hands came up to my wrists, not pulling, just holding on.
May you like
We were face to face again, tearful again, the marina lights flickering behind us on the water. Only this time the luggage was behind her, not between us as a future, but as something she'd brought back and chosen to set down.
She swallowed. I felt her throat move under my hands.
