Page 29 of After the Snap

“I’ll text you the flight information as soon as it’s booked. Pack a suitcase, meet the movers, and text me when you’re through security. I’ll be waiting when you land.”

“I love you, Dad.”

“Love you too, Bug. See you soon.”

The line goes quiet, but I stay exactly where I am, my father’s voice cutting through the noise still lingering in my head.

Stay with me.

So I do. The rest of the day slips through my fingers before I have the chance to hold on to any of it. One task gives way to the next until time becomes nothing more than boxes disappearing through the front door, forms that need my signature, and notifications lighting up my phone with boarding passes. All are reminders that there’s always one more thing waiting for me before I can stop moving. Whenever my thumb drifts across the space on my finger, panic flares so suddenly it steals the breath from my lungs, but another task always demands my attention before I can let myself think about the ring for more than a heartbeat.

When I’m finally standing in the security line at the airport, exhaustion has blurred the edges of everything around me. I hand over my boarding pass when someone asks for it, collect my bag from the conveyor belt, and keep walking. Every step forward is one less opportunity to think about the ring still sitting on a stranger’s nightstand or the life I packed into boxes.

When I reach the gate, there is a text from Dad waiting for me.

See you soon.

I stare at the screen for a long moment before slipping my phone back into my purse and boarding the plane because that’s the next thing on the list, which is the only thing holding me together. I find my seat beside the window, tuck my backpack beneath the seat in front of me, and fasten my seatbelt a moment before the cabin door closes.

People around me settle into conversations, adjust air vents, and scroll through their phones, but none of it reaches me. For the first time since Dad called, there isn’t another task waiting to be completed, nothing demanding my attention before my thoughts can catch up with me. My thumb brushes the empty place on my finger, and everything I’ve managed not to think about all day comes rushing back.

Mom’s ring is still sitting on a nightstand somewhere in Houston, and I have no idea how to get it back. The future I spent years building around becoming a doctor feels farther away than it ever has before. And back in Houston is a man whose name I never learned, completely unaware that I’m carrying the memory of one extraordinary night with me.

The engines grow louder under my feet, pressing me gently into the seat as the plane moves. I rest my forehead against the cool window, watching the runway blur past before the ground finally falls away beneath us. Houston grows smaller with every passing second until streets become lines and the life I’d imagined for myself disappears beneath a blanket of clouds.

I thought I was only leaving behind a ring. But I’m also saying goodbye to the woman I thought I was going to become, and to one extraordinary night with a stranger who saw me exactly as I was when I needed it most.

I close my eyes before the tears can fall because Charlotte is waiting.

Everything else is somewhere beneath the clouds.

Chapter Eight

Jubal

It isn’t the light spilling through the gap in the curtains that wakes me, but the absence of the steady weight that’s been tucked against my side since sleep finally caught up with us. My arm shifts instinctively across the mattress before I’m fully awake, and my hand closes around nothing except cool sheets.

I roll toward the side of the bed she slept on, her pillow still bearing the faint impression of where she rested her head, with the comforter folded back enough to tell me she was there at all. I stare at the empty space, waiting for her voice to carry down the hallway with another apology she doesn’t need to make, but it doesn’t. I push myself upright, dragging both hands down my face before swinging my legs over the side of the bed.

“You awake?” My voice comes out rough from sleep, filling my room before disappearing just as quickly.

There’s no answer.

I check the bathroom first because it makes the most sense, finding the door wide open with the light still off. The towel I used after cleaning up is exactly where I left it the night before. I linger in the doorway a second longer than I need to before turning back toward the hall.

I leave the bathroom and continue toward the kitchen, still half expecting to find her leaning against the counter because she woke up before I did. Instead, the room is empty. The only thing waiting for me is yesterday’s memory of her leaning against the counter, smiling at me like she’d forgotten we were supposed to leave last night behind when the sun came up.

My gaze drifts to the front door and finds the lock turned. She locked it behind herself when she left, and I don’t know why that catches me off guard. She took the time to make sure I was safe before she walked away. I stand there with one hand braced against the edge of the counter, trying to reconcile the quiet around me with the woman who fell asleep curled against my chest.

We never promised each other this morning. We never exchanged names or stories that reached any further than the pieces of ourselves we handed to a stranger for one night. Then why does it feel like I woke up in the middle of a conversation that ended without me?

I let out a slow breath, forcing myself to stop looking at the front door like it might suddenly open again. We both walked into last night knowing exactly what it was supposed to be. One night. No expectations. No promises beyond the ones we made in the moment. She didn’t owe me another goodbye just because we’d fallen asleep in the same bed.

I would’ve made us breakfast. We would’ve talked a little longer before she left, and before she walked out the front door, I would’ve asked her name. But she’s already gone, carrying whatever brought her into that bar back with her, while I’m still standing in my kitchen wishing I’d had one more cup of coffee before we went back to being strangers.

I’ve spent the last two years making damn sure nobody got close enough to remind me what it felt like to lose them. It was easier that way, keeping every conversation surface-level instead of wondering if they wanted me or the quarterback. For one night, I didn’t have to wonder because she never asked what I did, never looked at me like she recognized me, never treated me like I was anything except the man sitting across from her.

I push away from the counter and head back toward the bedroom. Standing here won’t change the fact that she’s gone, and the longer I stay here, the harder it’s becoming to ignore how much of last night still lingers in every room.