After school, she tossed her bag in the passenger seat and called Sara.
She didn’t even wait to say hello before blurting out what happened in the workroom.
Sara laughed—of course she did—but Claire didn’t.
“Stop laughing, Sara. Do you think the island is… pulling me back?”
The laughter faded. Sara’s voice shifted. Low. Intentional.
“Claire Grace, you're not in a movie. The island’s not calling you.”
The use of her middle name stung in that way only siblings could manage. It wasn’t meant to hurt—but it landed.
Claire fell silent.
And then came Sara’s voice again, softer now. “Maybe it’s not the island. Maybe it’s guilt. Maybe your heart stayed when your body left. Maybe it’s your gut trying to tell you that your head made the wrong call.”
Claire didn’t answer right away. She couldn’t.
The ride home was a blur of asphalt and memory.
Every corner of her mind became a snapshot of him. His laugh. His porch swing. The way he kissed her like she was the only thing he’d ever tasted that mattered. She pulled into her driveway, but her thoughts were still three hundred miles away.
She didn’t bother to grab her bag.
She ran inside like she’d just remembered something she was afraid of forgetting again.
And for the next hour, she sat there. On her bed. On the floor. At the counter. Replaying every moment, every kiss, every fight, every apology. Her chest ached from the weight of what she walked away from.
And then she picked up her phone.
Her hands shook.
Her heart didn’t.
She typed fast—like if she hesitated, she’d lose her nerve.
Claire:My bags are packed and my plane is set to arrive next Thursday at 11:05 AM.
Miles away, on the edge of the island, Jaxon’s phone lit up. He read it once. Then again. A slow smile spread across his face.
Jaxon:I’ll be there as soon as you step off the plane.
And just like that, the tide turned.
45
Runway Echoes
Itwasonlyaweek away.
But to Jaxon, it felt like an eternity—an aching, slow-crawling kind of wait that no distraction could erase. He filled the silence the best way he knew how: scrubbing the baseboards, mowing a lawn that didn’t need mowing, fixing things that weren’t broken. Anything to keep his hands moving while his chest stayed hollow.
He talked to Claire every day. And every call, every text, only made it worse.
Because no matter how many times he heard her voice, it wasn’t the same as holding her. Wasn’t the same as the weight of her head against his chest, or the way her laugh curled around his ribs and made them ache. He wanted her there—not through a screen. Here. Now.
The night before she was set to arrive, Jaxon tried to sleep early. But his body refused. His thoughts were a war zone of want and worry, anticipation and doubt. He tossed. He turned. He stared at the ceiling like it might crack open and give him answers. It was almost 3:15 a.m. before sleep finally stole him, only for his alarm to rip him out of it five hours later.
