The song was a trapdoor, and I fell through.
I saw Theo's kitchen. Two in the morning. The overhead light buzzed, too bright for the conversation we were about to have.
He'd just come in from the balcony. I could smell it on him—cigarette smoke and cold air, layered over the cedar cologne I'd bought him for his birthday. He leaned against the counter, arms crossed, looking exhausted.
"I can't do this anymore."
I wasn't ready for the words. I stood in the doorway, still holding my keys, and still thinking about the project I needed to finish editing.
"Do what?" I asked.
It wasn't a surprise. I'd known for weeks, maybe months—how you know a storm is coming from the pressure in your sinuses.
"This. Us. The way you're here but you're not." He pressed his palms against his eyes for a moment. When he dropped them, he appeared wrecked. "The way you love me like you're already losing me."
I didn't say anything. There was nothing to say. He was right, and we both knew it.
"You're the best man I've ever been with." His voice cracked on the word best. "You're kind, you're brilliant, and you see things other people don't see. But you don't let yourself keep any of it." He started crying, quiet tears he didn't bother wiping away. "You find beauty, and you film it, and then you hold it at arm's length, like if you let it get too close, it would destroy you. I can't keep being something beautiful you're afraid to touch."
The overhead light buzzed. The refrigerator hummed.
"I'm not afraid," I said.
It was a lie.
"You're scared. You are. You throw up this armor, and I'm tired of trying to break through it." He wiped his face with the back of his hand. "You don't know how to let yourself be happy. And I can't keep waiting for you to figure it out."
He walked past me toward the bedroom. At the doorway, he stopped.
"I'll stay at Marcus's tonight."
The bedroom door clicked shut. Silence.
I stood in the kitchen for an hour. Maybe longer. Didn't move. Didn't cry. Stood there under that buzzing light, proving him right.
I opened my eyes and jolted myself back to the present.
Gate B17. The vinyl seat beneath me. The toddler quiet now, slumped asleep against her father's shoulder.
My jaw ached. I'd been clenching it without realizing.
Five years, I thought. Five years and twelve notes of a song could still gut me.
I shoved the headphones into my bag. Pulled out my laptop. Reread the email—Thunder Bay, the hockey team, and the boyfriend who'd pitched his way into a shark's wallet and the internet's heart.
Work. That was what I needed. A target for my camera.
They called my boarding group. On the jetway, my phone buzzed. A text from a number I didn't recognize, 807 area code.
Rhett:Hey, it's Rhett Mason. Naomi passed along your info. Welcome to Thunder Bay! The Storm plays tonight if you want to catch a game—good way to meet the team. Afterward everyone usually ends up at a bar called The Drop.
A second text, immediately after:
Rhett:Fair warning: it gets loud.
Adrian:Thanks. I'll find it.
Next, I turned off my phone, found my seat, and spent the next three hours watching clouds and trying not to think about anything at all.
