“I know.” Her voice was soft. “You should go.”
“I want to. But—” I turned to face her fully. “I don’t want to leave things uncertain between us. I’ve done that before. Left town for a story, come back to find the person I was dating had moved on because I wasn’t paying attention. I don’t want that to happen with you.”
“It won’t.”
“How do I know that?”
She took a breath. The late afternoon light was doing something to her eyes, making the green look almost gold.
“Because I’ll be here when you get back,” she said. “I promise.”
“You’ve pulled away before.”
“I know.” She didn’t flinch, didn’t make excuses. “Three times. I know exactly how many times over the year we were together. And I know how it must have felt from your end, like you were always auditioning for a part I never intended to cast. But that’s not what’s happening now.”
“What is happening now?”
For a long moment, she didn’t answer. The wind off the river was cold, carrying the smell of ice and distance. A jogger passed us, breath visible, headphones trailing a wire to an invisible Walkman.
“I’m staying,” Maggie said finally. “That’s what’s happening. I’m choosing to stay, even though it scares me. Even though every instinct I have is screaming at me to run before you can leave first.” She reached up and touched my face, her fingers cold against my cheek.
“Go to New York. Take the interview. Impress them, because you will. And when you come back, I’ll be here. Waiting. Not because I don’t have other options, but because you’re the option I want.”
I looked at her, this woman I’d spent a year trying to understand, this puzzle I’d almost given up solving, and saw something I’d never seen before.
Certainty.
Not deflection. Not the careful charm she used to keep people at arm’s length. Just... certainty.
“Who are you?”
“I’m trying to figure that out.” She smiled, and it was the realest smile I’d ever seen from her. “But I think I’m someone who’s done running.”
I kissed her.
Not carefully. Not tentatively. Not the way I’d kissed her before, always holding something back, always braced for the moment she’d pull away.
This was different. This kiss was the kind that rewrites history, that makes you understand why people do stupid things for love, that burns through every careful defense you’ve ever built. My hands were in her hair, her back was against a tree I didn’t remember walking toward, and the cold was gone because everything was heat and want and finally.
When we broke apart, she was breathing hard. So was I.
“Wow,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“That was?—”
“Yeah.”
I pressed my forehead to hers, both of us catching our breath, the world slowly coming back into focus around us. The river. The joggers. The late afternoon light that made everything look like it was made of gold.
“I’ll call you from New York,” I said. “Every night.”
“Long distance is expensive.”
“I don’t care.”
She laughed, a real laugh, surprised and warm, and I thought,This. This is what I’ve been waiting for. This is what I almost gave up on.
