I keep my head down beneath a hat and dark glasses as I move through security. If anyone recognizes me, they’re courteousenough not to say anything. Or maybe I simply don’t look like someone worth approaching this morning.
I don’t have the patience for explanations. I don’t have the patience for sympathy.
Everything feels automatic. Shoes in the bin. Laptop out. Boarding pass scanned. The rhythm of departure is familiar enough that my body handles it without instruction. I’ve always been better at leaving than staying.
I board early and take the window seat without speaking to anyone. The cabin smells faintly of recycled air and stale coffee. I buckle in, rest my head back, and stare out at the runway while the rest of the passengers settle around me.
Switzerland stretches out in white beyond the glass. The alpine mountain speaks are sharp against the sky, untouched by the noise I’m leaving behind.
Last night, I allowed myself to imagine something different.
Offseason in Scottsdale. Her laughter in a kitchen that doesn’t have a fireplace. A version of myself that didn’t feel like it was constantly bracing for impact.
I close my eyes briefly.
It was careless.
Trust always is.
I knew better than to give someone leverage. I knew better than to confuse intimacy with loyalty. I knew better than to believe that someone could choose me without calculating what else that choice would cost them.
People don’t stay because they feel something. They stay because it benefits them. And when it doesn’t, they reposition.
The engines hum to life beneath us, low and steady. The plane begins to taxi, then accelerate. The runway blurs. The ground pulls away.
Snow shrinks beneath us as we climb, the chalet and the village and every fragile possibility disappearing into the distance.
There’s a hollow space in my chest where something hopeful had started to take root.
I ignore it.
When something gets too close—when it threatens to matter more than it should—I do the only thing that’s ever kept me in control.
I leave before it can leave me.
And as the mountains fall away below the clouds, I don’t look back.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
NATALIA
I am smiling before I even reach the door.
The kind of smile that sneaks up on you when your brain is somewhere in the clouds, a little too far into the future.
The yoga studio had been warm and quiet, sunlight pouring in through wide windows while snow drifted lazily outside, and the entire time I kept thinking about him—about the way he kissed my forehead before he left this morning, half dressed for skiing, hair still damp, eyes softer than he probably realized.
Don’t try to save the world while I’m gone.
As if that’s something I can just turn off.
But today I hadn’t tried to save the world.
Today I had let myself imagine something else.
What an offseason in Scottsdale might look like.
Luka in my kitchen, pretending to hate the dry heat while secretly loving it. Luka trying to cook and burning something expensive. Luka in my bed without an expiration date attached to it.
