Elijah’s back disappears into a corridor of the airport, and I try to breathe through the hot, painful ripping in my chest.
Those hazel eyes seared right into me. As he outwardly ignored my phone call, Elijah watched me pant and panic right in front of him before turning and fleeing deeper into the airport and further away from where I stood.
Intentional, as some torturous form of self-preservation.
I can feel my hands shaking, my knees locking as I stare at the space his body once occupied.
“Sir?” Next to me, an airport security guard questions me. “Are you okay? Do you need assistance?”
I am unsure how long I have been standing here, but there’s no point in loitering. Elijah is gone.
“No, thank you.”
I exit the front entrance, heading toward the lot where I parked my truck earlier this morning after I ran into John outside of theFort Myers Post,and he told me Elijah was leaving town.
Rowan 7:51 a.m.
When are you coming back?
The message delivers, which means I’ve not been blocked. But I don’t expect him to respond; he hasn’t responded to my previous message or any of the calls I’ve made. He’s been promptly ignoring me since Wednesday night, when I showed up at his apartment and got sent away.
I decided that night that I wouldn’t give up. That I was perfectly fine being the villain of Elijah’s story. But I’m also scared of upsetting him.
Deciding to take things slow, I stuck to messaging him and calling him a few times. I even planned on going by his place on Saturday and begging for forgiveness again.
And now he’s flying away on a plane, and I’m not sure when he’s coming back.
John didn’t give me too much information. The most he would tell me is that Elijah is going home to California. I’m not sure exactly what Elijah told him, either; John was giving me the kind of look you receive after you’ve disappointed your father.
The drive back to my house is long and empty. My thoughts are stuck on the possible outcomes of my situation, and my heart is lying on the epoxy of the airport.
How did it come to this? Am I really destined to repeat this painful separation in every lifetime? Some part of me isbecoming desperate to figure out what happened before—to know what happened to Aaron and Benjamin.
But there’s no way to know, not when all I have are vivid memories fed to me through dreams.
I want him to come home. I want him to forgive me and to hold me close. Is that too much to ask? Am I becoming greedy? I’ve spent my entire life comfortable being alone—I’ve never asked the universe for much.
Solitude, peace, and stability. That’s all. But now I want him.Allof him. Maybe that, in itself, is an impossible ask.
Marissa is sitting on my couch when I return home, and she looks at me with suffocating pity as I lean against the now closed front door.
Slowly, she sets her phone to the side and stands.“Row? Are you… What’s happened?”
The last that Marissa heard, I was heading into town to see if I could watch Elijah heading into work. She didn’t judge, just gave me a sad smile and nodded gently.
“He left,” I say, and my voice sounds far away. Vacant.
“Left?” she questions, and I let my eyes fall to the hardwood.
“He got on a plane.”
“What?!”
I can hear her footsteps growing closer, but I don’t bother to look up.
“I ran into his boss, who said he was flying to California, so I went to the airport. He saw me but walked away.”
Marissa fumbles her words. “W-well when is h-he coming back?” She sounds panicked.
