She knew. She planned all of this because she knew something was coming.
“I have something to tell you.”
She holds my gaze.
“I’m leaving in two days.”
The silence that follows is very quiet.
I watch her take it in, the understanding moving across her face, feeling everything completely, showing just enough of it, and holding the rest somewhere unseen.
“Mexico.”
“Yes.”
A beat.
“Two days,” she repeats.
“Yes.”
She looks down at her plate for just a moment, then back up. And what is in her face when she looks up, the combination of fear, love, and fierce determination not to fall apart, hits somewhere so specific and deep that briefly looking away is necessary.
“Remy stays here while I’m gone. You won’t be alone.”
She nods. Once with quiet acceptance.
“Sophia…”
“Don’t,” she says gently. “Don’t apologize. This is who you are. This is your world… I know that.”
I look at her. “The last two days…”
“Changed everything,” she finishes. Quietly and with complete certainty. “For me.” Her eyes are steady on mine. “Did it for you?”
“Yes,” I agree without hesitation.
She holds my gaze for a long moment. “Then come back to me.” Her voice is steady and certain. “Not for Ryan. Not for a promise you made to him.” Her eyes are on mine. “For me. Come back for me.”
Reaching across the table, I put my hand over hers. “With everything in my power, I will come back to you.”
She turns her hand over beneath mine and holds on.
Sitting like that in the candlelight, the desert quiet outside, the weight of two days sitting between us, and underneath it is something warm, certain, and real, and saying nothing else because everything that needs saying has been said.
Sophia
Two days.
That was all we had.
It wasn’t uncomfortable between us, just the quiet of two people who have said everything that needs saying and are sitting with the weight of it.
He clears the plates. I blow out the candles. Somewhere in the ordinary small movements of the end of an evening, we both understand that tonight is different from every other night in this house.
I go to the bathroom first.
Standing at the sink for a moment, I really look at myself in the mirror the way you do when you need to locate something true in your own face before you walk back out into the world.
