I’llfly back.
Don’t be ridiculous.
I mean it.
I’ll get right back on the next flight if you promise to stay right there.
For one reckless heartbeat, I almost say yes. I almost tell him to come home. The word rises, then sticks in my throat where love and fear have learned to live together. Then, instead, I call. I just want to hear his voice, so he can hear mine say the words that he deserves to hear.
“Thank you, but I’m not keeping it.”
“Kasia—”
“No. Listen to me.” I keep my voice steady even though my throat is tight. “I’m not taking a lump-sum settlement from you like someclass-action lawsuit.”
He huffs out a laugh, and I do too. The sound hangs between us for half a second, soft and warm, then it dies out and the air goes still. “That’s not… us,” I say quietly. “Not what we were.”
There’s a beat of silence, crackling, full of everything we’re both trying not to say. I can feel his hurt, quiet and contained.
“It wasn’t meant to insult you,” he says. “It was supposed to help.”
“This is enough, honestly.” I tilt the card toward the streetlamp bleeding light through my car window. The engine’s off, the cold creeping in, but I barely feel it. His handwriting curls across the inside of the card, the slope of his R, the way he presses too hard on the downstroke, the little stutter in the A. “It’s nice just having a card from you, the words you wrote. Your handwriting.”
I hear him inhale like I’ve knocked something loose in him without meaning to.
“It wasn't supposed to go like this,” he says softly. “I was meant to give you cards for every Christmas, every birthday. Little stupid notes you’d shove in a shoe box because you’d roll your eyes at them but keep them anyway.” He stops, the idea too full of pain to continue. “I thought we’d have more time.”
I close my eyes. The words hit me, tender and direct.
The line goes silent, weighted with everything he won’t say and everything I already know. When he speaks, his voice has dropped into something quiet and undone. Surrender wearing his breath.
“Merry Christmas, Kasia.”
I hear the blur of the airport behind him, rolling suitcases, announcements, footsteps echoing over tile. For a second it feels like I’m standing beside him, like if I turned my head he’d be there.
“Merry Christmas, Rafe.” I manage.
Rafe
The label calls it avisibility event.I call it a migraine with champagne.
I don’t want to be here. Not tonight, when the calendar’s about to roll over without her in it. But the label says the photos will be good for “momentum,” the guys say I’ll go mad alone, and in the end, it’s easier to just say yes.
The drinks keep showing up, some intern’s nervous smile and a tray full of temporary solutions and I keep taking them. Every one blurs the edges a little more until the world buzzes, until even the ache inside me starts to fade beneath it.
Someone laughs, Rithy, halfway to chaos already, flirting with a lighting tech. Ronan and Freja are dancing in the middle of the crowd, her arms around his neck, the two of them oblivious. Kiri’s talking to a label exec, nodding at the right places, pretending to care.
Then there’s Mara. I don’t even notice her until she slides into the booth beside me. She says something I can’t hear over the bass. I lean closer. She tries again, closer still and her lips brush my jaw. At first I tell myself it’s an accident. She’s just leaning in, trying to be heard. But then her mouth grazes my neck, light but deliberate.
I freeze. The alcohol slows everything down, turns my reaction into something dipped in molasses. Her perfume hits next, sweet. Cherriesand vanilla. But it'swrong.It isn’ther. No lilies or rain.Mara’s hand comes up to my cheek, gentle. Fingertips trace my jaw, and for one reckless heartbeat I let my brain lie to me. I imagine it’s Kasia, her warmth, her scent, her breath against my skin. I close my eyes and let the ghost of her take over.
Then Mara’s lips find mine, soft, searching and the illusion dies instantly. I don’t kiss her back. I just sit there, still, eyes closed, waiting for the moment to pass like a wave that’ll drown me if I move. When she pulls away, I exhale and manage a crooked grin.
“Sorry,” I say, voice thick. “Too much to drink. I should probably go.”
“Stay, Rafe.” Her hand stays on my knee. “It’s almost midnight.”
“Yeah.” I stand, unsteady, dizzy. “That’s kind of the problem.”
