I knew this.
I told Caroline. The very reason Axel and I were able to fall into this thing between us was because we knew it wouldn’t last. I was leaving. There was no risk. Not to our plans, anyway.
But my heart?
I force a smile, nodding like I’m paying attention to anything other than the pit opening in the center of my chest. “You’re right, Axel. It’s nerves talking, that’s all. Go back to bed. But I’ll just stay here with Otto a while, if you don’t mind.”
Axel’s smile flickers. “I can stay with you.”
But I can’t stay with you.
“Get some rest. I’ll come back to bed in a bit.”
Axel
Nora didn’t come back to bed.
I listened and waited. Told myself I was doing the right thing, but all I could think about was the look in her eyes when, after she’d put her heart on the line, I started rattling off a bullshit top ten of things to do in Paris, France.
She looked so fucking sad.
It took everything I had not to pull her back into my arms and beg her to stay. To choose us. But that meant asking her to give up the future, the choices, the chance to grow she’s been telling me she’s been waiting for from the start.
And more than I want her to be with me, I need her to be happy.
So, I stayed in my bed, even when I heard the soft pad of her feet passing my door on the way to the room I never wanted her to sleep in again. The next morning, I waited until I heard her moving around the apartment and pretended not to know that she hadn’t slept in our bed, the same way I pretended not to notice the drawer to Stella’s crypt was ajar. Or that it wasn’t fucking killing me to let her go.
But that’s what I’m doing. Today.
“I can send you anything you don’t have when you get there.” She’s got two fucking bags. Small ones. Even after four months of her living with us, I hate how little it takes for her to pack it all up.
She won’t look at me as she zips the second one up on the bed in her room. Won’t smile or yell at me or do any of the things I’m aching for her to do.
“I don’t need anything, but thank you.”
I nod. Frown. Stare at the smooth line of her back. “But just in case. I’m here.”
“I know. You’re here for me.” She finishes, turning around. “Thank you.”
My molars grind together. I want to tell her to stop fucking thanking me, but like so many other things, I hold it back. Instead, I take the two bags and walk them out to the door. Because she is that close to leaving.
When I walk back, I find her in Otto’s room, holding him against her chest. The tears I’ve seen her wrestle back over and over this morning spill freely down her cheeks, each one like a slice through my heart.
“He’s going to miss you.” I’m going to miss her.
She nods tightly, trying to smile but failing. “I’m going to miss him too. So much.”
But she’ll get over it. Just like he will.
Me? Christ, I don’t know how I’m going to survive.
Nora
Boomer and Bowie show up to watch Otto so Axel can drive me to the airport.
A part of me wishes we’d brought him along so I could have had those last precious minutes with him, but I’m not sure I would have been able to get out of the car if he was still in it.
So, it’s just the two of us driving silently down the Kennedy.
I keep hoping. Keep waiting. But there is no miraculous revelation. Axel doesn’t beg me to reconsider. Doesn’t tell me he wants me to stay.
He just grips the wheel, navigating the midday traffic with a singular focus like it’s his sole mission in life to get me to that airport whole and three hours ahead of my flight departure time.
“Axel,” I whisper, my voice breaking on his name. “Talk to me.”
Forever isn’t on the table for us. I understand. But for as much as that hurts, I don’t for a single second think that this is easy for him. That he doesn’t care for me.
He does. I can see it in his eyes and feel it in his kiss.
I know it to the depths of my soul.
And even if it’s just these last few minutes we have together, I want them. I want us.
His fists tighten, the white of his knuckles standing out. “You going to call me when you arrive? Message me. Something. Don’t care what time it is.”
He’s making the break. Closing himself off and shutting me out.
I crumple back into the seat, looking out my side window so he won’t see the tears. If he happened to look, which he doesn’t. “Okay.”
I’m not angry. I’m just… sad.
When he pulls up curbside to Terminal 5, I’m out of the car and dragging my bags from the back before Axel can unfold from the driver’s seat. I’m barely holding myself together, and the only thing that matters is getting on the other side of the doors before I completely break down.
This is going to be fast. Like ripping off a bandage.
He closes the trunk, and I push a smile to my face.
“Thank you, Axel. For the ride. For the job and the place to stay.” He’s shaking his head, the frown on his face deepening by the second. I hold up a hand, needing to finish. “But most of all, thank you for letting me love your son and helping me to stop waiting for life to start and to start living it.”
Axel pulls me into his chest, his powerful arms wrapping tight around me as his head comes down to mine. “Thank you for saving me. For giving Otto what he needed most. For sharing your heart and soul with us. With me.”
I take a breath and push to my toes to press a kiss to Axel’s rough jaw. I start to pull back, but the arms around me tighten, holding me where I am. I can feel his breath heavy in my hair, the light scrape of his stubble as his head begins to turn, his mouth shifting closer, closer.
My heart hangs in the balance, but then a shrill whistle blows, and a woman in uniform hollers about unloading only.
I’m set back as he clears his throat. “Time for your dreams to come true, Nora.”
If that were true, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be home with Otto. Axel’s arms around us both. The three of us building a family.
But that’s not what he wants. So instead, I’ll be building a foundation of work experience for my future. Which is important.
It’s what I’m focusing on as I push the unwilling words past my lips. “Goodbye, Axel.”
He watches as I go. Stands there with one hand raised in a wave that won’t complete, an expression that’s sad but steady and simply breaks my heart.
Inside the terminal, I can barely see past the tears. I drag my bags over to the small seating area and try to pull myself together. Stop the great hiccupping sobs so there’s a chance I’ll be able to get through security. I retrieve my phone with shaking hands. Swiping at the tears that won’t stop, I stare at my screen filled with a picture of Otto tucked against Axel’s shoulder, his daddy smiling at me from above him. My two favorite faces in all the world, so beautiful to me I can barely breathe.
This is the worst of it.
This minute.
It gets better from here.
That’s what I keep telling myself. The promise I keep making… even though I’m a liar, and I know it.