We talked for hours. About everything we’d missed in each other’s lives.
About the people we’d become. About our careers and our families.
Our disappointments and our successes. About the quiet, constant grief of letting go of someone without ever getting any kind of closure.
The house grew dark around us. Neither of us bothered to turn on more lights.
We just sat there in the gathering darkness. Finally saying all the things we should have said fourteen years ago.
When I finally stood to leave, she walked me to the door. I’d gotten a room at the small bed and breakfast on the edge of town.
“So what happens now?” she asked. Her voice small and uncertain.
I took a deep breath. “I honestly don’t know.”
“I don’t want to rush anything or push you into something you’re not ready for.”
“I just know I didn’t drop everything and fly across the country to walk away from you again. I can’t do that. I won’t.”
She smiled then. Small and real and heartbreakingly familiar.
“Then don’t.”
I stayed in Millbrook for a week. Then two.
I called my department head and arranged for extended personal leave. I reconnected with old friends who still lived in town.
I visited places I thought I’d outgrown. But discovered I still loved.
I sat in Bella’s studio for hours. Watching her paint while afternoon sunlight slanted through the tall windows.
It felt like coming home in a way nowhere else ever had.
When I finally flew back to Boston, it wasn’t goodbye. It was just a necessary pause while we figured out the logistics.
We talked on the phone every single day. Sometimes for hours.
We visited back and forth every few weeks. We made plans carefully this time.
With complete honesty instead of teenage fear. With patience instead of panic.
Six months later, Bella moved to Boston. She found a beautiful studio space in Cambridge.
She fell in love with the city’s art scene in ways I’d hoped she would.
We’ve been living together now for eight months. Building something that feels both completely new and comfortably familiar.
Like putting on a favorite sweater you thought you’d lost years ago.
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