Page 91 of Every Shattered Note
“You’ll call?”I manage.
“I will.”
He steps in, just close enough that I can smell the hint of coffee on his breath, the salt on his skin, the faint scent of his aftershave buried beneath stress and exhaustion.
“You know I will,” he says again, but his eyes hold something else—doubt, maybe.Or resignation.A man who’s promised before and didn’t get to keep it.
I want to believe him.I want to throw my arms around him, bury my face in his shirt, and refuse to let go.But I can’t.I won’t beg him to stay.I’ve spent most of my life letting people walk away before they could abandon me—and I’m not sure I have the strength to hold on now.
He lifts his hand, brushing his thumb along the edge of my jaw, his fingers lingering just beneath my hairline.Like he’s committing this too.Just in case.
“You were right,” he murmurs.“You shouldn’t be dragged into this.”
I shake my head.“You don’t get to decide what I can handle.”
“I know.”His smile is barely there.Just a trace of something that used to be hope.“But I have to try anyway.”
He leans in, resting his forehead against mine.The world spins slower here, quieter.Everything else recedes.
“If I can ...if things work out, I’ll come back,” he whispers.
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”His voice is rough.“Promise.”
But it sounds too much like goodbye.
When he kisses me, it’s soft—too soft for everything unraveling between us.I taste salt.I don’t know if it’s his tears or mine.Maybe both.
A voice calls my name—flight attendant, polite, waiting.
I don’t move.I want to freeze this moment.Keep us suspended right here, untouched by whatever’s waiting on the other side of our departures.
Dexter steps back first.
Something inside me goes with him.
“I’ll see you soon,” he says.
Then—God help me—he adds, “You’re the song I’ll keep hearing in every silence.”
It knocks the air out of me.
I nod because I can’t trust my voice.“Okay.”
Then I turn.My steps carry me toward the jet, but every part of me fights the motion.Each footfall feels foreign.Wrong.I can feel his eyes on me, and it’s all I can do not to spin around and run back to him.Wrap my arms around his neck and say fuck the headlines.Fuck the whole world.
At the top of the stairs, I pause.
He’s still there.Hands shoved into his pockets.Shoulders rigid.The sun catches his face, gilding him in gold.He lifts a hand in a small wave.I do the same, even though I feel like I’m waving at something already lost.
The engines roar to life, swallowing everything around me.The door seals shut with a hollow thud.
The cabin smells like leather and citrus and finality.My seatbelt clicks across my lap.I rest my head against the window and watch the tarmac shrink beneath us, until Dexter is nothing more than a blur standing against the sea.
And then—he’s gone.
My throat burns.My eyes sting.
