Jace had barely made it through security.He sprinted down the terminal like the floor might fall out from under him, dodging rolling suitcases and coffee-toting business travelers, his heart pounding louder than the overhead announcements echoing through the Alber male airport.
Gate C6.
He scanned the signs.... breath ragged, shirt clinging to his back.
He hadn't packed a bag. Hadn't changed his clothes. There was a half-eaten granola bar in his coat pocket and a list of things in his mind he wanted to say to Amy but couldn't get past his throat.
He reached the gate just as they called final boarding.
"Wait....one more!" he called, holding up his ID, nearly tripping over a stroller.
The attendant gave him a look that said, You better be grateful, and waved him through.
He collapsed into his window seat, chest heaving, the weight of the last few days pressing down on him like gravity had doubled.
He was going back. He was going to her.
Somewhere over Delaware, he pressed his forehead against the cool glass. The clouds below looked like cities of silence, and he thought of all the things he hadn't said to her. How he'd let his fear be louder than his heart. How he'd asked her to leave, when all he wanted was for her to stay.
A voice pulled him from his thoughts.
"Can I get you anything, sir?"
Jace looked up at the flight attendant, blinking.
"A pen," he said hoarsely. "And paper. Please."
She looked mildly surprised, but returned moments later with a napkin and a blue pen that wrote unevenly.
He stared at the napkin for a long time before writing.
Amy,
I'm not very good at saying things the way I should. Maybe I never was. But if there's one thing I do know,it's this ....letting you go was the biggest mistake I've ever made. I shouldn't have shut you out when all you wanted to do was help.
You didn't deserve the silence I gave you nor the shutting out.. You deserved every word I didn't say and every version of me I'm afraid to be .
But I'm on my way back now . Not just to New York
But to you
If you'll have me
..... Love, Jace .
He heaved a sigh of relief as he folded the napkin carefully and tucked it into his jacket pocket, his fingers lingering like it was something sacred.
Outside, the clouds parted, and the skyline began to take shape on the horizon — sharp, bold, unapologetically alive.
He leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, heart steady for the first time in days.
He didn't know what she would say. But he knew he had to find her. And say everything.
....
Amy sat at the little café where Sophie had taken her to clear her mind, nursing a cup of tea that had gone cold half an hour ago.
Across from her, Sophie was trying to focus on a novel, but her eyes kept drifting up.
"You know," Sophie finally said, "if you stare at your phone any harder, it's going to block your number out of pity."
Amy didn't even smile. "I just… I thought he'd say something by now. Even a text."
Sophie reached over, placed a hand on hers. "He will. Maybe he's trying to figure out how to say the right thing."
Amy shook her head. "Maybe. Or maybe he just… doesn't know how to want me anymore."
Just then her phone rings, she picks it up with so much anticipation but it only turned out to be Mrs Thompson over the phone.
Amy sighs as she taps answer.
"Hi, Mrs Thompson" Amy said faking smiles.
"Oh,Amy, how are you?" Mrs Thompson asked.
"Good,you?"
"I'm alright dear, just wondering when you'd come to the store, the kids have been asking about you,no more storytime Thursdays?"
"I'm so sorry Mrs Thompson,there will be"
"Aren't you back from Virginia yet?"
"I am, just running few errands "
"Alright then,I guess I'll see you when I see you"
"You will,bye" Amy says with a chuckle as she hangs up.
"Was just Mrs Thompson" She said as she drops her phone on the table.
"Figured" Sophie replies.
Sophie sat back, quiet for a moment. "You want to go for a walk?"
Amy nodded. "Yeah. Maybe I need to move."
Sophie tries to stand but Amy doesn't let her.
"No don't worry,I want to walk on my own for a while" Amy said.
"Are your sure?,I can leave the novel if you want me to " Sophie said.
"No, seriously, I'd like to take a walk alone" Amy said giving a half smile.
"Alright then, I'll see you at the house " Sophie said and Amy nods and steps outside into the early evening.
Manhattan was busy in the way it always was, too loud, too fast, too much...Makes her remember how Jace's father had asked "How does it feel in Manhattan,a city that never sleeps ". But Amy had always loved how it let you disappear inside it. Today, though, she couldn't outrun her thoughts.
Her trainers hit the pavement like punctuation marks: He. Should. Have. Called.
She walks into the park, the trees mostly bare now, the sky flushed with the colors of retreat ...gray, pale pink, and the first hint of lavender dusk.
Amy paused at a bench, hands shoved in her coat pockets. She didn't know what she was waiting for. A call. An apology. An understanding. But she knew she couldn't stay suspended in this silence for long.
Just then her phone rang.
She slips it out of her pocket. It was Jace.
Amy stared at the name on ber phone screen as if the letters of his name might rearrange themselves into something else.
Her thumb hovered over the answer button but before she could press it, the call ended.
Then her phone buzzed. A message from Jace.
Her eyes were fixated on the phone screen afraid that if she blinks the message would disappear.
From Jace:
I'm in New York. Are you free to talk? Please.
Her breath caught. She read it three times.
Another buzz.
I'm at the corner of 42nd and Fifth. I'll wait.
She didn't respond. She didn't need to.
She was already moving.
The streets were busy. Cyclists making their way through cars, People walking their dogs, couples getting ice cream by the road side. Alot of stories she was running by just to meet up and join hers.
He looked different somehow. Not in the way he dressed still in a plain button-up and dark jeans but in the way he held himself. Less guarded. More human. He stood with his hands in his pockets, glancing down the sidewalk, like he was hoping the city might deliver her straight to him.
When Amy rounded the corner, she stopped for a second, just watching him. And for a flicker of a moment, he looked like the man who used to laugh with her at 2 a.m, take countless pictures of her and call her beautiful. The man who made her believe love didn't have to be complicated to be real.
He turned as he felt within him she was there. He saw her. Relief poured across his face.
"Amy."
She didn't smile. Not yet. But she didn't walk away, either.
"I missed your call," she said quietly.
"I know." He swallowed. "I got your silence loud and clear."
They stood in the middle of Manhattan rush hour, a thousand stories rushing past them, and for a moment, it was just them, the tension, the questions, the unsaid things.
"I shouldn't have sent you away," Jace said. "I thought I was protecting you, but I was just scared. Scared of needing you too much."
"You didn't even give me a chance to decide if I could handle it," she said, her voice calm but thick. "You just… shut me out."
"I know." He took a step closer. "And I was wrong."
Silence again.
Then he pulled something from his coat pocket, a folded napkin smoothing it like it mattered.
"I wrote this on the flight"
Amy's brow arched "on a napkin?"
" I panicked. I didn't know what I was supposed to tell you so I asked for a pen and paper and she gave me what she had"
He handed her the letter but she hesitated before she takes it. She looks at him then the napkin before opening it.
She read it once.
The words were raw. Slanted. And some letters even shaky.
But they were his.
"I appreciate this Jace but all that matters is what you say to me right here now" She said calmly with emotions in her face.
Jace looked down, then back at her, eyes shining but steady.
"I love you, Amy. And not just the easy parts. I love your strength, your fire, even the way you argue when you're right which is most of the time." He smiled faintly. "I pushed you away because I didn't want you to see me when I wasn't okay. But I'm learning that maybe love isn't about hiding those parts. Maybe it's about letting someone in, even when it's messy."
Her eyes welled. "It was messy."
"It was," he said. "But I still want to find my way back to you. If you'll let me."
Amy didn't answer with words. She stepped forward and rested her head lightly against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, and they stood there, two people trying to forgive, trying to begin again, while the city moved around them, unaware and uninterested in the quiet miracle happening.
"Don't leave again," she said.
"Not unless you're with me."
And in the middle of the city, in a park surrounded by strangers and wind and the fast-forward hum of everything else Jace kissed her.
It wasn't perfect. It wasn't practiced. But it was true.
And this time, she kissed him back like she meant to stay.