Chapter 4

The apartment Ethan and I shared was forty minutes from the airport.

We had rented it during our last years of high school because both our families lived too far away for the daily commute. For three years, we had treated the small two-bedroom place as practice for a future we assumed was settled.

The entry light came on when I opened the door. Two pairs of matching slippers waited beneath the shoe cabinet.

I went to the bedroom, pulled two suitcases from under the bed, and packed my clothes, books, laptop, and the documents I would need at Wesmuth.

The apartment kept interrupting me. Our amusement-park photo on the refrigerator. The annotated novel on the shelf that Ethan had promised to read. Two toothbrushes beside the sink.

I removed our amusement-park photograph from the refrigerator and slipped it between two books so the glass would not crack. I left his gifts behind and packed only what belonged to me.

When I opened the bottom drawer of the dresser, I found a gray cashmere scarf.

It was the same design as Vanessa’s pink one.

I ran my thumb over the label and laughed once. Even his thoughtful gifts came in matching versions.

I folded the scarf and put it back.

By the time the movers arrived, half the closet was empty. Half the shelves were bare. Only one toothbrush remained on the bathroom counter.

At the front door, I removed the ring Ethan and I had bought as a pair. I placed both rings together on the shoe cabinet—mine from my hand, his spare from the small dish where he left it when he showered. Beside them, I set my key and the itinerary cover I had saved.

I drew red lines across the printed destinations on the cover and wrote beneath them:

May your storm finally be over, Ethan. You’re free.

The apartment was quiet after the movers left. I stood there long enough to remember the first night we had slept on the floor because our bed frame hadn’t arrived. We had eaten takeout noodles and argued about which wall should hold our photographs.

Those memories were real. So was the airport.

I closed the door.

In the elevator, one tear landed on the back of my hand. I let it stay there until the doors opened.

That afternoon, Lily forwarded me a screenshot from a mutual friend who could still see Ethan’s close-friends story. Beneath a photograph of the airport runway, he had written: The storm is finally over. Now I can focus on what matters.

I was grieving eighteen years. I was not changing my mind.