Ada is waiting at the top of the steps.
Her arms are crossed too, but in the way someone folds themselves when they’re trying to hold something in. There’s nothing sharp about her today. Just softness. And something behind her eyes that looks suspiciously like tears.
“Don’t start crying,” I tell her, voice cracking even as I smile.
“Too late,” she mutters, wiping the corner of her eye. “You didn’t pack enough tissues to survive this goodbye.”
I laugh, because I have to. If I don’t, I’ll fall apart.
She steps forward and wraps her arms around me before I can stop her. It’s fierce and unfiltered, all bone and memory and months of shared grief and healing between the lines.
“I’m going to miss you so much,” she whispers into my hair.
“I’ll miss you too,” I breathe. “You saved me, Ada. In ways I didn’t even know I needed.”
She pulls back just enough to look at me, her hands gripping my shoulders like she’s trying to memorize the shape of me.
“You call me. I don’t care what time it is. If you get a flat tire, if you change your mind, if he so much as breathes too loud in your direction, you call me. Understood?”
“Yes, boss,” I smile.
Dominik approaches then, quiet as always, his steps echoing softly on the gravel. He doesn’t say a word, just pulls me into a hug. Tight. Solid. No performance. He holds me like I’m family.
And I guess I am now.
I press my forehead to his chest for a moment, whispering, “Thank you,” even though he won’t say anything back.
He nods, just once, then turns and walks past me, back to Ada, back to whatever they’ll wage together in their own way.
And when she looks at him, I see it. The softness she tries to hide. The quiet hope in the way her eyes linger a second too long, the way her mouth almost curves into something vulnerable. She hasn’t said anything out loud, not yet, but it’s there. A flicker of something she’s never let herself have before.
She never talks much about her childhood, but I know enough.. That she’s spent her whole life trying to make up for the things she never had.
And now, maybe, finally, she doesn’t have to.
I don’t look back once I turn around.
Because I’m walking forward.
Aslanov hasn’t moved from the car. He’s still leaning there, waiting, like he knew I’d need every last second to say goodbye tothe life I’m leaving behind.
The sun is high now. The black of the car shimmers. My reflection looks older in it, harder, softer, something new. I set my bag down and step into him, resting a hand on his chest, just above his heart.
“You ready?” he asks, low and quiet.
I nod.
He presses a kiss to the top of my head, slow and certain, his hand curling around mine.
We slide into the car, the doors closing with the soft finality of a chapter ending.
But it’s not the end.
It’s the first line of something else entirely.
As he pulls out of the driveway, gravel crunching beneath us, I glance in the rearview mirror one last time. Ada and Dominik still stand there, framed by the doorway like hearts I’ll carry with me for the rest of my life.
I watch them shrink in the mirror until they’re just outlines against the doorway, then blurs, and then nothing at all.
