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They hadn’t said goodbye properly.
Not in the way that mattered.
Isla sat by the window, the plane humming quietly beneath her. The sky outside was soft and gray, clouds shifting like slow waves beneath them. She watched them move, her breath fogging the glass, her fingers wrapped around the edge of the armrest—not from fear, but from something quieter.
Regret, maybe.
She had left quickly. A new job overseas, a clean break. Everyone had congratulated her. Told her how brave she was. But no one had asked what—or who—she was leaving behind.
Jonah had been part of her days without ever becoming a part of her plans. They had shared too many coffees, too many late-night walks, too many silences that felt like something more.
But neither of them had named it. And so, she’d packed her bags and left it unnamed.
The aisle seat beside her was still empty when the plane reached cruising altitude.
She closed her eyes. Tried not to think about the scarf she had left at his apartment. The way he always stood too close when he talked, like he forgot where he ended and she began.
Then—
A shift. A presence.
Someone sat down.
She opened her eyes, slow, not expecting anything except another stranger.
But it wasn’t.
It was him.
Jonah. Breathless. Eyes searching hers like he wasn’t entirely sure he was awake.
“I made it,” he said, voice rough from running. “Barely.”
She stared at him, stunned.
He let out a shaky breath. “I didn’t want to make it dramatic. Or hard. But I also didn’t want to spend the rest of my life wondering what would’ve happened if I didn’t try.”
Still, she didn’t speak.
So he did.
“I don’t know what’s next for you. Or for me. But I know what I want. And it’s… more mornings with you. More silence that doesn’t need fixing. More of us, whatever we are.”
The clouds rolled gently outside the window. The plane flew on.
She turned to him.
And smiled.
“That’s the worst speech I’ve ever heard,” she said softly.
He grinned. “It wasn’t a speech.”
“Good,” she replied, reaching for his hand. “Because I don’t need big gestures. I just need this.”
They sat like that, quiet and warm, with thirty thousand feet of sky below them and something new ahead.
Not a clean break.
Just a better beginning.
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