“Only because you’ve never had that kind of love before. You don’t know any better.”

Mike nodded thoughtfully. “I think you’re making a mistake.”

“I probably am.” I shrugged one shoulder slowly.

As the moon rose over the lake, painting the top of the water with a silvery line and announcing the end of my last day as a child, Mike placed his arm around me and softly said “I have a plane to catch.”

“You’re going back?” I asked, knowing already that he would. Of course he would.

“There’s not much reason for me to stay right now. I think we both need time to think.”

I nodded, but although I tried to be strong, the tears burst out of me. I pressed the back of my wrist to the crease between my brows and let myself sob for a minute, while Mike just sat, breathing jaggedly, looking out at the darkness.

“I’m so sorry, Mike,” I whispered, but he didn’t respond.

The airport had a different presence to me as I walked between Dad and Mike. The clouded blur you get for what stays behind when you’re about to take a journey someplace else were no longer mine. I’d been prepared for weeks to come here, board that plane, and never look back. Now, I was on the other side; instead of leaving behind a memory, I would wave, then turn around and walk back into the air and the energy of the place I was never going to return.

People stared at me as they passed, not because I was in a wedding dress—I got changed before my dad drove us to the airport—but because I was crying so hard I couldn’t see through the tears.

Mike’s head turned an inch to look at me, and though he clearly saw the plea for forgiveness in my eyes, he looked away. He won’t say it. I knew he wanted to yell at me, or cry, or tell me how much he hates me, but he wasn’t saying anything. He hadn’t said anything.

“Please, Mike?” I sobbed while Dad waited at the security check-in to have his shoes scanned. “Please say something.”

He sighed, dropped his bag to the ground and stepped into me. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m trying not to.”

He nodded. “You just have to be strong,” he said softly, stroking the side of my face. “You’ve always been so strong. I’ll...I’ll be okay.”

“No, you won’t.” I wiped my face. “I know you won’t.”

“Final boarding call for flight two-oh-three.”

Mike looked up at the speaker box. “I have to go,” he said, and I cried harder then. My dad wrapped his arm around me as Mike picked up his bag.

“Greg.” Mike shook Dad’s hand. “Thank you—for everything.”

Dad let go of me to hug Mike, patting him on the back several times, saying something I didn’t hear.

Mike nodded and stepped back, then looked at me for a second. “Bye, Ara.”

My chest shook and I sobbed my heart out as he backed away, one step at a time, before throwing his bag over his shoulder and turning around—without a hug, without a kiss, without anything.

The sight of him leaving was more than I could bear. As he stopped at the gate, he handed the girl his boarding pass and I could almost feel myself running after him. But I didn’t move. “I don’t want him to go, Dad.”

Dad cleared his throat. “Ara...”

“What if I’m making a mistake? What if we’re meant to be together?”

“Then you better run after him.”

I watched with tear-filled eyes as the girl placed the boarding pass in his hand, and he lowered his head, looking at it for a moment.

“Mike?” I called across the distance between us.

He looked up with eyes full of imprisoned tears. He was trying to be strong, but I was supposed to be with him—going home. We should’ve been laughing, holding hands, kissing and telling everyone we were just married. This should’ve been the happiest day of our lives.

Only now, Mike was leaving. Alone.

But my call to him went out in vain, because I had nothing else to add; I couldn’t run into his arms, I couldn’t change it—any of it. It had to be what it was. I had to watch, had to see his hope break again as he nodded to himself, knowing I was going to let him walk away. Then, as the hostess waited for him, the last passenger, he waved once and disappeared through the doors.

A piece of me fell away inside. I couldn’t move. Everyone around me was still smiling and talking, continuing with their lives. But mine just stopped.

Everything stopped.

My shoulders lifted with each gasp of realisation; he came here to say goodbye, all those months ago when we saw each other for the first time in so long, and now he’s leaving with exactly what he thought he was coming here for—a broken heart.

“Come on, honey.” Dad gently grabbed my shoulders and turned me away from the devastating sight I’d come to know so well in my life; the emptiness of farewell. “Let’s get you home.”

“Dad,” I said, fighting to glance back. “Did you see that—did you see the way he looked at me?”

Dad, unable to meet my eye, just nodded and said, “Yes. I saw it.” And despite his obvious disappointment, he still hugged me before I climbed into the car, and told me everything would be okay, but I knew what he really wanted to say.

The red rose—the one from Dad’s buttonhole—sat scrunched-up, abandoned, in the tray under the dash, and the words my dad had said to the driver echoed in my mind; You’re a real life saver...life saver...life...

That driver may never know exactly how many lives he saved by saving me from myself. I will never destroy another man’s heart by believing I can love him—ever again.

I’m going to live my life as living was intended.

But I’m going to do it alone.

Chapter 2

“Emily? Do you have that box with the kettle in it?”

“Yeah, on my way,” she called. The setting sun’s long orange shadow faded from the tiles as the front door closed and Emily bounded around the corner carrying ‘Emily’s glory box’. “You gonna make coffee, Ara?”

“I was thinking about it.”

She dusted her hands on her three-quart jeans after placing the box beside me. “I really do love this house. It’s very you.”

I hopped down off the bench, nodding while taking in the pale colours and soft light that filled the airy space. “Yeah. My mum would’ve loved it.”