The days passed like cautious footsteps after a long storm—each one warmer, but never quite steady. Olivia and Kael began to exist in the same space again, like two ghosts trying to remember how to breathe in the world of the living.
Their mornings were filled with quiet rituals: coffee brewing, newspaper pages flipping, stolen glances over toast. Afternoons blurred into strolls through Camden Market, where they would pause to admire secondhand books or laugh over Kael's terrible attempts at Cockney accents. Evenings were slower—record players spinning soft jazz, wine glasses half-full, conversations half-finished.
But love, Olivia knew, wasn't built in the easy moments. It was tested in the pauses.
They hadn't spoken about the night Aiden came. Or about what Kael had done the year before. That silence hung between them like mist—gentle, but always present.
One evening, as the sky turned a dusky violet, Kael returned from a freelance gig in Shoreditch, his camera bag slung over his shoulder. Olivia was on the couch, thumbing through a tattered volume of Sylvia Plath.
"You look like poetry," he said softly, setting the bag down.
She looked up, arching a brow. "And you look like someone with a secret."
Kael chuckled but didn't deny it. He walked over, sat beside her, and pulled something from his coat pocket.
It was a small envelope.
"What's that?" she asked.
"My portfolio got picked up. I've been offered a three-month residency. In Edinburgh."
Olivia blinked.
"That's… amazing," she said slowly, heart thudding.
"I haven't said yes yet."
"You should," she said quickly.
He looked at her. "That's not the reaction I expected."
"You've worked for it. You deserve it."
"And us?"
She closed the book and placed it on the coffee table.
"That's what we don't talk about, isn't it?" she said. "The 'us' we keep dancing around."
Kael leaned back, exhaling. "I love you, Liv. That hasn't changed."
"But loving me wasn't enough to make you stay before."
"That's why I want to do it right now."
"You leaving again—even for something good—scares me," she admitted, voice trembling. "Because last time, you said it was 'just a project.' And you disappeared for a year."
He reached out and took her hand.
"I'm not disappearing," he said. "I'm building something that I hope you'll be proud of too."
Tears welled in her eyes, and she blinked them away quickly.
"I want to be the kind of woman who supports the man she loves," she said. "But I'm still learning how not to lose myself in the process."
He kissed her knuckles gently. "Then we'll learn together."
The next morning, they sat on a park bench in Hampstead Heath, watching children chase birds across the green. The air was crisp, the sky clear.
"I think we're in a season," Olivia said suddenly.
Kael glanced at her. "A season?"
"Not the end. Not the beginning. Just… somewhere in between."
He smiled. "Then let's not rush out of it."
That night, she helped him pack.
She folded his shirts with care, her fingers lingering longer than needed on the collar of his favourite denim jacket. She tucked little notes into the pockets of his bag—quotes, memories, one-liners that only they would understand.
When the day came for him to leave, they stood in front of the train platform at King's Cross, the air humming with arrivals and departures.
He pulled her close and whispered, "I'll come back."
She held onto him as long as she could.
"I believe you," she whispered back. "But even if you don't… I'll still be here, healing."
The whistle blew. He kissed her—soft, slow, reverent.
Then he was gone.
Olivia stood there for a long time after the train had disappeared, her heart both breaking and building at once.
She had let him leave. This time, on her terms.
And that made all the difference.