“Send me updates,” she said.
“You’re leaving,” she said, not a question.
He smiled, a small, apologetic tilt. “I didn’t plan for this to land on us like a deadline. But I don’t want to wait until we’re both ghosts in other people’s stories.”
He nodded. “Always.”
Outside, the street hummed with strangers who’d all decided, for reasons they kept to themselves, to walk faster today. Scarlett watched a child chase a pigeon and felt suddenly absurd for being still.