please stay
It would be a lie if Jamie said she hadn’t thought this would be a possibility—that she hasn’t feared this from the get-go. That first morning after , Dani had been different. Not entirely, no, but it was as if something inside of her was broken and she wasn’t sure where the pieces of it had gone. Like she’d woken up sightless and alone in a world that was not her own, that she didn’t know how to survive in.
Standing at the edge of a precipice and ready to tip over.
At the beginning, Dani tried to back out so many times. Tried to keep Jamie at arm’s-length, as if reminding her of the potential stakes would do anything to keep her from falling in love. From them falling in love. But it hadn’t worked and, eventually, Dani caved in. They fell in love and built a life together, a home together, and things were good. Fine even.
Dani hardly spoke about Bly or that night at all.
Yet Jamie is far from blindsided when she wakes up in their bed five years into their relationship to find Dani gone.
The day before had been perfect, really. At least until Dani came back to the shop in the evening with dinner, face pale and eyes wide like she’d just seen a ghost.
Now Jamie is wondering if maybe she had.
It’s still early and the sky isn’t all the way awake and Jamie reaches out her arm instinctively as she flutters her eyelids open, reaching for that familiar body she’s long-since memorized. Her hand meets empty air, flattens against cool sheets and then she wakes up all the way in a panic.
Dani is gone. In her place is a piece of paper, folded and set carefully in the center of her unused pillow. Jamie sits up, tucking the sheets around her bare body, and opens it. Skims the words.
Reads: Forgive me .
And: If I stay, it will only be harder for you.
And: I love you.
Jamie isn’t certain how long she sits there, clutching the letter in her hands, but she is aware of the lead in her legs, her bones heavy as stone, mind filling with cotton. No thoughts. Just a numbing cold.
Eventually, she manages to tear herself away and throw on the first clothes she can find, running out of the apartment with her keys in one hand and her shoes untied. She’s lucky, really, to find that their car is still parked outside, meaning that Dani either called a cab to where she’s going or she’s on foot, which means that Jamie might not be too late to catch her.
The air freshener Dani picked out in the store last week swings from the rearview mirror, strawberry shaped and scented and Jamie remembers standing in the checkout line with their groceries—Dani lifting the silly thing up and mimicking the cartoon face on the front. Eyes crossed. Tongue stuck out. And Jamie had distantly wondered if loving Dani too much could be the death of her.
Sometimes it certainly feels like it.
Like when they’re eating dinner together and Dani accidentally gets a bit of food or sauce on her face—the way she laughs and pushes at Jamie’s shoulders when Jamie leans across the table to lick it off.
Like when they’re tired from a long day and they can do nothing but fall onto the couch together the moment they get home—the way Dani pulls Jamie’s feet into her lap and massages them gently even though she’s just as exhausted as Jamie is.
Like the weekend they spent in New York City two years ago—how Dani stubbornly held Jamie’s hand everywhere they walked; how she teared up during the overture when they went to see The Phantom of the Opera ; how she bought a pair of “I Love New York” boxers and wore them to bed, where she pinned Jamie down to the mattress and smothered her with kisses until their laughter turned into sighs and moans and something else entirely.
And now, she’s speeding her way down the street in the direction of the airport, eyes roaming the sidewalks as she goes, looking for the familiar sight of her girlfriend. Her partner. The star-brimming love of her life.
There’s a pain in her side that digs its way in even further when she reaches the airport and hurries to park. It throbs sharply as she gets out of her car and rushes inside, looking around frantically for anything familiar.
The fear of being too late—of having missed Dani before she got on her flight; of not getting there in time for whatever it is Dani’s going to do—makes it feel like something has been carved out of her chest. She wants to be angry—wants to be livid that Dani would do this to her, to them . She wants a lot of things, but she can’t name any of them save for one:
Stop this from happening.
She checks the boards above ticketing, trying to find anything relevant. Finally, she spots a flight to London that’s set to board in forty-five minutes. Trying to walk as quickly as she can without running, she starts off toward the gate listed, zipping past families and business people all on their way in or out. All fine and normal and going about their lives with no idea as to what is at stake for the woman brushing past them without apology.
There’s a high-pitched ringing in Jamie’s ears. She feels like every single atom, every molecule, every inch of her is vibrating at a higher frequency than it should be. Her jaw is trembling and she has to clench it to keep her teeth from clacking together.
She’s trying to breathe normally, trying to pray to every deity she can think of that she isn’t too late, when she sees her: Dani. Sitting in one of the chairs in the mostly-empty space beside the gate.
She looks as exhausted as Jamie feels, wearing the same clothes she was last night. Her eyes are so bloodshot that Jamie can see it from fifteen feet away. That pain in her side aches and her chest is thumping hard against her ribs.
As lost in thought as Dani appears to be, curled up in that seat and looking like she’s just spent the last three hours crying, she doesn’t look up until Jamie is standing right in front of her.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jamie asks, unable to keep the anger out of the edges of the question.
Dani startles at her voice and looks up, blinking a few times when she sees who’s standing in front of her, as if she’s worried she may be dreaming. “Jamie?” she says. “What are you—?”
“No,” Jamie cuts in. “What are you ? Did you think you’d get away with leaving me in the middle of the night? Did you think I’d just let you go?”
There are a few people scattered around in other chairs nearby, and Jamie knows that they are probably watching this whole thing, but she can’t bring herself to calm down. She’s not sure how she’d even begin to try .
“Jamie, I—” Dani begins, and she looks like she might start crying again.
Jamie cuts her off. “No, you don’t get to do this, Dani,” she says, pointing a trembling finger. “You don’t get to just...do something like this without talking to me about it. You don’t get to decide this for the both of us.”
Slowly, Dani gets to her feet, and there’s still space between them, but neither of them tries to bridge it. Not yet.
“Jamie, I can’t just...I can’t just wait around for something to happen,” she says. “You don’t get it. Do you know how terrified I am every...every day that I’m going to just...hurt you or-or...I couldn’t stand it, Jay. I couldn’t stand losing you like that. I have to—”
“No, you don’t get it,” Jamie says. She wants to sound fierce and as angry as she knows she is, but, instead, her words come out broken and tearful. “You can’t just... leave me. Not like this. We have so much—”
“What if we don’t?” Dani asks. “Wouldn’t it be better for us to...for it to be like this than some other way?”
Jamie shakes her head, fixing Dani with a sardonic look. “Right. Because this is so much better. Me waking up to you just... gone . You not even saying goodbye just leaving me like this, tossing me away like what we have...what we are doesn’t even matter. I love you , you colossal prat. You can’t just—”
“It’s because I love you that I’m doing this, Jamie,” Dani cuts in, and, while her tone is still guarded, her voice is softer. “I couldn’t…” She sighs and turns a little, shoulders shaking from the effort to hold back her tears. She runs her fingers through her hair and closes her eyes for a moment.
She looks broken, defeated, and it slices right through Jamie’s chest. She’s surprised when she doesn’t fall to her knees. Because, if Dani is right about this—about all of it and about what is going to happen to her, to them —then…
Then it’s only a matter of time.
She looks at Dani standing there like she could fall apart at any moment, like she already has. Her shoulders slumped and Jamie realizes that she’s crying a minute too late to stop herself. Dani lifts her head and meets her eyes again, drawing her arms around her stomach, and this is her best fucking friend and the love of her life and Jamie is so in love with her.
“Couldn’t what?” Jamie asks, so much softer than anything else said so far.
She takes in the sight of Dani standing there—dark circles under her bloodshot eyes, her clothes ruffled and her lips sore from being bitten at.
“I couldn’t—” Dani starts, but she can’t finish the sentence.
It doesn’t matter. Jamie hears the rest anyway.
Hears: I couldn’t give you what you deserve.
And: I couldn’t do this to you anymore.
There’s something in Jamie’s chest about this—the end of the rope.
“I love you,” she says quietly. “Please don’t go. Not yet.”
It feels wrong doing this here, in the middle of the bustling airport, under the harsh fluorescent lights. There are strangers around them—they are so far from alone—and Jamie really wants to be in their home for this—thinks that, if they were surrounded by their things and their life , then Dani wouldn’t possibly argue.
Dani chokes back a sob. Her shoulders stutter, then stiffen. “Jamie,” she whispers. “I—” She jumps a little when Jamie reaches out and touches her arm. Before she can draw away, though, Dani darts her hand out and grabs her, holding her tight.
Something inside of Jamie is splintering and her legs are numb. She takes a deep breath and holds it for a second. On the exhale, she says, “Dani, please. I know that you’re...that you’re scared. I am, too. I’m so…” She breathes in again, shakily this time, curls her free hand into the fabric of her own shirt. “I don’t know what...I don’t know what’s going to happen, or... how . Or when. But I love you and I’m not ready to live without you. Please, please don’t make me try.”
There are probably millions of ways to say it, but this is the only way Jamie can manage in the moment. Her chest feels tighter and tighter with every aching heartbeat and time slows down just enough for Dani to blink, to part her lips, to look like she’s going to argue again, before she says, “Come here,” and cups the back of Jamie’s neck, tugging her into a firm kiss right there in the middle of the airport.
Jamie presses her body closer to Dani’s, fists her hands in blonde hair to pull her in harder. Distantly, she feels warm fingers fist the material of her shirt at the back and she kisses and kisses and kisses Dani. As long as she can.
That’s the plan, at least.
“Please stay,” Jamie whispers when they pull apart, panting, and Dani only hesitates for a second before nodding, tucking herself into Jamie’s arms like she never plans to leave and Jamie is fine with that. Perfect, even.
“Take me home,” Dani says into Jamie’s neck, arms still tight around her.
And time and past and future be damned, Jamie does just that.
..