what it would cause
207 Words
The email came the next morning.
Emilia stared at her phone, heart pounding as the words blurred together.
We’re pleased to offer you the position… relocation required… immediate confirmation.
Everything she had worked for.
Everything she’d run toward.
Lucas found her an hour later, sitting on the back porch steps, phone dark in her hand.
“You’re leaving again,” he said.
It wasn’t a question.
Her throat closed. “I haven’t told you.”
“You don’t have to,” he replied. “I can feel it.”
The storm had washed the air clean, but the tension remained.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” Emilia said.
Lucas sat beside her, close but not touching. “You don’t get to choose that.”
She turned to him, tears burning. “What if I stay and resent it?”
“What if you leave and regret it?” he asked.
Silence.
“I don’t want you to disappear again,” Lucas said softly. “Not without telling me the truth.”
She looked at him—really looked.
At the man who stayed. Who loved quietly. Who never demanded.
And for the first time, Emilia wondered what it would cost her—not to leave.
- Writer
