The Last Monroe

LEFT BEHIND

Michael pulls up to School Street and Elara slides out before he's fully parked, already thinking about the bookshop ahead. The Brattle Book Shop is tucked downtown Boston, She watches Michael head back to find a spot, then turns toward the door.

That's when she sees him.

Adrian is walking toward her, He sees her in the moment she tries taking her eyes off him. The recognition hits differently than she expected and God guys no its not romantic, Her chest tightens. Her mouth goes dry.

Two years of silence collapsing into three seconds.

They walk toward each other because there's nowhere else to go.

Adrian Vale looks exactly like he did two years ago, which is the worst thing he could look like right now. Dark hair slightly too long. Sharp features that make him look like he's always on the verge of laughing at something. He's wearing a navy sweater and jeans and he looks tired in a way that suggests he's been working overtime and that’s the thing he real loves his work and doesn’t mind losing anything when it comes to that.

"Elara."

She hadn't planned for this. She hadn't planned for any of this—returning to Boston, inheriting her mother's life, and definitely not for running into Adrian on a random Thursday outside a bookshop.

"Adrian. Hi."

She sounds like she's been surprised, which she is.

He reaches her and the space between them is both too small and too large. If he hugged her, she thinks she might break. If he doesn't, she might feel it for weeks.

He doesn't hug. He stands close enough that she remembers how he smells—coffee and something like cedar—and far enough that they're not quite touching.

"I heard about your mum," he says. "I'm really sorry."

It's a careful thing to say. Respectful. But she hears underneath it the thing he's not saying: I wanted to call. I almost called.

They'd been together nine months when it became clear it wasn't going to work. Nine months of him juggling Boston and Portland, splitting weekends, promising he'd figure it out. She'd asked him to settle. Really settle—work remotely, move to Portland, build something with her instead of always having one foot in another city.

He couldn't do it.

They'd never had s*x as a couple, which should have been simple but wasn't. He'd been intentional about that—trying to show her that love wasn't just about s*x, that he could prove his affection in other ways. And he had loved her. She felt it. But they wanted different things from life. She needed someone fully accessible and present. He needed something she couldn't give which is her moving to Boston instead, the irony of life, here they are in downtown Boston.

By the time they actually broke up, the momentum was already gone. It had been dying slowly since month six.

"Thank you," she says. "That's kind of you."

"Could have called to tell me that," she adds, and it comes out sharper than she means.

Adrian flinches slightly. "Yeah. I thought about it. A lot."

She believes him. That's the problem—she can tell when he's being honest and when he's not, and right now he's being honest.

"How have you been?" she asks, and she means it. She wants to know. Two years is a long time. People change. She's changed. She wants to know if he's changed too.

"Managing," he says, and there's something tired in it. Something real. "Working with my family more. It's complicated."

"Complicated how?"

He shifts his weight. "Family stuff. My uncle, mostly. But it's—" He stops. "It's fine. How about you? You look good. You look really good, actually."

She can see him realizing he shouldn't have said that. She can see him not taking it back anyway.

"I'm figuring things out," she says. "My mom's estate is more complicated than I expected."

"Yeah, that must be weird."

"It is weird."

"Are you staying in Boston?" he asks.

"For a while. I'm working remotely. I don't know how long yet."

He nods slowly, and she watches him processing that information. She's in Boston. For a while. That means there's time. That means he could see her again if she wanted to.

"Coffee?" he asks, and his voice is careful and hopeful in a way that hurts.

Then she says, "I don't think so."

She watches it land. Watches something in his expression fold.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "Okay."

He doesn't push immediately. he just stands there for a moment, looking at her like he's trying to memorize something or say goodbye to something again.

"Lunch though," he says finally. "One of these days. Please. I'll reach out."

"Okay," she says, because it's easier than saying no again, and because some part of her means it.

"It was good to see your face," he says, and there's real tenderness in it. The kind that suggests he's lost sleep over this. "I mean—you still look like you. That sounds weird. You just still look like you."

"Adrian—"

"I know," he says, stepping back. "I'll text you. About lunch. Give me your number again?"

She gives it to him. He types it into his phone and doesn't call to verify it. Just nods.

"See you, El."

He's the only one who ever called her that. She'd asked him to stop once, after they broke up.

He walks backward a few steps before turning, and she watches him disappear into the crowd.

She stands in front of The Brattle Book Shop for longer than she means to.

The bookshop absorbs her when she finally goes inside.

Narrow aisles, stacked shelves, the smell of old paper mixed with coffee from the café in back. She walks through sections without intention, pulls books off shelves because they're there. Poetry. A novel she's already read. An essay collection about cities and memory.

She's definitely thinking about Adrian.

By the time she gets to the register, she has two books she didn't mean to buy and a headache forming behind her eyes. The cashier rings her up without comment. She pays. She leaves.

Michael was waiting where he said he'd be.

She slides into the back seat and doesn't mention Adrian.

Serena texts: Still on for Saturday?

She texts back: Yes.

But as the car turns toward home, she's still thinking about Adrian's expression when she said no to coffee. The way he said okay, like he'd been expecting it.

What they had was real, she thinks.

It just ran out of road.

And now she's back in the city where he wanted them to be together, and he's still there too, and neither of them is quite the same person anymore.

She pulls out her phone and looks at her screen. No text yet.

She doesn't know if he'll actually call about lunch.

She doesn't know if she wants him to.

That's a dangerous thing to feel when you're lonely and your mother is dead and you're living in her house surrounded by her secrets.

She sets her phone down and opens one of the books she didn't plan to buy.

It's about cities, memory and coming home.