“You’re my best friend.” He said it quietly, almost like it had slipped out without permission.

They stood beside the Uber, facing each other, just outside the sliding glass doors of the Port Elizabeth Airport departures terminal. The car idled behind them, the driver watching, waiting. The drive from Kings Beach had been silent, too short for everything that needed to be said, and neither of them willing to say it.

“I will miss you.” His voice caught slightly on the last word. She looked at him then, really looked at him. Not the way she had before, in passing moments and shared laughter, but as if she needed to carry this version of him forward. His eyes were red, strained in a way she had never seen. He was trying to hold himself together and failing just enough for her to notice.

Something inside her shifted. Until now, everything between them had lived safely in jokes, in late-night conversations, in things almost said and quickly disguised. But standing there, with departure pressing in on them, it felt undeniable, whatever this was. It mattered.

“I will miss you too.” She didn’t look away. Around them, the airport moved on without them. Luggage wheels rattled over concrete. The doors slid open and shut. A cold draft brushed past her legs. Time was moving, whether they were ready or not. Everything they had built quietly, unintentionally had led here. To this small, impossible moment where neither of them knew what to do with what they felt. They were both leaving, in different directions. Different countries. Different lives. Bound by something that hadn’t been named until it was already too late to hold onto.

“I love you too.” The words surprised her as they left her mouth. She hadn’t planned to say them. Maybe she hadn’t planned to ever say them.
He didn’t hesitate. “And I love you.” No smile. No deflection. Just truth.

Behind him, the Uber driver shifted impatiently. They stepped into each other at the same time, closing the space between them. The embrace was tighter now, deliberate. Final. She pressed her face into his chest and felt the aching beat of his heart against her cheek, and inhaled, as if she could fix the moment somewhere inside her. He did the same. For a second, everything else fell away. The noise, the movement, the leaving.

It subsequently returned in its entirety. She pulled back first. This was the goodbye. Without trusting herself to speak again, she turned and reached for her suitcase. The wheels clicked against the pavement as she began to walk. She heard the Uber door open behind her. Then close. She didn’t turn around. If she did, she wouldn’t have left.

The automatic doors parted and she stepped inside. Cold, artificial air wrapped around her, sharp against her skin. She shivered slightly and reached for her shawl, pulling it tighter around her shoulders. It still carried a trace of him. She paused for a moment, just long enough to breathe it in once, deeply, before continuing forward, into the unfamiliar shape of everything that came next.

 

 

 

 

 

Photo by Buddy AN on Unsplash