The bus to Boston left at eight in the morning.
Kate was already in her seat when John climbed aboard.
She had saved him the window seat, with her bag tucked beneath her feet and a paperback open on her lap.
She smiled when she saw him.
A genuine smile this time, without any edge to it.
“You’re early,” he said.
“You’re late.”
“I’m not late.”
“You’re five minutes late.”
He sat down beside her.
The bus pulled away from the station, and Boston slowly began to unfold outside the window.
The city looked different from the way he remembered it.
He had been to Boston in his old life.
Once for a conference, once for a weekend with Sarah years ago.
But those memories belonged to a different person now.
Now Boston was simply Boston.
Brick buildings.
Narrow streets.
The harbor shining in the distance.
The faint smell of salt and exhaust.
They met Amy at the studio.
She was waiting outside the door, leaning against the wall with her guitar case at her feet.
She wore a leather jacket, and her hair was shorter than John remembered.
She looked like someone who had been living inside a song for a while.
“Sam!”
She hugged him before he could react.
Then she stepped back quickly, as if she suddenly realized she might have gone too far.
“Sorry. I’m just excited.”
“It’s fine,” John said.
Kate stood slightly to the side, her hands in her pockets, watching.
Amy led them inside.
The studio was a converted warehouse with exposed pipes and soundproofing panels covering the walls.
A sound engineer sat behind a mixing board.
The control room smelled like cigarettes, coffee, and something sweet.
Amy played them the final version of the song.
It came through the speakers polished and full, her voice layered over itself in harmonies John had never heard before.
The song was hers now.
Completely and undeniably hers.
John could still hear traces of the words he had helped her with, but the life in the song belonged entirely to her.
When it ended, John said nothing for a moment.
“Well?” Amy asked.
“It’s yours,” he said.
He looked at her.
“It’s completely yours.”
“You helped make it.”
“I helped you find the door. You walked through it.”
Amy looked at him for a moment, her expression softening.
“You know, when I first came to your apartment that night, I didn’t know if I could write anything. I thought maybe I’d lost it.”
She looked down at her hands.
“That song was the first thing I finished in three years.”
“You finished it. Not me.”
She did not argue.
She simply nodded.
“I know. But you were there.”
That night, they went to a small restaurant near the studio.
It was the kind of place with red vinyl booths and checkered tablecloths.
It smelled like garlic bread and had been around so long it did not need a sign outside.
Amy sat across from John.
The balance at the table felt delicate, like something that could tip if anyone leaned too hard.
“Your band is going to play it at the release party, right?” John asked.
“Yeah. Next month. We’re opening for another local act. It’s a small venue, but it’s something.”
“That’s something.”
Amy looked at John, then at Kate.
“I’m glad you both came. I wasn’t sure if you would.”
“Sam’s been looking forward to this,” Kate said.
“He doesn’t say it, but I can tell.”
Amy smiled.
“He doesn’t say a lot of things.”
Kate met her eyes.
“No. He doesn’t.”
The silence lasted a beat too long.
John looked down at the menu.
“The food’s good. We should order before they close the kitchen.”
At the hotel that night, John and Kate sat in their room.
The window looked out over a side street, and the lights of Boston spilled across the ceiling in soft rectangles.
“She’s in love with you,” Kate said.
John looked at her.
“What?”
“Amy. She’s in love with you. Or at least she thinks she is.”
“Amy’s grateful. That’s different.”
“It’s not that different.”
Kate sat on the edge of the bed, her hands pressed flat against the covers.
“She looks at you like you solved something for her. People mistake that for love all the time.”
“I didn’t solve anything. She wrote the song.”
“You gave her the thing she couldn’t find.”
Kate looked at him.
“That means something.”
John sat beside her.
“Kate. I’m here with you. I’m not here with anyone else.”
“Not yet.”
He did not know what to say to that.
The next day, they walked along the Charles River.
The water was gray green beneath the spring sky, and a few sailboats were already out on the water.
Kate was quieter than usual.
She kept her hands in her pockets and did not reach for his arm the way she sometimes did.
“It’s not that I’m angry,” she said finally.
She looked ahead.
“I’m just noticing. And I don’t know what to do with what I’m noticing.”
“Kate.”
“Let me finish.”
She stopped walking and turned to face him.
“You’re a good man. I’m not saying that to be nice. I’m saying it because it’s true.”
She looked away.
“And good men attract people. That’s just how it works.”
She took a breath.
“I just want to know where I fit in all of it.”
“You fit in it more than anyone.”
“Then act like it.”
Later that afternoon, they passed a bookstore.
A sign in the window caught Kate’s attention.
Boston Story Collection
Short stories on the theme of turning points were being accepted for publication in the Boston Literary Review’s spring edition.
Kate read it twice.
Then she pointed at the sign.
“You should do this.”
“I don’t write stories.”
“A few paragraphs. Nothing finished.”
“Finish it.”
She pulled the door open.
“Come on.”
They went inside.
Kate spoke to the woman at the counter, got a submission form, and handed it to him.
John stood there holding the paper.
It felt much heavier than a single sheet should have.
“I’ll think about it,” he said.
“Don’t think about it. Do it.”
Back at the hotel that night, John sat by the window with a pen and a sheet of paper.
He wrote about a man in an unfamiliar city who was unsure where he belonged.
The man stepped outside, walked to the corner store, and bought a cup of coffee.
He stood in the morning light and realized that maybe he did not need to know exactly where he was.
Maybe he just needed to be there.
John finished the story at two in the morning.
He read it once.
Then he decided not to read it again.
The next morning, he dropped it into the submission box at the bookstore.
Kate watched him do it.
“Thanks,” he said as they walked away.
“For what?”
“For pushing me.”
“Someone has to. You’re not very good at pushing yourself.”
Henry called the next day, just before they were about to leave.
His voice sounded different over the phone.
More alive than usual.
“Sam. I passed the first part.”
“Of what?”
“The bar exam. Well, the first part. There’s more to come. But I did it.”
“I told you.”
“I didn’t believe you.”
“Believe me now?”
“Maybe.”
There was a pause.
John could hear Henry breathing on the other end, as if he were deciding whether to say something else.
“Also,” Henry said, “I stopped by Ruth’s place yesterday. She looked pale. Really pale. She told me she’s been having chest pains.”
John’s expression changed.
“Just small ones. She didn’t want to worry you.”
John sat down on the edge of the bed.
“Did you take her to a doctor?”
“She said no. She’s stubborn, Sam. You know she is.”
“She’s not stubborn. She’s scared.”
“Same thing.”
Henry sighed.
“But I thought you should know. I thought maybe if you came back, she’d listen.”
“I’ll come back. I’m leaving today.”
He told Kate that night.
They were sitting on the edge of the bed, the streetlight outside casting shadows across the room.
“Ruth is sick,” he said.
“I have to go back.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Tonight. There’s a bus at nine.”
She looked at him, her face unreadable.
“Then I’ll go with you.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
She picked up her bag.
“I want to.”
They packed their bags and left Boston behind.