Chapter 22
Arianna’s face went from pink to full–on crimson at his teasing, and she shot him a look that was equal parts embarrassed and annoyed.
Seeing that he’d successfully flustered her, Jayden couldn’t help but grin. “Alright, alright, I’ll stop messing with you. Let’s actually make something.”
They spent the next hour completely lost in the process–kneading clay, working the pottery wheels, smoothing and shaping until their pieces started to resemble actual mugs.
When Jayden finally looked up to assess their progress, he had to laugh out loud. His creation looked like it had been made by a drunk kindergartner–lopsided, wobbly, and definitely not capable of holding liquid without a major structural failure.
Arianna’s, on the other hand, was practically museum–quality–smooth, perfectly proportioned, with delicate little details that would make Orange instantly recognizable once it was painted.
Of course she was naturally gifted at this. She’d always been the artistic one, always had that careful attention to detail that he completely lacked.
He was still marveling at her work when something cool and squishy smacked him right on the nose. He looked down cross–eyed to see a blob of clay perched on the tip.
Arianna was biting her lip, trying desperately not to burst into laughter, but her eyes were sparkling with
mischief.
“Seriously?” Jayden said, his voice full of mock indignation. “What are you, twelve?”
Instead of looking even remotely sorry, Arianna took advantage of his good mood and smeared another streak of clay across his cheek with her thumb.
“Oops,” she said with fake innocence. “You had some clay… right there.”
Before Jayden could plot his revenge, the shop owner appeared with a clipboard and a knowing smile.
“All finished?” he asked, clearly amused by their clay–covered faces. “Excellent work. These’ll need to be fired, glazed, and shipped. The whole process takes about a month. Where should I send them when they’re ready?”
Jayden paused with the pen halfway to the address form, suddenly hit with a decision he hadn’t expected to make. He glanced between the options, then looked at Arianna.
“Where do you want these sent? Vermont or New York?”
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Arianna
na was examining a ceramic lucky cat on a nearby sien, compititiy avi
She didn’t even look up when she answered.
“Wherever you are, that’s where I want to be,” she said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Vermont, New York, the moon–doesn’t matter to me.”
The casual certainty in her voice made Jayden’s chest feel like it might crack open with emotion. She wasn’t just talking about the mugs, and they both knew it.
“I’m serious,” she added, finally glancing up at him with a soft smile. “My home is wherever you are.”
Without hesitation, Jayden wrote down his Vermont address. New York had his career, his fancy apartment, his carefully constructed adult life. But Vermont had their history–and now, hopefully, their
future.
Besides, small towns always needed good cardiologists.
The afternoon sun hit them like a furnace when they stepped back outside. The heat was brutal, the kind that made the air shimmer and sent most sensible people running for air conditioning.
“Okay, I’m starting to think our timing was maybe not ideal,” Arianna said, already looking a little wilted after just one block.
Guilt immediately twisted in Jayden’s stomach like a knife. He’d been so excited about surprising her with this trip that he’d completely forgotten how much she hated hot weather–especially with her heart condition making temperature regulation even harder.
“Shit, I’m sorry,” he said, stopping dead in his tracks. “I should have checked the forecast. We can head back to the B&B if you need to cool down.”
But Arianna had already spotted something across the street that caught her attention–a quirky little shop with a hand–painted sign reading “Time Capsule Post Office.”
“Oh my God, look at that!” she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the storefront. “We have
to check this out!”
The moment they stepped inside and Jayden saw what the shop offered–write a letter today, have it delivered exactly one year from now–something cold and heavy settled in his chest.
One year. Twelve months. Three hundred and sixty–five days.
Would they even still be together by then? Would she even still be…?
His hand tightened around hers unconsciously, and he felt his throat start to close up.
“Arianna,” he said quietly, his voice coming out rougher than he intended. “I need to tell you something.
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About your diary.”
She looked up at him, immediately sensing the shift in his mood.
“I got it,” he continued, the words feeling like they were being pulled out of him with pliers. “Ten years ago. The package your mom sent. I got it the day before I left for college.”
He couldn’t look at her face. Couldn’t bear to see whatever expression was forming there.
“I never opened it,” he continued, each word feeling like a confession. “I was so fucking angry, so hurt, that I just… I shoved it in a drawer and tried to pretend it didn’t exist.”
The familiar wave of self–hatred crashed over him, threatening to pull him under.
“All that pain you were feeling, all those thoughts you wrote down–I could have known. I could have understood what you were going through. But I was too much of a coward to face it.”
His voice cracked on the last words, and he realized his hands were shaking.
“You were suffering alone, and it w
my fault. I failed you in every possible way.‘
Suddenly, Arianna’s hands were on his face, forcing him to meet her eyes. Her expression was fierce,
determined.
“Stop,” she said firmly. “Look at me, Jayden.”
When he finally did, her eyes were bright with unshed tears, but her voice was steady.
“If you’d read it back then, everything would have been different. Maybe better, maybe worse–we’ll never know. But I’m not going to let you torture yourself over something that happened ten years ago.”
She brushed her thumb across his cheek, and he realized he was crying.
“We found each other again,” she continued softly. “Against all odds, despite everything that went wrong, we’re here. We’re together. And I’ve never been happier in my entire life.”
Jayden searched her face desperately, looking for any sign that she was just trying to make him feel better. But all he saw was love and certainty and a peace that he desperately wanted to feel himself.
She picked up two pieces of stationery from the counter and handed him a pen, her smile gentle but encouraging.
“Come on,” she said, settling into one of the writing desks by the window. “Let’s write to ourselves a year from now. Tell them how happy we are right now.”
She stared at the blank paper for a long moment, her pen poised over the page. Then she looked up at
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Chapter 22
him, and for the first time since they’d been reunited, he saw something fragile and uncertain in her eyes.
“A year from now…” she said slowly, her voice barely above a whisper. “Do you think we’ll still be together?”
Chapter 23
