Chapter 6: Kisses and Goodbyes
The weeks that followed were stitched together with hope and hesitation.
Mae and Leo didn’t try to explain what they were. They didn’t put a name to it. They just were—as natural as the river’s flow, as fragile as the wings of the fireflies they chased at dusk.
Some nights, Leo would throw pebbles at Mae’s window until she climbed out onto the roof, and they’d lie side by side watching the sky. Other times, Mae would find a folded paper heart in her mailbox: Meet me at the bridge scribbled inside.
It was simple, and imperfect, and everything she didn’t know she had been waiting for.
But the world outside their little universe wasn’t still.
College applications. Job offers. Plans.
Mae had been accepted to a university two states away—an opportunity she never thought she’d get, a scholarship that felt like a door swinging open after years of living in a hallway. She hadn’t told Leo yet.
And Leo… Leo talked more about leaving, too. About working construction jobs with his cousin in another town. About trying to make something better for himself.
They didn’t talk about what would happen to them when those choices came due.
Not yet.
Maybe because deep down, they already knew.
It was the night of the town’s end-of-summer festival—the last before school started, the last before everything changed.
Mae stood in front of her mirror, smoothing down the fabric of her sundress. She could hear the distant thump of music from the fairgrounds, the occasional crack of fireworks being tested early.
She tucked one of Leo’s paper hearts into her pocket: Stay brave.
When she got to the river, Leo was already there, leaning against the bridge post, silhouetted by the last traces of sunset.
“You’re late,” he said, grinning.
“You’re always early,” she countered.
They laughed, and for a moment, it was just like always.
They walked through the festival side by side, stealing bites of cotton candy and tossing rings at impossible prizes. They rode the Ferris wheel again, and Mae realized how much she had grown since the first time—how much they had grown.
When they reached the top, the town stretched out below them in a glittering, breathing sprawl.
Leo leaned back against the metal seat, hands folded behind his head, pretending he wasn’t nervous.
“Mae.”
She turned, heart pounding.
“I’m leaving,” he said quietly. “End of the month.”
The words hit like a crack across ice.
“I got a job lined up with my cousin. It’s not forever, just…a start. You know?”
Mae nodded because she didn’t trust her voice.
“I figured…” He swallowed. “I figured you’d be leaving too.”
She closed her eyes.
“I got in,” she whispered. “University. Scholarship.”
Leo let out a long breath, not surprise—just sadness edged with pride.
“That’s amazing,” he said, and meant it.
They sat in silence for a while, the Ferris wheel creaking gently under them.
When the ride ended, they didn’t go back to the games or the crowds.
Instead, they wandered down to the river, to the broken bridge where it had all begun.
Under the stars, Leo pulled something from his jacket pocket.
Another paper heart.
Mae opened it carefully.
Inside, written in his messy scrawl, were three words:
I love you.
She looked up at him, blinking hard.
Leo laughed nervously. “Took me a while to get brave enough to say it.”
Mae stepped forward and kissed him.
It was soft at first, tentative.
Then deeper—aching, desperate, like trying to memorize something with your whole body before it disappeared.
Leo cupped her face with both hands, as if she might float away.
Mae threaded her fingers into his hair, pulled him closer.
They kissed like all the empty spaces inside them were pouring into each other, trying to fill the cracks.
When they finally pulled apart, Leo rested his forehead against hers.
“I love you too,” Mae whispered.
And she did.
She loved him fiercely, wildly, impossibly.
She loved him knowing they were standing on the edge of goodbye.
She loved him knowing that loving him might just break her heart anyway.
They spent the rest of the night together, walking through old streets and half-forgotten memories.
At sunrise, sitting on the riverbank with dew soaking their jeans, Leo traced circles on the back of her hand.
“I don’t want to lose you,” he said.
“You won’t,” Mae promised, voice shaking.
But promises were made of paper, and the world was made of storms.
They kissed one more time, a kiss that tasted like salt and river mist and a thousand unfinished stories.
Then they stood.
Then they let go.
Mae watched him walk away, hands jammed in his pockets, head bowed against the rising sun.
She didn’t call after him.
She didn’t chase him.
She just stood there, clutching the paper heart against her chest until the sun burned away the night and the whole world smelled like something ending.
In the weeks that followed, she packed her life into boxes.
She sent a letter to Leo—no return address. She didn’t expect an answer.
Maybe love wasn’t always about holding on.
Maybe sometimes it was about knowing when to let go.
Mae tucked the paper heart into the shoebox with the others.
She taped it shut.
She labeled it simply: Before.
And then she left Willow Creek behind.
But even after she crossed state lines, even after the river was just a memory and the bridge just a story she told herself on quiet nights, Leo stayed with her.
In the paper hearts tucked into her books.
In the songs that made her chest ache unexpectedly.
In the way she looked at the world, always searching for the next firefly.
Some people, Mae learned, don’t leave footprints.
They leave rivers running through you.
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