Scarlett imagined the apartment with new light and strangers’ art on the walls, and it felt like both fracture and chance. Dakota reached across the table, fingers brushing hers—no grand declarations, only the familiar pressure that said, We’ll try.

They fell into the comfortable ritual of making decisions together: quick, pragmatic, and threaded with their history. Tickets, sublets, what to pack that mattered and what could be left behind. They spoke in fragments that filled in the rest—shared songs, a password to an old playlist, the name of a bakery they’d save for coming-home rituals.

Dakota inhaled and let out a laugh that wasn’t quite humor. “Updated plans. Different city. Same us, maybe.”