"22 Days" it echoed in his head.
Jake didn't move.
Time felt slow and cruel inside the car. Every breath scraped against the inside of his ribs like sandpaper. His thoughts spiraled—She didn't do anything wrong. She's not Sayuri. She's not like that. So why the hell am I acting like she is?
He pressed the heel of his palm against his eye, hard enough to see stars. His fingers twitched over the steering wheel. His jaw locked.
He wanted to scream.
Or break something.
Or grab the nearest bottle of something bitter and black out.
But he didn't. He just sat there. Until the guilt nearly suffocated him.
When he finally opened the door, ready to disappear into the night—there she was.
Sitting right outside the car, her back against the bumper. Wearing his oversized jacket. Her heels were gone, replaced by his chunky black slides that made her feet look ridiculous and small.
She looked up at him like nothing had changed. Like he hadn't just tried to shut her out.
"Here," she said casually, offering him a cold beer can and a pack of cigarettes. "You look like you need to sit down and rot for a bit."
Jake blinked. Speechless.
She scooted over, patting the concrete beside her.
He sat.
Still dazed.
"Don't talk," Ivory said, lighting a cigarette. The flame from her lighter flickered briefly against her face. "Unless you want to. But right now, let's just smoke this shit and drown in beer. Okay?"
Jake blinked again when she took a drag and exhaled like a pro. "Wait, you smoke?"
She chuckled. "Used to. Years ago. Rebellious teen era."
He looked at her sideways, stunned.
"My parents were trying to send me back to Italy. I didn't want to go. My grandfather had just died. I felt like the world was ending, and no one was listening. So, I rebelled. Smoked. Snuck out. Fought. Lied."
She took another drag and passed it to him. Their fingers brushed.
Jake took it slowly. Silent.
"I never told you that part," she said, watching the night sky. "I always seem put together, right? Ivory, the heiress. The wine girl. But I was a mess. The only reason I found myself again was because I started making wine. I found something I loved and clung to it. I'm my father's daughter, after all."
She turned to him. Her eyes softer now.
"I may, or may not know how it feels, Jake. To spiral. To feel like everything good in your life is slipping through your fingers. But you're not alone."
Jake's throat tightened.
"I'm here. And I want you to feel that. Not just know it. Feel it."
He stared at her. Completely disarmed.
This woman—his woman—sat beside him barefoot in hotel slides, with a cigarette between her fingers and the moonlight on her lashes, telling him she's broken too.
But not gone.
Jake felt something break loose in his chest.
"I don't deserve you," he muttered.
Ivory took a sip of beer. "No one said anything about deserve. I'm here because I choose to be. You think you're hard to love?" She laughed softly. "Try being the kind of girl who can't sit still and ends up emotionally adopting six old men at a local wine bar."
He huffed a laugh. Small, but it was something.
Ivory leaned against his shoulder.
They sat there in silence, sharing cigarettes, swapping stories of things they hadn't said before.
And Jake, for the first time that night, didn't feel the need to disappear anymore.
He looked at her—not like a man plagued by doubt, but a man finally breathing again.
And though he already knew he loved her...
In this quiet, broken, beautifully honest moment—
He realized he was falling in deeper than he ever had before.
They sat on the cool pavement beneath a dark sky that hummed with distant traffic. The beer cans sat forgotten between them now, and the last tendrils of cigarette smoke curled lazily in the air. The kind of silence that sat like a blanket—heavy, but oddly comforting—wrapped around them.
Jake ran a hand through his hair, exhaling slowly. Then he spoke, voice low, like he was afraid it would shatter the moment.
"I almost blacked out from the anxiety tonight," he said, voice low. "Like... I couldn't breathe. I was smiling, but it felt like someone was pressing a fist against my lungs."
Ivory didn't speak, just listened.
Jake looked down at his hands. "It's stupid. I know you weren't doing anything wrong. I know that. But something just... snapped inside. Like this old fear came clawing back out. That black hole from before. Sayuri. The lies. The manipulation. How I started doubting what I saw—even in myself. And when I looked at you..."
He swallowed hard.
"You were laughing. Glowing. That kind of laugh you usually save for me. And I just—" He laughed bitterly. "I thought, 'what if one day, I'm not special enough for her anymore?' And I hated myself for thinking it."
Ivory tilted her head, her expression softening. "You think too much when you're in a tie," she teased gently, nudging his knee with hers.
Jake glanced at her, surprised when she didn't look hurt—just real.
"How did you know?" he asked. "That I needed to smoke. Drink. Just sit."
She grinned. "The look on your face was hard not to notice. You were seconds away from punching something—or someone."
Jake huffed a laugh, shaking his head.
"It's about... me not being the guy you met in Iceland," Jake murmured. His voice was low, brittle at the edges. "I won't be that JungKook for a while. It'll be strict. Ugly. Lonely. You don't know what it's like."
"And you don't know what it's like to love someone who keeps pushing you away the moment things get hard," Ivory replied without hesitation.
Silence fell between them like a fog—dense, heavy, almost too thick to wade through.
Jake looked away, his jaw clenched tight. "I'm not pushing you away."
"You are," she said softly, standing now. Her eyes never left him. "You're already building walls. You won't even let me talk about visiting, you had that hesitation on you face when we talk about it. You're already planning your goodbye while I'm still trying to hold onto the days we have left."
Jake stood too, facing her now. "Because I have to be strong. If I let myself fall apart now, I won't make it through the next two years."
Her voice cracked, raw with truth. "So what? I'm supposed to pretend I'm okay with all of this? That I'll be fine while you disappear for two years and I don't even know how you're doing?"
"I never asked you to wait for me," he muttered—too quietly.
Ivory froze. Her breath caught. "What did you say?"
Jake's eyes lifted—wet, rimmed red.
"I didn't mean it the way it sounded," he said quickly.
She only looked at him, unmoving. Waiting for him to continue.
"I just..." He exhaled, the fight in his shoulders dropping as he finally swallowed his pride. "I don't want you to feel stuck while I'm gone. I've seen what waiting can do to people. It's... painful. I want you to live your life. Do everything you dreamed of. Be everything you already are—without feeling like you're chained to a ghost."
Ivory tilted her head, something cheeky flickering behind her soft expression and took one last drag of her cigarette and turned slightly, blowing the smoke right in his face—playfully, gently.
He blinked. "Seriously?"
She shrugged with a smirk. "You needed a little humbling."
Then she smirked.
"So... what you're saying is—I can get a boyfriend while you're gone?"
Jake's head whipped up so fast she thought she heard a crack. "YAAAA!!"
His voice pitched up, scandalized. Face twisted into the most offended pout, brows scrunching like a betrayed cartoon prince. He looked exactly like the 🥹 emoji.
"That's not what I meant!" he whined, throwing his arms up dramatically. "Ivoryyyyy!"
She doubled over laughing. The tension shattered like glass underfoot.
Jake watched her laugh for a long moment, then cracked a smile of his own.
"You're evil," he said.
She moved toward him, sat beside him again, their thighs brushing.
"You're mine," she said.
He gripped her hand instantly, thumb running across her knuckles. "That's not gonna change. Even if we're both gone for two years."
She leaned in, whispering, "Then don't tell me to live like you're dead."
He bumped her shoulder in return, their touch casual but grounding.
"You're hard on yourself sometimes," she said more seriously now, gaze forward. "Like you expect yourself to be composed, perfect. Even when everything's crumbling inside. It's okay. You don't have to keep your walls up around me."
Jake's silence confirmed her accuracy.
Ivory's voice was quieter now, but steady.
"I didn't know what to do at first," she admitted, pulling her knees to her chest. "I wanted to scream at you. Shake you. My temper got to me at first and wanted to throw curses, in Italian of course." Jake almost bolted, Ivory only shrugged. "But then I thought... if I were Jake—what would I feel? What would I want right now? What would help?"
Jake turned to her. Her profile was sharp in the moonlight, eyes fixed on the skyline like she was seeing something more.
"I don't always get it right," she continued, "but somehow, with you... the answers come easier."
He reached over, gently lacing their fingers together.
"I don't want you to carry the weight of my old wounds," he said. "I'm scared I'll end up pushing you away like I did everyone else."
Ivory turned to him this time, her expression unreadable for a beat.
"You won't," she said, firm. "Because I won't let you."
There was no dramatic swell, no romantic flourish.
Just truth.
"Damn," he whispered. "You always know."
She smiled at him, a little sad, a little tired, but mostly warm.
"That's because we're each other's open book," she said. "You're my strength and my weakness. And I'm yours."
Jake took her hand, lacing his fingers through hers.
He didn't need to say thank you. She felt it in the way he held her tighter.
Grounded, quiet, and more intimate than anything else they'd ever shared.
They were two open books—pages marked with dog-ears, scribbles, smudged ink and all.
Each other's strength.
Each other's weakness.
And still, somehow, always worth reading.