It was a cold Saturday morning when the news came.
The television was on in the background—muted at first—as Beth sat curled on the sofa beside Amanda, a textbook open on her lap though she hadn't read a word in ten minutes. Jefrey sat in the armchair with a mug of coffee, and Chris—ever the multitasker—was flipping between cricket stats and old Elizabethtown clips on his laptop.
Then the words on the TV screen caught Amanda's eye.
"Leon Troy Spotted at JFK Airport: Actor Returns to New York Amid Health Speculations."
Amanda reached for the remote and turned the volume up.
The footage played.
Leon walking briskly through JFK, dressed in a wool charcoal coat, dark jeans, and a black scarf tossed artfully around his neck. He looked thinner. Paler. But still composed. Still himself. Or the version of him the world was used to seeing. Flanked by Rene and Gabe, with Bar trailing a step behind—perfectly dressed, sunglasses on, unsmiling.
"He left," Beth said quietly, as if confirming it to herself. Her voice was steady, but something in it cracked around the edges.
Jefrey looked at her. "You didn't know?"
She shook her head slowly. "I hadn't checked. I didn't want to…"
Chris stared at the screen, squinting. "He's… really in New York? Just like that? He left London?" He sounded vaguely offended, as if Leon had skipped out on a group project.
Amanda reached out and touched Beth's hand.
"You okay?"
Beth didn't answer right away.
She watched as the screen flashed to Leon stepping into a black SUV, looking over his shoulder for half a second—as if expecting something, or someone.
And then the doors closed.
Only then did Beth whisper, barely audible:
"…I think I will be."
The scent of pine and cinnamon filled the Gibson home, but it couldn't hide the weight in the air.
Christmas had arrived, but joy came in flickers—like fairy lights that blinked unevenly, refusing to shine all at once. The tree stood tall in the corner of the room, decorated by Amanda and Chris with more distraction than cheer. Beth had added a few ornaments but stopped halfway through, her hands trembling. Jefrey had quietly wrapped presents, but none of them felt right.
In the hospital, Helena had grown weaker.
She still smiled when they entered the room, still teased Chris about his obsession with The Lord of the Rings, still called Amanda bossy and told Beth that her eyes were far too old for her age. But her voice was thinner. Her skin paler. The oxygen machine never stopped humming.
On Christmas morning, they brought gifts to the hospital. Beth wore red, for tradition, and Amanda tried to coax the others into singing carols, but it all felt fragile. Chris cried silently when Helena joked, "Looks like I'm the ghost of Christmas present, huh?"
Jefrey held her hand for hours, barely speaking.
That night, when they returned home, no one played music. The fireplace flickered low. Beth sat by the window, looking out at the quiet street, lights twinkling in the cold.
It was Christmas.
But it didn't feel like one.
Chris stood in the hallway, arms crossed loosely, his voice low with something that wasn't quite admiration, wasn't quite disbelief either.
"He kept on paying the bills," he said to Amanda, who was sitting on the couch, wrapped in a blanket with a cup of tea cooling in her hands. "Even after everything. After Beth. After disappearing. After going back to New York."
Amanda looked up, startled, then skeptical. "Leon?"
Chris nodded. "Yeah. I checked with the hospital. They said the payment account never changed. Still from the same private financial group. It's him."
Amanda blinked slowly, processing. "Why?"
Chris shrugged, his voice softening. "Maybe guilt. Maybe pride. Maybe he just… didn't know how else to say sorry."
Amanda set her mug down with a quiet clink. "Or maybe," she said after a pause, "he actually loved her. And that's what love looks like when you've messed it all up and don't know how to fix it."
Chris didn't respond at first. Then, glancing at the quiet room behind them where Beth sat beside Helena, reading aloud in a voice she tried to keep steady, he murmured:
"Yeah. Maybe that's exactly what it is."
Jefrey sat alone at the dining table, fingers curled around a pen he hadn't moved in twenty minutes. The open notebook in front of him was blank, its pages stark and accusing.
His hand trembled slightly.
From the next room, he could hear Beth's quiet voice reading to Helena, soft and deliberate, her grief folded so neatly into each word it barely bled out. She sounded older. Not in years—just in all the ways that mattered.
He didn't know what to think anymore.
Part of him—the quiet, steady part that had loved her for years—wanted her to look at him the way she used to look at books: with quiet devotion, like she could lose herself there forever. That part of him still remembered the motorboat ride, her hand on his, her eyes wide and real and close.
But another part… the sharper, heavier part, saw how her eyes still flickered every time Leon's name came up. How even the mention of him sent her silence reeling.
And now this—Leon still paying Helena's bills, even from oceans away.
Jefrey closed his eyes.
Did he want Beth to love him?
Of course.
But did he want to be the second choice?
The safe one?
The one she settled for?
He didn't know.
And that was what made his hand tremble.
Christmas morning unfolded quietly, under soft yellow lights and the faint crackle of the fireplace. The living room smelled of pine needles and cinnamon candles that Amanda had lit with near-ritual seriousness. Helena was still asleep in the hospital, and though her absence ached, the four of them—Beth, Amanda, Chris, and Jefrey—had agreed to exchange gifts at home before visiting her.
Amanda handed Chris a small, neatly wrapped package.
He tore the paper with the eager flourish of a child and stared.
It was a sweater.
Hand-knitted.
With Orlando Bloom's face stitched across the chest in precise, slightly abstract yarn detail.
Chris's jaw dropped.
"You didn't."
Amanda shrugged, eyes mischievous. "I did."
Chris clutched it to his chest like it was sacred. "This is the greatest article of clothing in existence."
Then Amanda turned to Jefrey and passed him a thick, wrapped parcel. He opened it to reveal a hardcover edition of Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, complete with her underlined annotations in the margins.
Jefrey raised an eyebrow. "Ah. A book of 700 pages on inequality. Truly festive."
Amanda grinned. "You're welcome."
Chris glanced at the two gifts and blinked. "Wait, why does he get serious commentary on global wealth disparity and I get Legolas in merino wool?"
Jefrey, only half-joking, muttered, "Yeah, I'd like to second that."
Amanda smirked. "Because I know what each of you loves."
Still, Jefrey's smile flickered a bit too slowly back into place.
Then it was Chris's turn. He pulled out a small, silvery box and handed it to Amanda. Inside was a delicate silver chain with a pendant inscribed:
"You're not wrong, you're just dramatic."
Her favorite insult-turned-compliment.
Amanda flushed, unexpectedly touched.
"Okay. That's actually… thoughtful."
Chris shrugged with mock bravado. "I have layers."
Then, almost sheepishly, he passed a shirt to Beth.
She unfolded it—
Orlando Bloom's face again, this time younger, as Will Turner in Pirates of the Caribbean, airbrushed across the front.
"Obviously," Chris mumbled, "you can only wear it in private."
Beth laughed. "You're assuming I have shame."
Amanda and Chris exchanged a glance, both of them flushing slightly—just for a second.
And Jefrey, watching all this, smiled.
Tried to, anyway.
That night, the house was quiet in a way that didn't feel sad—just gentle. The snow outside had softened the world, and the Christmas tree glowed with the kind of light that seemed to come from within, not from bulbs or wires, but something older, something still and warm.
Beth stood by the tree, her arms wrapped around herself, watching the lights reflect off the silver tinsel. Jefrey entered the room with two mugs of tea and handed one to her wordlessly.
She took it, their fingers brushing. Neither of them pulled away.
They stood there in silence for a while, sipping, the air between them calm, tinged with something uncertain. The fireplace crackled behind them. The ornaments on the tree caught flecks of light and scattered it across their faces like stars.
Beth looked up at him. Her eyes were softer tonight. Not wild with grief or love or memory—just tired, and open.
Jefrey set down his mug.
She didn't move.
Slowly, carefully, he leaned forward.
Their lips met—tentatively, like an experiment neither of them had studied for. A kiss that asked a question more than it answered one.
It lingered.
Gentle.
Flickering.
Unfinished.
When they pulled apart, Beth's eyes searched his face. Jefrey held her gaze, steady.
And she didn't step back.
That night, as the last embers in the fireplace dimmed and the silver glow of the Christmas lights danced faintly against her bedroom walls, Beth lay beneath her blanket, still and quiet.
The house had settled into sleep.
She turned on her side, fingers curled loosely beneath her cheek. Her thoughts wandered—not to New York, not to premieres or paparazzi or unreachable worlds—but to something simpler. Warmer.
The way Jefrey's hand had hovered at her back without pressure.
The hesitation in his eyes.
The gentleness of that kiss.
It hadn't been sweeping or cinematic. But it had felt… true.
And as she drifted into sleep, her lips curved—soft, unguarded.
She smiled.
At 1:03 a.m., Beth's eyes flew open.
Her breath caught in her throat.
The dream had vanished instantly, as nightmares sometimes do, leaving only the echo of fear: her heart racing, her body cold with sweat, the sheets tangled around her legs like a snare.
The room was dark, but not silent—the faint hum of the central heating, the occasional creak of the house settling, and outside, a wind brushing gently against the windows like fingertips.
She sat up slowly, pressing a trembling hand to her chest.
She couldn't remember the dream exactly—only flashes:
a hospital hallway with no doors.
A voice calling her name that sounded like Leon's, but distant, distorted.
Running.
And the terrible feeling that she was too late for something she hadn't realized she needed to save.
Beth swallowed hard, her throat dry. Her window glowed faintly with the frost-dimmed light of streetlamps. The warmth she'd felt earlier, curled into sleep with a smile on her lips, had vanished like breath on glass.
She slipped out of bed, her feet bare on the wooden floor, and padded to the window. The snow had stopped. The street below was still and silver.
She didn't cry.
But her fingers gripped the windowsill as if trying to anchor herself to something real. Something certain.
Because even now—even with Jefrey, even with the safety of home—there was a part of her that hadn't stopped loving the boy who never stayed.