Chapter 3: Counting Down
The morning of the picnic arrived brittle and bright, a sharp, cloudless blue that felt like a lie. Matt moved through his apartment with a frantic precision, pulling Tupperware from the fridge, checking the charge on the portable speaker, shuffling through a deck of cards. He’d made sandwiches—turkey and havarti, her favorite—and a container of strawberry slices. It was simple. He wanted it to feel simple. Not like a grand gesture, just a good day in the sun. A bookmark before another three-week silence.
He’d almost asked her the night before, during the comedown from their Mario Kart truce. The words had buzzed behind his teeth. But something in her preoccupied gaze, the way she’d already started mentally packing, had stopped him. Today had to be the day.
She met him at the park entrance, a canvas tote slung over her shoulder, wearing sunglasses that hid half her face. “You look like a boy scout who raided a gourmet deli,” she said, a smile in her voice. She kissed him, quick and warm, and some of the brittle feeling in his chest eased.
They found their spot near the old oak, the one whose roots made a natural backrest. The grass was cool and damp underneath the blanket he spread out. For a while, they just ate. The sandwiches were good. The strawberries tasted like summer. He put on a playlist of songs they’d heard in the diner, songs from the museum, a few she’d sent him from the road. It felt like weaving a net of sound to catch the day.
“Remember that guy at the mini-golf place?” she asked, licking a spot of mustard from her thumb. “The one who insisted on using his own glow-in-the-dark ball on a sunlit course?”
“He had a system,” Matt said, grinning.
“He had a psychosis.” She leaned back on her elbows, tipping her face to the sun. “This is nice. Really nice.”
This was his opening. His heart began a slow, heavy thump against his ribs. He shuffled the deck of cards, the sound loud in the peaceful air. “Can I ask you something? And you don’t have to… like, craft the perfect answer.”
She peered at him over the rims of her sunglasses. “That sounds ominous. Did I use your favorite coffee mug as a paint-water cup? Because I totally did that.”
He laughed, a tight, nervous sound. “No. Worse.” He took a breath. “What made you say yes? To our first date. I mean, you could have anyone.”
Sarah was quiet for a moment. She plucked a blade of grass, twisting it between her fingers. “You were persistent,” she said finally. “But not in a gross way. In a… you remembered I liked those weird sour candies from the gas station. You brought me a bag when I mentioned I’d had a shitty day scanning gallbladders in Toledo. It wasn’t flowers. It was fluorescent green gummy sharks. It was specific.” She looked at him. “You pay attention. It’s unnerving, sometimes. But mostly it’s just… really nice.”
The ache in his chest swelled, sweet and painful. “And what makes you keep saying yes?” he asked, his voice softer now.
She lay back on the blanket, staring up at the oak leaves shifting against the blue. “When I’m here, it feels like I’m actually here. Not already planning the next flight, or unpacking the last hotel room from my head. You drag me into the present. Like that stupid retro museum. I never would have gone. I would have been on my phone, looking at housing boards for Phoenix. But you made me look at the pixels.” She paused. “It’s a good feeling. To be offline from my own life for a minute.”
He put the cards down. The world had narrowed to the space of the blanket, the scent of grass and her sunscreen, the faint music from the speaker. This was it. He’d practiced no speech. He just had to say it true.
“I want to be more than your offline switch,” he said. The words hung there, plain and vulnerable. She lifted her head, looking at him. He pushed on. “I don’t want this to be this unspoken thing we do between your assignments. I want it to be spoken. I want you to be my girlfriend. Officially. Knowing that it means I’m here, always, when you get back. That you have a person, not just a pause.”
Silence. It wasn’t the comfortable quiet from before. It was a held-breath silence, thick and waiting. Sarah sat up slowly, drawing her knees to her chest. She pulled off her sunglasses, and her eyes were unreadably dark.
“Matt,” she said, and his name on her lips sounded like a gentle let-down already.
“I know you leave tomorrow,” he rushed, the momentum tumbling out of him. “I know your life is out there, in all those different cities. I’m not asking you to change that. I’m asking to be the constant inside the chaos. You have this… I don’t know. This quiet center to you. Under all the travel and the sarcasm. This glow. I see it when you talk about a difficult patient, or when you’re focused on beating me at Mario Kart, or when you’re just… still. Like now. I just want to be near it. For as long as you’ll let me.”
He’d said too much. He’d used words like “glow” and “eternity” in his head, and they’d leaked out, embarrassingly earnest. He braced for her laugh, her deflection, her polite retreat.
She didn’t laugh. She studied his face, her gaze moving over his eyes, his mouth, like she was trying to memorize something. A slight frown creased the space between her brows. She uncrossed her arms and reached for his hand. Her fingers were cool.
“Officially,” she repeated, the word foreign on her tongue.
“Officially,” he whispered.
She let out a long, slow breath. “It sounds like a promise. A big one.”
“It doesn’t have to be heavier than it is,” he said, though he feared it already was.
“But it is,” she said softly. “If I’m your girlfriend officially, then every time I get on a plane, it’s a thing. It’s a ‘goodbye, girlfriend.’ It adds weight. And my life… it works because it’s light. I pack light. I travel light. I leave light.”
The hope that had been soaring in him began a shaky descent. “I’m not a suitcase you have to carry, Sarah. I’m the guy who’s here when you put yours down.”
She winced, ever so slightly. “I know. God, I know that.” She looked away, across the park, where kids were chasing a dog. “Okay. Yes.”
He blinked. “Yes?”
“Yes, I’ll be your girlfriend. Officially.” She said it looking away, as if agreeing to a minor contract change. Then she turned back to him, and her eyes were fierce. “But it’s my version, okay? It means I choose you, every time I come back. It means you’re my person. But it also means my job is my job, and my space is my space, and you don’t get to look sad in airport drop-offs, and you don’t get to ask when it’ll stop. Can you handle that version?”
It wasn’t the fairy-tale acceptance he’d imagined in the dark. It was a negotiation. A stark, clear-eyed deal. It was so utterly her that it stole his breath. She was offering him a real, complicated thing, not a fantasy. It was all he wanted.
“Yes,” he said, squeezing her hand. “I can handle that version.”
A slow smile spread across her face, reaching her eyes this time, erasing the frown. “Good.” She leaned in and kissed him, a real kiss, deep and full of unspoken things. When she pulled back, she was shaking her head slightly. “You’re a lot, Matt. A really sweet, stubborn lot.”
He laughed, relief flooding him, making him lightheaded. “You have no idea.”
She nudged the deck of cards. “Alright, boyfriend. Let’s see if your attention to detail extends to knowing when I’m bluffing in Go Fish.”
They played. The sun moved. The playlist ended. And for the rest of the afternoon, the words hung between them in the air, solid and new: Girlfriend. Boyfriend. A new shape to the space they occupied. He felt the weight of it, the anchor of it, and the terrifying, thrilling stretch of the tether that would soon connect them across a thousand miles. It was a beginning, not of something easy, but of something real. And as she laughingly accused him of cheating, her foot hooked around his ankle under the blanket, he knew he’d never wanted anything more.