The Last Morning Before Goodbye
Clara woke before sunrise on Monday.
For several long moments, she remained completely still beneath the blankets, staring at the faint gray light filtering through the curtains while reality settled heavily back into her chest.
Today.
The word alone felt unbearable.
Outside, Edinburgh remained quiet beneath early morning snow. The city had not fully awakened yet, and the silence surrounding Blackwater House made everything feel strangely suspended, as though time itself was reluctant to move forward.
Clara turned her head slightly toward the clock on the nightstand.
5:12 a.m.
Her flight left in the afternoon.
The thought made her chest tighten so painfully she had to close her eyes briefly.
She had spent the last few days pretending goodbye still existed somewhere far away in the future. But now there were only hours left, and suddenly every room inside this building already carried the sadness of memory.
The library where she first started falling for him.
The sitting room where they stayed awake talking until sunrise.
The kitchen where Margaret aggressively forced emotional advice onto both of them while pretending she wasn’t deeply invested.
Everything mattered now.
And most frightening of all, Elias mattered enough that leaving him behind physically hurt already.
Clara sat up slowly and wrapped her sweater around herself before heading downstairs quietly.
She expected to be alone again.
Instead, she found Elias standing near the kitchen window holding a cup of coffee in one hand while snow drifted softly outside behind him.
He looked up immediately when she entered the room.
Neither spoke at first.
The sadness between them already felt too large for ordinary conversation.
“You’re awake early,” he said softly.
Clara managed a weak smile. “Couldn’t sleep.”
“Me neither.”
Of course not.
She crossed the room slowly until she stood beside him near the window. Outside, snow gathered across rooftops and empty streets while pale dawn light spread gradually over the city.
Elias handed her the second cup of coffee already waiting beside him.
The gesture nearly broke her heart.
“You made this before I came downstairs?”
A faint smile touched his face. “I know your sleep schedule now.”
God.
It was always the small things with him.
The quiet details.
The effortless ways he paid attention to her without even realizing how deeply those moments mattered.
Clara wrapped both hands around the warm cup and leaned lightly against the counter beside him.
Neither mentioned the airport.
Neither mentioned Boston.
The silence carried enough pain already.
After several minutes, Elias finally spoke again.
“I hate this.”
The honesty in his voice shattered something inside her immediately.
Clara looked down at her coffee before answering quietly, “Me too.”
He exhaled slowly and rested one hand against the back of his neck in that familiar way he always did whenever emotions became too overwhelming to hide properly.
For a moment he looked almost angry.
Not at her.
At the situation.
At distance.
At time.
At the fact that love had arrived in both their lives only to demand impossible decisions immediately afterward.
“I keep trying to think rationally about this,” he admitted softly. “But every rational thought I have ends with me wanting to ask you not to go.”
Clara’s throat tightened painfully.
She turned toward him fully now, eyes searching his face carefully.
“Do you want me to stay?”
The question entered the room quietly.
But the weight of it felt enormous.
Elias stared at her for several long seconds before lowering his eyes briefly.
“Yes,” he answered honestly. “But I also know you have a life waiting for you there.”
The sadness in his voice made her chest ache.
Because he wasn’t trying to control her. Wasn’t asking her to sacrifice everything impulsively for love.
He simply wanted her beside him.
And somehow that hurt even more.
Clara stepped closer until almost no space remained between them.
“You know what’s terrifying?” she whispered.
“What?”
“If you asked me to stay right now…” Her voice broke slightly despite herself. “I honestly don’t know if I could leave.”
The confession settled between them heavily.
Elias looked at her like the words physically affected him.
Then suddenly he pulled her into his arms tightly, holding her against him with a kind of desperation she had not felt from him before.
Clara wrapped both arms around him immediately.
Neither spoke.
There were moments when language simply became too small for emotion, and this was one of them.
Outside, snow continued falling softly through the quiet Edinburgh morning while warmth surrounded them inside the kitchen.
Eventually Elias rested his forehead lightly against hers.
“You changed everything,” he murmured.
Tears burned suddenly behind Clara’s eyes.
“So did you.”
For a while they simply stayed like that, holding onto each other while morning slowly brightened around them.
Then footsteps sounded from upstairs followed by Margaret’s unmistakable voice drifting down the hallway.
“If either of you starts crying before breakfast, I’m charging extra for emotional damages.”
Clara laughed helplessly through the ache in her chest while Elias closed his eyes briefly like a deeply exhausted man.
Margaret entered the kitchen moments later wearing slippers and carrying a plate of toast.
She stopped after taking one look at them.
“Oh no,” she said immediately. “The sadness has started early.”
Neither answered.
Margaret’s expression softened almost instantly.
She placed the plate down quietly before walking toward Clara and pulling her into a surprisingly warm hug.
“You’re coming back,” she said firmly.
Clara swallowed against the emotion rising in her throat. “I want to.”
“That wasn’t a suggestion.”
Clara laughed weakly while Margaret stepped back again.
Then Margaret looked toward Elias with narrowed eyes. “And you. Don’t become emotionally unbearable after she leaves.”
“That seems unlikely.”
“Fight for her properly,” Margaret said more gently now. “Some people spend their entire lives waiting for the kind of love sitting directly in front of you.”
The room fell silent after that.
Because despite all her dramatic nonsense, Margaret had always seen the truth clearly from the beginning.
Clara looked toward Elias again.
And suddenly, painfully, she realized something.
They were no longer standing at the beginning of a love story.
They were standing at the first real test of it.