Archive of Our Own

3.

The birds start on the same day she sees the first dandelion of the season. 

Her eyes narrow as she nears it. It’s mid-February, too early for the hope of spring. And yet, the flower managed to sprout, a spot of pale yellow amongst the grey and brown, something bright to remind her that maybe things will get better. Yellow is supposed to be a happy color, full of warmth and optimism. She used to wear yellow all the time as a child. Was told she looked “absolutely adorable” in it. But the person who told Penelope that is also the one who thinks Penelope reads books about weight loss and finding love, which means everything she has been told about the color has to be taken with a grain of salt. 

Whatever. Penelope walks past the lone dandelion and then turns back toward it, watching some paunchy businessman in a poorly-tailored suit stomp on it as he hollers into his mobile. 

Seems about right. If that bloke didn’t do it, then the freeze two days from now will. 

Penelope sighs and picks up the pace. Her boots scrape against the pavement, and she weaves her way through fast-talking Londoners and overly loud tourists as they bustle around Notting Hill. A few dart into the posh shops lining the road, some scrambling for what looks like some last-minute Valentine’s gifts. Penelope avoids them and struts past a bookstore with her own work displayed in the window. 

It should improve her mood. It doesn’t. Just reminds her of midnight eyes and a debonair grin. A wobbly breath rattles out of her as she rounds the corner to her flat. 

Well. Not to her flat. To her home. She’s not used to calling it that. And switching the wording from paying her rent to paying her mortgage hasn’t fully stuck yet. 

Her steps clack against the brick stairs as she approaches the door. The key jams in the lock briefly, and she has to shoulder it open with more force than should be necessary, only to be greeted by someone she doesn’t know who must live in the building. He smiles. Waves. And she tries, she tries, to be friendly back, but she lost the ability to be friendly the night of her book release, so she knows her smile comes across as forced the minute he saunters past her. 

The smile holds until she opens her mailbox. Then she gasps when she sees its contents, and the smile promptly falls. Melts into something that quivers, that precedes a tight throat and glassy eyes. A slightly pudgy envelope lies inside. The top corner bears a stamp designed with pretty blue flowers, and the address, written in fine black ink, has been smudged, a trait of handwriting she knows by heart. 

It’s been nearly three months. She shouldn’t be able to recognize the handwriting instantly. Shouldn’t know that he probably wrote it while wearing that cologne she got him last year, or that, despite the lack of a return address, the damn thing came from Tokyo. But there’s something so hasty about it, like he wrote her as quickly as he could lest he forget what he needed to say, which is just so him it hurts. 

She inhales and clenches her jaw, clutching the envelope to her chest, trying to feign strength and composure until she can be alone. Opening it downstairs feels too impersonal, too much like playing with fire. So she sprints up the stairs to her flat home and inelegantly rips open the thing the second she crosses the threshold, careful to avoid the scrawl on the front. 

She can’t mess up the scrawl. 

But the thing is… relatively empty. Devoid of any letter or postcard. Instead, three little origami birds tumble out. They’ve been folded and refolded, clearly riddled with errors, the paper free of any marks or writing. They’re cute. A little lopsided, but full of character. Penelope picks one up and steps outside to her balcony. 

Her balcony. Just as weird to say. Laden with ivy-covered walls and dead leaves in the corner, the balcony was one of the perks of buying this tiny place. Her bedroom may be more akin to a walk-in closet, and her kitchen may become cramped just by opening the refrigerator, but the balcony is unmatched. Besides, more than anything, the place is hers. A monument to stability and constancy, to finally establishing herself in her career and as an independent woman. And she is proud of it.

He was proud of her for buying it, too. At least, he claimed he was. Before they...

She sighs, forcing herself to think about anything else and settling on examining the bird in the natural light. Grey clouds roll overhead, and winter still hangs in the air, but the details become a bit clearer as she stares at the intricately folded piece. It’s delicate, soft, the same color as the dandelion, but somehow much more painfully auspicious. A shiver crawls up her spine as she tells herself that it’s just a piece of origami.

It’s just a piece of origami. 

Even if it somewhat befuddles her.  

At the end of the day, she elects not to question too much. She misses him. She loves him. And she can’t be with him. She won’t question this reminder of any of those facts. 

As if the thing might crumble in her fingers, she places it in the palm of her hand, then goes inside and puts it on a shelf. His shelf. The same shelf full of ticket stubs and old pictures she can’t fathom tossing out, positioning it beside the pressed boutonniere from his brother’s wedding two years ago. She puts the other two on each side of it, then steps back, seeing three birds amidst eighteen years of trinkets and memories. 

Her eyes catch the picture of them from her book release last year. Right before winter, right before the first real chill, right before the rest of the night when everything occurred. He’s all scruff and curls, confidence and charm, complete with a navy blazer that softened and accentuated everything about him. 

He’d stayed by her side the entire night. Through repeatedly having to hitch up the neckline of her gold sequined dress, through a near panic attack that could only be quelled with a glass of Malbec, through congratulatory hugs and perfunctory compliments and enough handshakes that her fingers had started to ache. Penelope told him he didn’t have to, that he could mingle or terrorize the open bar, but he would just smile and shrug and say he wanted to be with her.

She inhales. With her. He’d wanted to be with her. 

And yet… Here she is, in her flat home, staring at three wonky little origami birds and feeling the grief of his absence lodge somewhere between her ribs and heart. 

She allows herself one final glimpse of the picture and wipes the tears brimming in her eyes. 

11. 

The second envelope she gets feels thicker, fuller, even slightly more weighty with contents and expectation. 

More than anything, his scrawl is etched across it, so she treats it much like the other: as a priceless good, too valuable to be tampered with, but too enticing not to open. 

Penelope takes it up to her flat home, February rain pattering on the roof when she reaches the top floor. She doesn’t hesitate to open it the minute the door closes. Never mind that her place is a mess, or that she keeps procrastinating on her next assignment. No, the anticipation of discovering what he sent feels too paramount, too exhilarating, so even though she thinks she knows what it is, and even though it’s only been a week since the last time he sent her anything, she tears it open with the same care and consideration as the one before.

It’s exactly what she expected. Birds. This time, eight of them, all in varying shades of yellow, better folded, but still with a few imperfections that she loves. 

She first studies them all individually, arranging them by shade and then by the angle of their wings. Then takes them and places them with the others, moving a couple of items to make them fit better. Stepping back, she admires the entire display, gaze lingering on the postcard he sent her three years ago from Oaxaca until she turns away to put the envelope in a drawer with the one from last week. Penelope considered last week a one-off fluke, but now, she ponders why he has sent her eleven birds while staring at her neglected laptop by the window.

Three days have passed since she last worked on her piece about London’s upcoming Lunar New Year Celebration. Three days. Now, Penelope’s deadline looms on the horizon. She has less than twenty-four hours before the piece needs to be finalized for publication, and yes, while most of the thing is done, Penelope always stumbles over the last few sentences, meaning at least a third of it will have to be rewritten. 

Oh, the joys of being an events writer for The Standard. 

But whatever she writes simply won’t be as good if she doesn’t understand the birds. The why bothers her, pokes and prods and pesters, stealing whatever attention she might designate for other, better things. She craves just a smidge of context behind the two envelopes that have contained nothing but folded paper and potential. So she sets a timer and grabs her laptop and whips it open, fingers flying across the keys as she seeks out answers. 

It doesn’t take long for the internet to provide the information she wants. 

Apparently, the little things are not birds. They are cranes. Cranes. Popular in several cultures and hugely worshipped in Japan. Plenty of species live on the archipelago, with masses of cranes migrating to and from the area every year, which she assumes must be spectacular to see. She reads about them symbolizing longevity and loyalty, luck and good fortune. She reads about preservation measures and tattoos and avian monogamy. Plenty of information about the relationship between the Japanese and cranes exists, and Penelope immerses herself in learning about something symbolic, emblematic, and deific, something she never considered learning about, all because of him. 

It also doesn’t take long to stumble across something that makes her eyes widen. 

She finds it on the second website she clicks, a couple of paragraphs at the bottom of the page dedicated to old folklore. Senbazuru, which claims that folding a thousand cranes supposedly grants a wish to the person who labors through the task. Taking the mythical and turning it into something tangible. Putting oneself through hours and hours of work for superstition, for chance, for hope. 

Penelope closes her laptop with her heart beating in her ears and her nerves alight with curiosity and fire. Jaw clenched and throat tight, she glances over at the cranes. Her alarm went off over half an hour ago, and her deadline has inched even closer, and she needs this job and the stability it provides, but her mind whirs with possibility and him. She can’t write with her mind conjuring image after image of the scar on his chin, the slope of his nose, the curls at the nape of his neck, and how they flare out from under his ears when his hair gets long. 

His hair was like that that night too. Long and curling. He hadn’t cut it once in the three months he’d been back in London and had to keep sweeping it out of his eyes at her party. She remembers the motion of his deft fingers sliding across his forehead. Remembers running her own fingers through it as he kissed down her jaw, her neck, her chest. Remembers how haphazard they looked when he left, after he broke her heart and she broke his. 

The cranes sit on the shelf, mocking her. She chose this, her own flat home, her own book and her own career. She looked him in the eyes and chose independence, survival, and self-reliance. He had always been her dream, yes, but so had reliability and relevance, having things like a permanent address and a novel with her name on the cover, things she could point to and claim as her own. She’d made her choice and knows now that she cannot have her cake and eat it too. 

But here she is, crying over eleven paper cranes, letting him drag her back toward what she cannot have.

She misses him. She loves him. She cannot be with him. And she cannot let herself fall back into the pattern of yearning for something that cannot be. 

Penelope does some very quick, simple math, taking into account his tenacity and stubbornness. Eleven cranes. 

The myth specifies a thousand. 

Is this just the beginning? Or is this just stoking hope for what cannot be? And if he does complete the task, and if all these cranes are for her, then is the wish that comes with them for her too?

Outside, the rain has stopped, and a bird chirps. The sun peeks through the small gaps in the clouds, a reminder of the impending spring. And Penelope watches as the world tries to come to life, love burning just a little brighter in her chest.

112.

Penelope can’t remember ever spending one of his birthdays with him. 

He always comes in for hers. She thinks he won’t this year, given how they ended things. But year after year, he somehow found a way to return for a full eight days during the first week of April, their week together culminating in a night of grotty pubs, cheap vodka, and one endearingly homemade cake. Penelope tried to reciprocate this as best she could when his birthday rolled around. Visiting him had long been out of the question, seeing as she never had ample time or money, so she settled on sending him a gift, a card, and a box of those shitty battenburgs he couldn’t get enough of. She even endured the annual thirty-pound fee of shipping these things to him. Figured it was the least she could do. 

But she has ignored his messages for over three months now. Has sent every email to spam and selected a specific ringtone for him so she knows when she shouldn’t pick up the phone. He should know, by now, she won’t be sending a gift. Cranes aside, sending something sentimental or nostalgic, along with the battenburgs and a box with his name written across the top, feels dangerous. Like reaching for something tantalizing, but just out of reach. Why would she send him a birthday gift after what happened? Not sending a gift, especially in the wake of the cranes, sends him a message in its stead: they need to move on.

He doesn’t get that message. Or perhaps he anticipated that she would not send a gift and countered accordingly.

Penelope inherently remembers but yearns to forget the date the moment she wakes up. The acknowledgement of it’s March 2nd automatically pops into her head before she even hits her alarm. She gets ready, bypassing the gold dress from that night. She submits her piece on the most underrated places in the city to get a pint for St. Patrick’s Day, receiving acclaim from her boss for taking something menial and giving it a unique spin, all the while recalling the small foamy mustache he gets every time he drinks a Guinness. The first true inklings of spring have sprung outside, snow melting to reveal green grass and budding wildflowers, and the saturation and sharpness should imbue a hope in her that things will get better. That she will move on. That new beginnings are possible. But then she passes a board outside a coffee shop advertising a special on his favorite drink, and suddenly, sadness wraps its hands around her throat, its grip tight and unrelenting. 

Perhaps she should have sent a gift.

Penelope meanders back through Notting Hill, her face warm from the meager amounts of sun peeping out from behind the clouds. Her flat home comes into view, and she stops when she notices a package at the door addressed to her. Label printed, not scrawled, and held together with enough tape to mummify a small animal. Odd. Penelope definitely falls into the category of people who order from Amazon only once every few months, and only when she needs things she can’t get at a store within three business days. Her brows stitch together, and she gingerly picks up the box, feeling its light weight and hearing a rustle of paper on the inside. 

Fuck. Is this… did he…? 

Penelope shakes it again and grits her teeth, lips pinching together into a combination of a scowl and a frown. Seven envelopes in total sit in the drawer upstairs. The first two, plus five others that have come since she did all her research. Forty-six cranes in total. Part of her wants to be livid, angry that he won’t stop communicating with her, even when she shuts him out entirely. 

The bigger part of her still loves him. Has for eighteen years. Some things never change, even with clear irreconcilable differences driving them apart. 

Placing the box under her arm, she hauls it up the stairs to her flat home, wanting a minute to process that he sent her a gift on his birthday. 

An abhorrent number of cranes sit inside the box. More than she would think he could make in a week, especially after she looked up the time-consuming process of actually making one of the bloody things. Penelope scoops them up, letting them fall through her fingers, then does it again, her hand grazing against the bottom, feeling something that is distinctly not folded paper. On instinct, she withdraws her hand immediately. Then sifts through the overabundance of cranes to pull out a picture. Not of him, but of the cranes, arranged to spell three words as best as he could seemingly manage. 

She sets the box on the rug, holding the picture in her hand and letting her eyes roam over his work. Three words. Short. Simple. But a message, nonetheless.

It almost makes her laugh. It’s the same thing he said that night as part of his explanation for his proposition. And he’d said it then with such a dopey smile and with so much sincerity that it nearly convinced her to abandon everything she’d worked for. He missed her. He wanted her with him. 

But his proposition was naive. Out-of-touch. Poorly thought out and full of flaws. Trading security and self-reliance for unpredictability and dependence on another person sounds great on paper, but Penelope has had enough of the latter to last a lifetime. And she would have thought he would have known that too. 

The four walls of her flat home, the same four walls that bore witness to that evening, that she greets day in and day out, sit around her, a paragon of stability and a cage away from love. The box of cranes resting at her feet does nothing but confound her. She still doesn’t know if they are for her or for him. If the wish is for her or for him. Her eyes water as she stares at the picture he sent, and her fingers trace over the lettering, similar to how she does on nights when her bed feels too big and too empty, floating over where he’s been and where she wishes he were. 

She misses him. She loves him. She cannot be with him. But at least now, she knows he still misses her too. 

Box in hand, Penelope takes it over to the shelf, the cranes nestled inside. The picture shows sixty-six cranes in total. He wouldn’t send any more or any less. Which means he’s already completed over a tenth of what she guesses is his goal.

The sun shines through the windows, casting a yellow haze over the floor, shadows from the branches outside dancing over the shag rug, their buds swaying with the breeze. Penelope studies the cranes, and thinks about battenburgs, and wonders how he celebrated his birthday.

Perhaps she should have sent a gift.

247.

When she took over writing about London events at The Standard, she assumed she would be spending no more than four hours a week writing about whatever event the publication needed her to write about. 

She’d been incorrect. By a good amount, really. 

Regardless, she hadn’t been in any sort of position to turn the promotion down all those months ago. The money is great, and the site gives her a bonus for articles that hit a certain readership threshold, and they pay for her to research or attend whatever event they want her to cover. All in all, a great deal, especially when one factors in how much spare time she still gets to work on her second novel. 

It’s funny, too. People consider event writing her secondary job, the one that takes a backseat to being a novelist, but realistically, it’s much more the other way around. Her gig at The Standard has catapulted itself into being the best job she’s ever had. Yes, the initial advance on her first book supported her enough to put a down payment on her flat home, but beyond that, her novel hasn’t been the financial boon most people initially assume it to be. And no, she wouldn’t say she dreams of writing about tulip shows or the best rooftop bars in the city, not like the way she constantly writes dialogue or builds character arcs in her head. But The Standard affords her the ability to pursue writing the way she wishes, and provides a stable income flow, and she would have been out of her mind to give up a job this faultless. 

Penelope would have thought he would have surmised that she couldn’t leave a job this good. She is not him. She is not backed by a trust fund. She doesn’t have a background that exempts her from responsibility. Abandoning her life here to take him up on his offer would have been reckless. A choice built on hope and delusion and relinquishing the very independence and self-sufficiency he had been prepared to say he… well. 

Besides, rich people think everyone loves being a recipient of charity, but the harsh reality is that many people, Penelope included, hate being viewed as needing charity. She prizes agency and self-reliance, which then gets misconstrued as pride that should be swallowed. And when she rejects assistance parading around as altruism, people act dumbfounded, as if their offer never contained a hint of degradation, even if that hint had been thoroughly unintentional. 

So, yeah. She turned him down. For an abundance of reasons. Now, it’s been over four months, and she has to reconcile with the fact that he left for bigger, better opportunities, and she stayed behind to write about boat races and museum exhibitions. 

He left, and she stayed behind. 

Perhaps that’s why, the first time she gets a postcard from him, complete with his loopy handwriting, she dons a rented gown and a full face of makeup to attend the opening of a new wing at Somerset House. 

Shapewear already riding up her thighs, Penelope decides to check the mail before leaving. She expects a few bills, or perhaps a shopper or two, but the rotund envelope stops her in her tracks. It looks much like the others. Simple, stark white, marked with a stamp in the corner. But it feels more rigid in her hands, which piques her curiosity. 

She has a few minutes, and even though her heels make her feet ache, she can just hope for a seat on the tube and get a bit of rest before the event, so she goes upstairs and tears it open. 

Seventeen cranes tumble out in shades of lemon and gold and cream. Predictable. But the postcard clinging to the edge is a new development, and Penelope pulls that out with scrunched brows. The art on the front looks exquisite, bright and unique, and she dissects each element while biting her bottom lip. Her thumb grazes over the glossy sheen, then she flips it over and reads. 

It starts off politely. The letters bleed together a bit, and he avoids bringing up their noncommunication or what happened that night by talking about his time in Matsuyama. Then he gets some into the lore of the cranes. Talks about tancho, or red-crowned cranes, and Penelope can’t tell if he’s alluding to her being a redhead or if she’s searching for something that doesn’t exist. 

He ends it by asking if she’s even received the cranes at all. Tonally, it reads as a joke, but she knows him all too well and recognizes the desperation residing behind the words. If he only knew about the three sitting on the shelf she still calls his, and if he could only see the two boxes on the floor full of yellow birds. 

Now, she has a postcard full of his ramblings, things she hasn’t heard in months that she wishes she could hear here, in her flat home, as he guides her arm-in-arm to this fucking museum opening. Missing someone comes in waves, tinges of memories triggered by the slightest of things, and Penelope reads the random facts interwoven with his overt care for her and remembers the way he rambles when he has too much to say and no way of knowing where to start. He did it that night, too, trepidatious but confident. And it’s too much to see him do it on a bloody postcard. 

Penelope sets it down and stares into space, wondering what else he might ramble about if he were here with her. Would he ramble his way through an apology? Yammer on about everything he’s seen and eaten and filmed? Seconds tick by, and Penelope envisions his hands gesticulating frantically, or crammed in his pockets as if trying to remain calm. Then she glances at the clock on the wall. She’s been up here too long. Far longer than she anticipated.

She stands with a sigh. He left, and she stayed behind, which means she has a museum opening to get to, and an article to write, and a deadline to adhere to. She can’t hypothesize about him right now, when her reality paints a completely different, albeit much sadder, picture. 

Resolute, she adjusts her shapewear and sets the postcard on his shelf. She can deal with the cranes later, when she has time to cry and doesn’t have to write about sound installations. Right now, she has an event to attend, and a job to do.

483.

By the time the sun sets on her twenty-ninth birthday, Penelope doesn’t feel any closer to knowing what she would wish for. That is, if the cranes, and, by proxy, the wish, are for her. A single chocolate cupcake sits in front of her, the swirl of strawberry frosting on the top adorned with a single blue candle that Eloise insisted on when she brought the cupcakes over earlier. Penelope has already had one. Scarfed it down without much pomp and circumstance, and the others have been calling to her, their voices growing louder with every glass of wine she consumes. 

She thinks she has a good excuse. She is, after all, celebrating her birthday for the first time without her favorite person. And Penelope isn’t used to quiet dinners with his sister instead of cheap vodka and a crooked layer cake made in his mum’s kitchen. She was right; he didn’t come in this year, but vindication tastes bitter under these circumstances. And the cupcakes help with the bitterness. 

Though, in his own way, he did send a present. Explaining the cranes to his sister proved too difficult, so Penelope bottled up the mix of dread and elation swirling in her chest when Eloise came over, meeting her on the stoop with a smile and cheeks wiped free of tears. Eloise curled up a brow and complimented her dress upon seeing her, but said nothing else, even after the bottle of champagne they split at the restaurant, April showers pounding from the sky above.

That didn’t mean Penelope felt any less like breaking down. Earlier, she had to plaster on a mask to hide her cracking resolve. But now? Now she can cry. Can cry over the one hundred cranes he sent, that she suspects he stayed up folding, putting in late night after late night hunched over a desk fiddling with paper. She can cry over the words scrawled on the inside of the box. She can cry over his card, over the words he’s scribbled out, over his name in the bottom corner, the letters squished together in a mix of print and script. 

Now, inebriated and forlorn, she can cry over his valediction. He said it that night. Said it a few weeks ago, too, cranes arranged for each of the letters. 

But something about seeing the words I miss you in his scrawl does her in more than it should. 

A breathy sigh huffs out of her, and she reaches forward and grabs the lighter, nearly knocking over the riesling sitting on the edge of the table. It wobbles, and she saves it, gulping down the rest before lighting the candle. The flame dances on the wick, crawling down to the wax. It starts to bead, bigger and bigger, until finally descending ever so slowly toward the icing. And in all that time, Penelope ponders what she might wish for. 

She could wish for her second book to become a bestseller. Sounds cliché, she knows, but she’d be lying if she said she didn’t possess this dream in some capacity. Every author does. Her first book opened to solid reviews, but the sales told a bit of a different story. Not bad, but not great. Her debut contract included a three-book deal, in part due to her extensive journalistic history, but watching her first work fall short of her lofty expectations still hurt. And recuperating from disappointment often means taking a reprieve from the thing that initially disappointed you.

She could wish for more money. It’s such a stupid wish, basic and a bit vain. But when you’ve constantly struggled for something your entire life, wishing for it doesn’t seem too terribly improper. Money would mean she could just buy her flat home outright. Money would mean she could finally have some peace of mind and could take a break away from the compulsion to always be working. Money would have meant she could have considered his offer more seriously. Or that she could visit him if she so chose. 

She could wish to turn back time. Wishing, as a whole, feels preposterous and unlikely, and if she’s going to engage in something so ridiculous, she might as well wish for something impossible. The three months they got together had been perfect, capped off by the consummation of their friendship, and they’d been so close to forever together. Before the contract and the betrayal and the cranes, which now spill out of three separate boxes at the foot of the shelf. 

She could wish for the cranes to stop. She could wish for the cranes to keep coming. 

But she cannot wish for him. Will not. Wishing for him means wishing for him to return, and he doesn’t want that. He said it that night, too, and in her heart, she knew his words had been true: they are each entitled to their own dreams. Hers here in London, his somewhere else. Wishing for him to come back means wishing for his dream to end, and she can’t bring herself to do that. 

She exhales, deep in her introspection, and picks up the card again. Rereads the thing for what must be the twentieth time and squints as she tries to decipher what he crossed out. Ultimately, she instead focuses on the three-word sign-off, his face swimming to the forefront of her mind, complete with the dimple in his cheek and that boyish glimmer in his eyes.

The candle drips onto the sprinkles. Penelope ignores it and plucks one of the cranes from the box. The wings feel crisp and pointed, the middle firmer than one might expect with a slew of elaborate folds, and she can tell he has quickly mastered the art of folding the little birds, and wonders how long it takes him to make each one. 

She could call him and ask. 

She doesn’t. 

Instead, she sets the crane back in the box with the ninety-nine others and places his card on top. Then pauses and forces herself to think about anything else, finally settling on her next book. And when she leans forward to blow out the candle, she acts like she’s not thinking about him. 

608.

She contemplates breaking her no-contact rule when the cranes start coming from Greece. 

See, the thing is, he’s not supposed to be in Greece. He’s supposed to have a nine-month shoot in Japan, going all up and down the country, doing god knows what as part of his deal. He didn’t really explain it all too well that night. Said something about it being a cross between Anthony Bourdain and Zac Efron before the ringing in her ears started. And it’s not that she didn’t care about his deal, but more that a part of her world shattered when she realized just how much she’d been misled to believe they were on the same page. 

But Penelope does know he’s not supposed to be in Greece. Actually, he only goes to Greece during periods of turmoil. He went there when he first started traveling, when confronting his brother about his aspirations felt too daunting to face without an airtight plan. He went when his first engagement ended with a whimper, her cousin’s cheating putting an end to a relationship already limping to a mirthless finish. Greece soothes him. Restores a bit of peace to his soul that he says he struggles to find anywhere else. He’s long regaled her with stories of his time there, painting pictures about the blue of the Adriatic and how gazing at it reminds him of home.

Now, she stares at a bulbous envelope from Athens, crammed full of cranes. His scrawl looks worse. Less hasty and more frantic, like he was hanging on by a thread before he sent it in the mail. But when she opens the thing, the eighteen cranes that spill out look pristine, each one the same size and folded in shades of the yellow paper she’s grown to love. 

The neatness betrays the history. She knows him too well and knows he wouldn’t go to Greece unless he absolutely needed to. And the fact that he kept up the folding in another country solidifies her hypothesis: he won’t stop until he hits a thousand. 

Guilt settles in when she lines the cranes along the edge of her coffee table. Each one serves as a cry for help to her, a clear sign that he has been struggling more than he’s let on. He asked her to come with him that night. Said he missed her, wanted her there with him, even tried to say he…

The guilt sours, and regret starts bleeding into Penelope’s thoughts, causing her to spiral as she wonders if it’s too late to take him up on his offer. Does he still want her there? Are the cranes for something else? Every day, she wishes he were there with her. Does he feel the same?

Then she sees her book, with her name, sitting on the shelf in the flat home that she purchased on her own. Remembers the emails in her inbox about her upcoming articles, and examines the tree swaying outside her balcony. And she shakes off the doubt. 

She made her decision. She chose the stability of one dream over the unpredictability of the other. Now, they both have to live with that. 

Toying with one of the wings, Penelope considers her next move. She could work on her book. She has the outline done, had it done before he left, really, and has kept putting off writing in the name of heartbreak. She could go ahead and complete the piece her boss wants about the best places to view the runners for the London Marathon. Her submissions have been down to the wire recently, so getting a head start sounds responsible.

She could clean. She could read. She could go outside and enjoy the weather. It’s been improving lately, blossoming and blossoming into something picturesque and verdant. She could go for a walk.

Penelope does none of those things. Instead, she opens her phone. Notifications sit in her voicemail, in her messages, on every social media app, but she knows who they are from and chooses to look at his profiles instead. He hasn’t posted anything new in the last few days, so she pivots and searches his name on the internet. A link comes up that leads her to a picture of him from the press release where he signed his deal months ago. She represses that, instead concentrating on the image showing off his broad shoulders and the faint pink scar on his chin. Scrolling down, she gets confirmation that he should be in Japan, along with the other bit of news he shared while sporting a chagrined expression. 

Japan for nine months. A month home. Then another nine-month shoot in Peru. After that, who knows. 

Almost certainly, she would have had to give up this dream. Four walls and a salary, a byline and a place in the fiction section, all at the expense of love. 

Penelope opens her voicemails and finds the most recent one from him. It’s short and six weeks old, but like all the others that preceded it, she has each word memorized, and could mimic his intonation on command. 

If she really listens closely, she thinks she hears a sad smile through the other end of the line. 

Hey, Pen. It’s me. I know you won’t answer, but you’re still my best friend, and I just wanted to call and tell my best friend that I saw the prettiest sunset today. Hypnotic. Gilded. Celestial. How’s that for a few million-dollar words?  

But sunsets are also so liminal. Blink, and you miss it. Have sunsets always been so short? And who the hell chose to follow something so bright and breathtaking with nighttime? Ugh. 

So, yeah. Sorry. Just. I know you won’t answer. But I think I know why. 

I wish you were here, Pen. Maybe the sunset would feel a little longer. 

Penelope takes one of the cranes outside to her balcony. Birds chirp in the trees, and the smell of magnolias lingers faintly in the air, and the sun dips lower toward the horizon, teasing inevitable liminality. She pulls out her phone and plays the voicemail again, listening to him as if he were there beside her. 

She debates reaching out. Contemplates it until the sun dips down and the sky turns to ink. Birds chirp around her, happy and blissfully ignorant of her plight. Then, when the chirping stops, she decides against it, and instead traces over the fine lines of the crane. 

754.

If she thinks about the sex, it makes moving on feel impossible. 

For the only time in her life, she truly felt admired. Revered. Worshipped, even. Not enough people talk about the best sex of their life being tender and soft, full of splayed hands and fervent kisses. His grip perpetually hovered somewhere between possessive and gentle, his hands exploring with a genuine awe that made her feel special. Sex with him revealed a plethora of new things about him to love, from the way he nipped at the spot under her ear to the way his eyes grew dark, venerative, hooded by pleasure and wonder. 

If the sex were bad, then moving on might be easier. 

So instead, she studies the new envelope of cranes and thinks about what happened after.

822.

He made his offer when he was still inside her, smiling against the column of her throat, encasing her in warmth and affection. Kissing his way up her neck to the crook of her jaw and the roundness of her cheek, his hands moved without rhythm or practice, savoring every dip and curve of her. The windows rattled from the wind. The radiator hummed in the corner. Snow fell outside, and the chilly November weather sneaked under the door from the balcony, a sure sign of a terrible, impending winter. 

She couldn’t have cared less about any of it. In the safety of her home, and with the dress from her book release crumpled on the floor, she ran her fingers through his hair, inhaling the cologne she’d bought him the year before. He’d been home for three months, three whole months, their time never once interrupted by a brand trip to Singapore or a social media meetup in Chicago. Any time she asked about where he was headed next, he completely dodged the question, even remarking, time and time again, that he didn’t have any plans set in stone. 

She thought, maybe, it was the happiest she had ever been. 

Each time he reassured her he was here to stay, that he didn’t have any trips on the horizon or hadn’t yet found a reason to leave, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and drew her close. Would press a kiss to her forehead and murmur in her ear that he wanted to be here, in London, with her as she bought her first place and became a published novelist. His touches lingered, his gaze morphed from friendly to charged, and the tension built, compounding on three months and eighteen years of love.

She loved him. She loved him, she loved him, she loved him. And he was here, with her, in her bed, his skin hot against her own. 

He lazily made his way to her lips to meet her in a languid kiss before lifting off of her to study her expression. His thumb grazed over her cheekbone when he finally spoke. 

“I have something to tell you.”

“Yeah?”

He kissed her again, smiling against her lips before coming off to admire her. Dopey with satisfaction and joy, he grinned at her from above, hovering for a few seconds until she chuckled and tapped his shoulder.

“What is it?”

“What?”

“What do you have to tell me?”

“Oh.” The smile flickered, restored with a tense edge covered by false bravado. Penelope noted the change and said nothing. 

Another quick kiss got placed on the tip of her nose. “I want you to come with me.”

Penelope hesitated, glancing to the side. With an amused huff, she met his eager eyes again, asking, “Where do you want me to go?”

“What?” 

“Come with you where? Are you not spending the night here?”

“Of course, I’m staying here tonight. But I mean in two days. I want you to come with me. You should come with me.”

The words stole the air from her lungs. Her hand, still carding through his curls, froze. “Come with you… where?”

Something shifted then. The tiniest bit, just a glimmer, really, tugging his features together for the briefest of seconds. But she saw the trepidation, the crack in the composure, and felt her guard go up in a second. 

“What’s going on?”

She pushed him off her, leaving her cold and empty as she gaped back at him. Unsettled, she scrabbled for the blanket at the foot of the bed and brought it up to cover her chest. His eyes tracked the movement, his confidence melting into something more uncertain as he parsed through what he wanted to say. 

A moment passed before he sighed. “I have some news. And I need you to hear me out on this, Pen. Just… please. Because I promise I have a reason for everything.”

Her heart stopped. Years of loving him meant she knew the imminent doom that would follow his confession from his tone alone. He’d stayed in London for three months, building something with her, kindling her hope for a future together, allowing her to believe that he was here for good, and now…

“I’ve signed a deal. For a television show. And it’s the opportunity of a lifetime for me, Pen. I mean, it’s everything I’ve ever worked for. It’s my dream, really. Like, I love the concept. Kind of Bourdain meets that Efron show you and I binged back in September. Which, I had seen that before, but I wanted your opinion on that because of this being in the works. But I have been in negotiations on this for the past few months, and I came home so I could work with Ant and my team to finalize this contract. And we did last week, but they just released the news about it today, and I leave in thirty-six hours to go to Japan.”

Penelope gawked at him, her world shattering with each admission. Her ears rang with denial, her mouth turned acrid with betrayal, and the affection that had been thrumming in her veins, syrupy and coruscating, turned cold. 

Speaking through disbelief and ash, Penelope stammered out a single, “Wh—What?”

The tips of his ears grew red as he stared back at her, lips curling up into a placating smile. “I know it’s short notice, but in thirty-six hours I leave for Tokyo. For nine months. And I know that’s a lot, too. But I think you should come with me. I want you to come with me.”

She stopped him with a wave of her hand. “Thirty-six hours?”

“Yes.”

“And you will be there for nine months?”

“Err… yes.”

“Why the hesitation?”

His eyes went wide, a deer in the headlights, before he swallowed and managed to respond. “Well. Nine months. Then here. Then…”

She waited. Counted to three. Inhaled. “Then?”

“Then Peru. For another nine months. Two seasons. Two countries. If it gets renewed for a third—”

“A third?!”

Nothing came out of his mouth then. Just a punched breath that made him sit more rigid than normal. The initial optimism he had when presenting her with his idea had long faded, and she clutched the blanket closer to her chest while processing the news he’d casually said that had upended her entire life. 

The pained expression came when he watched her knuckles whiten around the fabric.

“Pen?”

“What?”

“I—I couldn’t tell you until it was official. They made me sign an NDA. And then I wanted to wait for the right moment to ask, but it never really came, and then tonight just felt so special, and I… erm…”

Cheeks tinged pink with shame, He crossed his arms around his stomach, closing in on himself as he realized just how much he had misjudged how he thought she would react. As if he hadn’t just lied to her and played it off like it didn’t matter. Betrayal swept through her as she studied the past few months with a new lens free from the rosy tint of love. Each touch that remained for a second too long, each lazy afternoon spent together just for the sake of being in each other’s company, each drunken night where they postulated about their futures reeled through her mind, now tainted by deception. She understood that he couldn’t tell her.

But he shouldn’t have let her hope, either. 

He scooted closer to her, reaching out to touch her hand. 

“Pen, I… I want you to come with me. And I’m sorry for asking like this, but—”

“What was your plan here?”

He stammered, eyes flitting to the side briefly as her anger laced into her tone. She continued, unsteady and fuelled by fury and love. 

“I want you to walk me through what I’m supposed to do. What do I do with my job? My flat? The connections I have made here with my publishing team? Do tell me what you expected me to say.”

The silence between them stretched beyond something uncomfortable as he blinked back at her. She continued, ferocity burning in her words. 

“I just released my first book. You attended the party. Stood by my side the entire night. And you think I should leave just as I’ve achieved this? Are you quite serious? And I’m an events writer. Based in London. That’s how I make my money. How am I supposed to write about events in London when I am away from London?”

“I thought… I wanted to ensure that this would be stable for you, Pen. And Japan would be a great place for you to write the second book you’ve talked about.”

She blinked back at him. Still floundering, he choked up more of an explanation. 

“I just thought you would have more time to write your novel. You could see the world, and we could be together and… and… and you’ve said you don’t like being an events writer.”

“I like it just fine.”

“That’s not what you’ve said.”

“I like having a job!”

He said nothing. She shook her head, volume rising with frustration. “It doesn’t matter if I like the job. I have to have it. I can’t afford this place without it. What do you want me to do? Sell my flat? That I just bought two months ago?”

Still nothing. Penelope squeezed her eyes shut. 

“I can’t afford to come with you. I don’t have the savings or the flexibility to do that. I can’t just… not pay my mortgage. How am I supposed to pay for every—”

“I’m going to pay for everything, Pen.”

“What if I don’t want that? What if I don’t want to live off your trust, or what if I want my own money? What about my mortgage and my flat and—-“

“I’ll pay for that, too.” 

He said it so matter-of-factly, so quickly, like the solution had been obvious this entire time. Penelope froze, gawking back at him as he added, “If that’s what you want.” 

He shrugged and raised a single hand, desperation seeping into his voice. “Come with me. I’ll pay for your flat. I’ll cover your expenses. I’ll pay for whatever you need. Just come with me, Pen. Please.”

Penelope recoiled, too stunned to do anything else. In truth, she didn’t know whether to be complimented or offended or downright aghast. She had worked tirelessly to secure a steady income and a tiny place she could call her own. Had put in more late nights than she could count, had done enough freelance work in her early twenties to constitute a whole other novel. Everything she had to her name—which, admittedly, was not much—had been something she had earned. 

And she liked that. Was proud of herself for what she had done. Observation had taught her, during her childhood, why she shouldn’t rely on someone else for survival. She had watched money get swindled and gambled, wasted on material things with the intent of being perceived as having more than nothing. Rice and potatoes don’t taste any better when sitting across from a mother dressed in Prada, glaring at a father who couldn’t win so much as a single bet. Penelope had never wanted to rely on anyone, because she knew what reliance looked like. 

Reliance was a new flat every year with scant furnishings and faulty plumbing. It was prioritizing reputation over reality. It was perpetually feeling like she was a day away from nothing, her fate held in the hands of others, unsure if they would be cruel or merciless. 

And she couldn’t do that again. 

She thought he knew that. He’d known her for eighteen years. She assumed he knew her well enough to know that she would always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. But here he was, staring at her with the inexperience of someone who had never been told no and the certitude of someone with enough money to always have a solution. After three months and eighteen years of stoking hope and letting her believe that her dream was achievable, this single interaction delivered the epiphany that it was not. 

She did not have one dream. She had two. Independence and predictability or trust and capriciousness. Stability and self-assuredness or a grand romance with the man she had always loved.   

And now, she had to pick between the two. 

He scooted closer to her again, taking her hand in his own, panic setting in as he spouted off anything he could think of that might convince her to hear him out.

“I know this is a lot, Pen. I know. But I thought you could come with me and work on your novel and we could be together. And I'm sorry for surprising you with this, but I have everything lined up. Everything. And you deserve to be there, too! I got this opportunity because of you. You’ve always believed in me and encouraged me. You gave me so many ideas about social media curation and my blog and the Substack that I didn’t think anyone read but that people apparently loved. You’re the one who praised what I came up with or edited whatever I asked. I want you there with me because you’ve helped me get this. I want you there with me. I will always want you there with me. And—”

“No.”

His eyes widened. “N—No?”

“No. I won’t do it.”

His jaw dropped, pain glittering in his eyes. “Pen, I… please. Listen to me. I have done everything I can to make sure you can come with me. Talked to the team and paid for your flight and even created the itinerary because it maximizes the time you would have to write. I’ve seriously tried. Because this is my dream. And I want you to share that dream with me. You made my dream possible. This dream is all because of you.”

“What about my dream?”

Fear sparkled in his eyes, his optimism crumbling with every word that hissed out of her. She couldn’t stop it, though. His offer was one thing. But as Penelope sat across from him, listening to unreasonable solution after unreasonable solution as he tried to fix the flaws in his plan, the bitter truth of the matter arose: other than their dreams containing each other, their dreams did not overlap. 

He squeezed her hand in his own. Penelope thought about his dream, how he kept fighting for what he still didn’t understand. He dreamed of her in Japan, with him, seeing the countryside and writing in her free time. And she loved the notion of it all, but his dream had grown too fantastical for reality. He hadn’t considered that absconding from responsibility was something she simply couldn’t do, and that the things he found prosaic might be what she found comforting. They lived very different realities, byproducts of upbringings and finances and a million other things that now stood to drive them apart. 

Hushed, but loud, he persisted. “I want us both to have our dream. I am entitled to mine, and you are entitled to yours. We are both allowed to want to pursue our dreams, Pen. But I thought we could pursue them together. My dream is you, there, with me, seeing the—”

“My dream is here.” 

That made the fear sparkle brighter. His brow pinched together, and for the first time since he’d revealed his news, the haze of denial lifted, and he finally comprehended the flaw in his grandiose plan. 

That didn’t help her, though. Her reality had just been taken from her, ripped from her hands without warning or ceremony. Still, she wanted, deserved, answers. Already able to see the writing on the wall, Penelope’s voice dropped a bit as she asked her next question. 

“Why did you lie to me?”

His hand holding her own fell. “Lie?”

“Why did you let me believe you were going to stay with me? Why did you act like you were going to stay in London?”

He inhaled, slow, deliberate. “I thought you would say yes.”

“You lied. You made me believe you wanted my dream, too.”

His response came soft, remorseful. “I didn’t lie. I just couldn’t tell you the truth.” 

“You could have done things differently, and you know it.”

The accusation sounded wobbly, gravelly, and he reached up to wipe her eyes, only for her to twist away and do it herself. Heartbroken and misled, Penelope thought about her own dream, one of constancy and independence, of a place she could call her own and a career she could be proud of, of things that had always felt so farfetched for all her life. Like love, stability had always eluded her, and now that she had it, she couldn’t fathom giving it up. 

After a moment, he breathed deeply, searching for words out of his reach. 

“I came back here for you, Pen. You have to know that. I wanted to be with you. I want to be with you. Everywhere I go, I wish you were there with me. I think about you all the time. I miss you all the time. Fuck, Pen. I miss you so much. I lo—”

“No.”

The shocked sound he made echoed in the tiny room. Penelope examined the blanket in her hands, picking at a fray in the stitching to avoid looking at him. 

“Pen, I—”

“No, just… I need you to stop.”

“Pen, that wasn’t—”

“Do you not see how saying that makes this worse?”

Nothing. He sat beside her, stoic, remorseful, stunned and grasping for any solution. The radiator still hummed in the background, and the air sweeping in from outside had chilled the room enough to eliminate the warmth they had shared just minutes ago, before he revealed his secrecy and uncovered its impossibility. Penelope sighed. She’d had three months to have a true taste of happiness, a true taste of love, and now, in thirty-six hours, it would be leaving for better, brighter opportunities. 

When he finally spoke, breaking the precarious quiet, his voice sounded thin and ragged. 

“Pen, it doesn’t have to be like—”

“Like this? What is your suggestion?”

“We could…”

He trailed off, shaking his head. Solutions to this problem didn’t exist. They could try, yes, but the thought of getting only minor glimpses of love, then being forced to go without for so long, sounded torturous. And not having any sort of defined end to the torment made her stomach curdle. Made her chest ache with dread and made bile rise in her throat. She couldn’t hold out for a weekend every few months after having so long together. She couldn’t tell him goodbye, time after time, without knowing when she would see him again. Especially when those goodbyes served as a sick sort of greeting for his absence. 

She couldn’t do it. She couldn’t, she wouldn’t. 

Mind made up, she faced him with a resilience not matching her inner turmoil. “We can’t.”

“We can.”

“I can’t.”

Silence. She glanced over at him, seeing him stare at her floor as if he could pick up the pieces of their relationship and put them back together through sheer power of will. They sat together for a few minutes, stewing in the remains of what once was and what could be, until Penelope sighed, knowing what she wanted and what she needed did not align. 

He shifted, moving closer to her. “Pen, what… what do we do?”

She stared at him. Took in his midnight eyes and the curve of his lips, the debonair smile long faded to be replaced with something far more painful. Comprehending that they had one option left, she pressed her lips into a fine line, accepting the inevitable. 

Now or later. Now, or thirty-six hours from now. Inevitable.

Penelope cleared her voice and said his name. His head shook at her tone, his curls haphazard from sex and panic. She balled her hands into fists and remained resolute. 

“You need to leave.”

“What?”

“You need to leave. Go to Japan. Pursue your dream. Live your life.”

“Pen, I—”

“But I have to stay here.”

Unable to cry or speak, he slowly reached for her hand, pressing a kiss on the palm. “I want you to come.”

“And I want you to stay.”

He pursed his lips, chewing on the inside of his cheek in an attempt to keep from crying. Mustering the final bits of her resolve, Penelope pulled her hand away from him and scooted back, creating the tiniest bit of distance between them. His face wilted when he recognized what she had done. 

She forced herself to speak through it. “I need you to go. I don’t think I can be with you right now. ”

“Pen—”

“Please.”

“We still have time together! We can—”

“What do you not understand? Why delay the unavoidable? Is this not hard enough?”

The ruthlessness of her words surprised even her. He leaned back, brows raised and jaw agape. She had never cast him out before. And now, as she coped with a heart that would forever want what could not be, she had no other choice. 

“Pen…”

“Leave.”

He studied her for a minute, taking in her meaning while memorizing each of her features like he didn’t know when he might get the opportunity to see her again. She shifted, thighs still sticky from their lovemaking, and stared at the blanket as she made one final assertion. 

“I cannot tell you goodbye.”

“I—I don’t know when I will see you again.”

“I know.”

The shock morphed into hurt, complete with lips turning down at the corners and tears welling in his eyes. Penelope said nothing. Just watched as he gathered his things in silence before turning back to her, face solemn with resignation. 

“Goodbye, Pen.”

She didn’t respond. Had nothing else to say. She had listened to his plea, and she had made her choice. So instead, she remained silent, and feigned placidity, and looked him in the eyes one last time, overwhelmed by practicality and deceit and heartbreak.

He stared at her for a few seconds, then left without another word. 

919.

He is entitled to his dream, and she is entitled to her own. 

But dreams manifest in ways one never fathoms. Penelope never thought her dream would include her floundering as a novelist, or would contain a wealth of articles about charity dinners and pub openings in her bibliography. She never thought it would contain a sea of red ink masquerading as suggested edits or a flat home with a tiny bedroom and a radiator that only worked about half the time. 

But it’s still her dream. Recognizable, even after all these years. Dreams evolve and change with age and cognizance, harsh realities shaping something pristine into something practical. No one dreams of the monotony of paying bills or getting a dozen rejection letters from publishers. But despite these hurdles, Penelope’s dream has been able to live on. Penelope has an address she can call her own. She has a book with her name on the cover. She has stability and security, agency and predictability. For someone who once had none of these things, Penelope has, by all means, achieved her dream. 

But her dream also included midnight eyes and a debonair grin, unruly curls and the kindest heart she’s ever known. Her dream involved sharing her flat home with another person, with him, writing on the balcony and maneuvering around a kitchen big enough for just one person. 

Then reality came crashing down, and she realized just how naive she had been. 

Dreams manifest in ways one never fathoms. And sometimes, that manifestation includes realizing that certain parts of your dream were never meant to align. Penelope could not have predictability with a restless man, one who turned down mundanity for novelty. She could not have agency with a relationship that forced her into dependence, couldn’t make her own choices while being subject to the decisions of others. 

And she couldn’t have love without sacrificing everything else she had dreamed of.  

Penelope wakes every day now with sadness in her heart and certainty in her head. The bed is empty, warmed by the late-spring sun streaming through the window. She glances over at the pillow and sees the envelope she got the day before, six cranes spread over the sheets. Some look smushed, matted, while others look as tidy as ever. 

She takes them out to his shelf and puts them with the others. Then examines the massive array, the cranes toppling out of boxes and heaped on top of one another without any sort of organization. It’s hours of work, proof that he meant what he tried to say that night. Penelope studies his labor of love, cranes and cranes and cranes, and thinks about her dream. 

A bird flutters by, landing on her balcony, yellow wings pale against the grey brick. It catches her attention as it preens and picks at its feathers. It chirps. Prances around for a bit. Then flies away. By now, spring has sprung entirely, the trees outside lush with greenery and life. Penelope mindlessly pinches one of the cranes between her fingers and admires the weather from her sitting room, three emails about her latest article sitting in her inbox. 

He is entitled to his dream, and she is entitled to her own. 

But more and more, she grows uncertain as to what her dream might be. 

1000.

It’s been three days since she got the last envelope. 

Twelve cranes. Perfectly folded and neatly sealed. No note. No messages. Not even so much as an out-of-place ink stain on the parcel. Just a dozen of the little birds. His senbazuru is nearly complete. 

But twelve left him one short. Four months and eight boxes later, Penelope only has 999 cranes. She counted four times last night, staying up until three in the morning to ensure her count came up the same every time. The number feels too intentional, and he wouldn’t miscount or make a mistake for something this arduous. 

No. One final crane remains. And Penelope doesn’t know what to expect about when or how she gets it. 

It occurs after a meeting with her editor about covering Wimbledon. Heat bounces off the pavement, the sky looks clear blue and cloudless, and hundreds of dandelions litter the small patches of grass as she strolls through Avondale Park. Her dress billows in the air, and the freckles dotting her shoulders appear more prominent from exposure to the brilliant sun overhead. She tries to pretend like anything other than the last crane is on her mind, failing spectacularly as she remembers that the last envelope didn’t even have a return address on it. 

She concentrates on the weather. It’s the last day of spring, the day before summer starts, the day before the sun lingers on the horizon the longest before shrinking away faster and faster as winter approaches. 

When she rounds the corner, she sees him, sitting on the stoop. Her cheeks heat, her breath hitches, and she freezes, half certain she is staring at a mirage and not the man she still loves. But he has always had a flair for drama, and despite his curls sticking out in all directions and the ratty tee stretched across his chest, he looks so fucking handsome, like a modern Prince Charming, disheveled and bloody fit as he chews on his cuticles. 

Appearing lost in his thoughts, Penelope observes him as he leans his face toward the sky. Nearly seven months have passed since she last saw him, but she still has no clue what she actually wants to say. What do you say to the man who broke your heart? Whose heart you’ve broken? Who has spent hours folding cranes in a desperate attempt to talk to you, and has taken it upon himself to show up at your doorstep? 

Nothing. At least, nothing comes to mind. But he’s here, in London, with her. So Penelope musters the courage to face him and moves, speaking when she gets in earshot of her home. 

“Colin.”

He startles when she says his name, then jumps to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. “Pen.”

A slow smile stretches across her face as he gapes at her. Dark circles sit under his eyes, and a light stubble graces his chin, but he is here. He is here. 

She clears her throat and comes closer to him. “It’s good to see you.”

He nods. “It’s really good to see you too, Pen.”

Unsure whether she should bring up his being in Greece, Penelope bites her lip and glances at the pavement. “Err… how’s Japan?”

That makes him shake his head and furrow his brows. “It’s… we don’t have to talk about that, Pen.”

Her lip curls up at the corner. “Why do you keep saying my name?”

“What?”

“You keep saying my name. Why do you keep saying my name?”

A blush blooms on the tips of his ears, turning them a pretty red, and his palpable discomfort would be funny if she hadn’t missed him so badly. He rolls his lips between his teeth, and Penelope watches his confidence fade away with each passing second. Which means he will start to ramble in three, two—

“I am just really happy to see you, is all. I tried calling and texting and… well… you didn’t respond. Which, fair, in many ways, after how we left things, you know. But also you’re my best friend, and I’ve missed you so fucking much, and i’ve wanted to talk to you for so long, and now that you’re here I almost don’t know what to do or—”

“Colin. Stop.”

His eyes go wide, and he blinks back at her. A giggle huffs out of her, amused by his sincerity and flamboyance. He smiles back at her, sheepish and with ears tipped pink in embarrassment. 

“Sorry.”

She ignores it, electing to pivot back to something easier. “You don’t want to talk about it?”

“Didn’t say that. Just said we didn’t have to.”

She huffs, entertained by his reluctance to discuss something that played such a prevalent role in driving them apart. His eyes narrow slightly, soaking in the freckles dotting her arms, the errant curls framing her face, and Penelope remembers him doing the same thing that night, all those months ago. Now, he acts less hopeful and more hesitant, like he doesn’t know what to do since he showed up on her porch after not hearing from her for so long. 

A breeze blows past, ruffling his curls. Penelope’s fingers itch to card through them. 

“What if I want to hear about it, Col?”

“R—Really?”

“Yes.”

The unfettered joy that crosses his face makes her heart sing. She smiles and nods, affirming the affirmation, and he laughs. 

“I want to tell you about it. I’ve wanted to tell you for a while. I want to tell you everything, Pen. I want to tell you about the food and the mountains and the tancho and the sakura and—”

“How long do you have?”

The smile weakens, doubt dimming his happiness. “Not long.”

“Meaning?”

A second passes. Then another. He rocks on his heels and stares at the ground. “Thirty-six hours.”

“What?”

“I have to leave for Kagoshima in thirty-six hours, Pen.”

He doesn’t speak above a whisper, fear lacing his tone. Penelope’s heart pounds, equal parts delight and despair. She has thirty-six hours with him. She only has thirty-six hours with him. 

Here, then gone. 

Colin toes at a line in the pavement and forfends her gaze. She thinks about the massive amount of cranes in her living room, and ponders her dreams, both old and new. 

“Then you’d better figure out everything you want to tell me.”

She tries for casual and lands somewhere between reassuring and greedy. He stops, brows shooting up to his hairline, then gazes at her with the same level of awe from seven months ago.

The smile that takes over his face is blinding, paired with brimming tears and a dimple in his right cheek. He takes a step toward her, then stops, hands fidgeting at his sides until they fly behind his back. 

“I have so much to tell you, Pen. So much.”

Penelope points to the door. “Would you like to come up? I’m sure you’re tired.”

He nods vigorously, then grabs his luggage and hauls it up the stairs behind her. She greets a passing neighbor with a sincere smile, and struts past the mail without so much as a second thought, determined to get past the door of her home and spend time with the man she’s always loved. At one point, she offers to carry his duffel, but he waves her off and gestures for her to keep going. 

When they get to the door, she lets him go first, finagling with the lock before turning back to him. But he isn’t looking at her when she sees him. Instead, his luggage sits abandoned by her couch, and he stands in the middle of his handiwork, the boxes of cranes overflowing at his feet. He twists, taking in the varying shades of yellow. At one point, he shifts, nearly stepping on one until Penelope protests and darts forward, picking up the lonely bird off the carpet and placing it in the closest pile. It winds up in the box he sent her on his birthday. He watches, dumbstruck. 

“Pen?”

“Well, you can’t step on them!”

It’s meant to be humorous, and she chuckles, standing close enough to feel the warmth radiating off of him. But he remains silent, mouth closing before he swallows, peering over at the first three cranes sitting on his shelf. Her amusement dies, and longing takes its place. She doesn’t have to ask to know he recognizes them. Gingerly, he takes one between his fingers, delicately examining it in the light coming in from outside. Then he sets it down and gazes at her with enough adoration and intensity that she could melt. 

“You kept them?”

She nods, tugging her bottom lip between her teeth. 

His next question husks out of him. “What did you wish for?”

She dodges the question, unsure whether to bring up the fact that, realistically, he is still a crane short. 

“I thought the wish was for you?”

He pauses, then shakes his head, his eyes never straying from her. “I already got my wish.”

She grins, comprehending his meaning, and nods back. “I think I've already gotten mine too, Col.”

He registers her words. Exhales, the sound wet and thick. Then steps toward her.

From there, time stops. 

They meet in the middle, neither one of them hurried, apprehensive until hovering just inches apart from one another. Their lips brush, the air between them thick and dizzying. She has spent eighteen years, then three months, then another seven, wanting him, longing for him, loving him both up close and at a distance. She knows nothing but yearning for him. Has yearned enough to last her a lifetime. It comes as easily to her as breathing, as writing, as dreaming. 

And here, in his arms, she knows she is done yearning. 

He kisses her like he has all the time in the world. Wraps his arms around her and drags her close, her skin hot against his own, eliminating any distance between them. He nips at her bottom lip, and she licks along his cupid’s bow, and everything falls away as they stand among the cranes, granting each other’s wishes without a care in the world. 

At some point, he guides her to her bedroom, mindful of her steps and desperate to remain as close as possible to her. Her hands card through his curls, and hers tangle in his own, pulling sounds out of Penelope she didn’t know she was capable of making. Mind clouded by him, she runs her hands under his shirt, fingers trailing over the ridges of his ribs and the planes of his back. 

Chest heaving, he breaks away, keeping his forehead on hers as he marvels at her. She does the same. Lips red and kiss-swollen, she pushes him back, watches him bounce on the edge of the mattress, then crawls on top of him, the fabric of her dress straining across his lap. Colin doesn’t kiss her with urgency and lacks the sloppiness she would expect of a reunion after so long without seeing or talking to one another. Instead, he takes his time, lavishes her with affirmation and affection, and dismantles her bit by bit, until he flips her onto her back and looks at her with imploration in his eyes. 

She nods. Colin kisses her again, and the action resonates with her as one done out of love, just like the cranes taking over her home. It’s been seven months since she last saw him. Seven months, and now, she remembers that memory and fantasy can pale in comparison to reality. For seven months, she has thought of nothing but the way his hands gripped her, like she was something precious that was his and his alone. She has thought of the way he stared at her when she pulled off her dress, his abject reverence making her feel like she has nothing to hide. She has thought about his mouth on her, drifting low, low, lower, until her hands have nowhere to go but to his hair or her sheets. 

Seven months. And still, he leaves her breathless. Mindless. Floating. He kisses her again, moaning into her mouth, and her hands hold him in an embrace she hopes never ends. Colin moves with intent and passion, and the expression he wears when he sinks into her makes her feel utterly adored. Her hand tangles in the hair at the nape of the neck, long and curling, and at some point, he slows when her legs wrap around his waist. Becomes leisurely, venerative, as if he never has to leave. 

Her name rasps out of him when he finally buries his face in her neck and shudders. Penelope whispers his name back, lips tickling his ear, and he collapses with a sigh that is half exhaustion, half relief. Eyes hooded, he lifts and looks at her with pleasure and wonder. He looks like the dream she abandoned for her home and her career, for security and stability, and she leans up and kisses him like she’s always wanted to do. 

It’s too much. It’s not enough. And yet, it will have to do because she has only thirty-six hours with him, and she wants to make them count. 

They don’t leave her home the entire time he’s in London. Really, they don’t leave her bed. He regales her with stories of Japan, waxes poetic about the food and the sights. He validates her earlier assumption that the crane migration is spectacular. Talks about seeing the little origami birds on shrines in Japan and learning about senbazuru for the first time. 

He says he sees her in everything. Claims she would love it over there. She believes him and says she will have to go someday. 

The hours wear on, and among the sleep and takeaway, his tone grows more forlorn. She remains cognizant of every passing minute. She fights sleep, ignores the beautiful weather outside. Time is dwindling, and she doesn’t want to do anything else but be with him. 

Colin’s voice sounds trepidatious when he finally brings it up. “Pen?”

She hums. The sky outside now matches the color of his eyes, and they only have a couple of hours until their period of liminality is over. 

His hand doesn’t stop toying with her curls. “What happens next?”

“You mean…?”

“When I leave, yes.”

An answer doesn’t come straight away. Instead, she sits with his words, with his desperation, and thinks about her dreams. Where one draws the line between them and achievements, and when one stops dreaming and starts thinking exclusively in practicalities. Penelope has dreamed of permanence and a novel with her name on the cover, of reliability and relevance, for her entire life. Even when the future looked bleak, or when the odds seemed too stacked against her. Dreams persevere, immobile in spite of reason or reality. 

Penelope eyes the slope of his nose, the curve of his jaw, and offers up the best thing she can. 

“Remember when you said we are entitled to our dreams. I am entitled to mine, you to yours?”

The sheets rustle when he nods. Her fingers trail through his chest hair, and he sighs. 

The sound will live in Penelope’s head forever. “I think I want to pursue all of my dreams, Colin.”

He peers down at her. “All?”

“All.”

She stretches up and kisses the scar on his chin. He smiles, wary at first, then something that lets her know that he wants to pursue all of his dreams, too. The cologne she bought is still faint on his skin. She inhales, snuggles into the crook of his arm, and simpers against his skin. 

A few hours later, Colin stands by her door with his luggage by his side. The sky smolders a pretty pink with the impending sunrise, and outside, the world comes to life again. Tears well in her eyes as she copes with having to say the one thing that makes her sick, and he reassures her that she does not have to say it. Just shrugs and says it doesn’t have to be a thing. He twists, eyeing the cranes on the ground and on his shelf, then turns back to her and kisses her forehead. 

He breaks away with a grin, which falters when he reaches for his pocket.

“Oh! Left my phone. Give me a second.”

He runs and retrieves it, then gives her one more kiss before leaving. She lets him go. He is entitled to his dream, and she is entitled to her own. 

But seconds later, she already wishes he were there with her. 

She saunters back to her bedroom, cheeks wet and chest aching. Glances at the bed, then does a double-take when she sees her pillow. Perched on top is a crane. White and bigger than the others, but just as neat as all the cranes that came before it. 

Penelope rushes over and picks it up. Laughs at his flair for drama, the four walls of her flat home bearing witness to humor and theatrics. She tilts it in the dim light of the room, and the smile melts into a frown when she sees ink peeping through the intricate folds. Her curiosity piques, and she swivels the thing around, finding tiny marks on the thing that she doesn’t remember finding on any of the others. As delicately as possible, she unfolds it and reads the words on the page. 

It’s an email confirmation for a flight voucher. Short. Simple. Just for a few days, after her current commitments here. Her name has been put in bold lettering, and the steps for redeeming it are listed below. 

She ignores that. Instead, she reads the three words at the bottom of the page, etched in the familiar scrawl she has seen on envelopes for months. The ink has been smudged slightly, and the letters cramped together, but Penelope’s heart warms at the crane, at the confirmation, and at the three-word declaration he’s finally able to say.

It’s the first I love you shared between them. And he left before she got a chance to say it back.

A bird chirps outside. Penelope turns toward her balcony, searching for the source of the sound among the soft blue sky, and finds a little yellow bird on the railing. It bops around, chirps again, and seemingly hunts for something on the ground before flying away. She watches it go until it dips out of view. 

Penelope looks at the paper in her hand and folds it back to its original shape. It takes a few attempts, but hours spent tracing over the lines of the paper, along with one too many rewatches of how to make the cranes, have given her some intuition about the process. When it matches the others, she takes it and places it on his shelf, beside the picture of them from her book release party.

She studies it for a moment, then whips out her phone and opens his contact. Standing amongst a thousand paper cranes, she inhales, then presses the call button.