them quite formal.
She opened the text and read it.
Merry Christmas, Keira! Hope you had your happy ending…
She smiled, touched that Elliot would send her a personal message. But then she scrolled down and read the rest:
Just a reminder that the deadline for your article is tomorrow. You’ve already had one extension, so this is final.
She groaned. Elliot knew when her plane was leaving today and yet he’d chosen to contact her now, through the most direct and personal means he could, rather than an email like usual. He was trying to take what little time she had left with Milo away from her. She turned her phone off and slung it back in her purse.
“Everything okay?” Milo asked.
“Yes,” Keira said with a breezy smile.
But really, she felt reality come back to her in a sudden flash. Her fantasy trip was over. It was time to get back to the real world.
Keira and Milo stood side by side, hand in hand, in front of the gate for her flight. The board gate number flashed up onto the screen, just as a voice came over the PA:
“This is a boarding call for flight Swedish Air one forty-five from Sweden to New York. Please could all passengers make their way to gate ten.”
Keira turned to Milo. “That’s me,” she said.
He nodded. His expression was more morose than ever as he leaned forward and kissed her forehead.
“Good luck with everything, Keira,” he said.
“That sounds so final,” she murmured in reply.
“Sorry,” Milo replied. “I’ve been getting vibes off you all morning, that once you leave, it will be over.”
Keira raised her eyebrows. For straight-talking Milo to be guided by her vibes seemed a bit out of character. Except, he wasn’t wrong.
She sighed.
“It’s a practical thing,” she said. “You know that, right? You don’t want to fly or leave Sweden, and I don’t want to move away from New York. It’s just how it is. I don’t mean to be so cold about it.”
“No, it’s okay,” Milo said with a nod. “You know how much I appreciate honesty. It’s just a shame. We’ve had a lot of fun together.”
“I don’t mean to make it sound like we’ll never talk again,” Keira said, offering a tentative smile. “We can still be friends.”
Milo’s troubled expression lessened somewhat. “Okay. Yes. I’d like that.”
“Good,” Keira replied with a relieved sigh. She couldn’t bear the thought of him being completely gone from her life, even if she did understand they had to romantically untangle themselves.
She offered her arms for a hug, and Milo took up the offer. They held each other for a long time. It was only the voice coming over the PA a second time asking passengers to board that made them break apart.
“I’d better go,” Keira said. She gazed deeply into his eyes. “Goodbye, Milo.”
He held on to her hand, lingering, drawing out the time. “I know this is a strange thing to say…but thank you. I feel very lucky to have met you.”
Keira smiled. “I feel the same.”
“Goodbye, Keira.”
As her hand fell from Milo’s, Keira turned and walked away. When she reached the gate and handed her boarding pass and passport over to the man, she looked back one last time. Milo was still standing there where she’d left him. She waved, feeling a sad pang in her chest. He waved back.
“There you go, Miss Swanson,” the man at the desk replied, handing her back her documents.
“Thank you,” she said, taking them.
She didn’t look back again.
Keira found her seat on the plane. Though she felt somewhat sad about ending things with Milo, she also felt energized. Her whole experience in Sweden had felt like preparation for her newfound independence.
She looked around at the other people on the plane. On the seats to her left were a couple kissing, and a little further ahead was a family with kids bouncing around as the parents tried to get them into their seats. For the first time, Keira didn’t feel envious. Instead, she felt a newfound freedom and solace in her independence. Her journey was different from all of these other people’s, and she wouldn’t want it any other way.
Feeling emboldened, Keira took her laptop from her hand luggage and began to work on her article. She used a different approach than she had in her past articles, writing about the freedom of no attachments.
From now on, when I do love, I will love the Scandinavian way.
Chapter three
The next morning, Keira woke with backache. She blinked and looked around, disoriented. It took her a long time to work out where she was. Not Milo’s, nor her room at her mom’s, but her brand new apartment. Unfortunately, the only thing she currently had inside of it was a mattress. She didn’t even have a bed frame; hence, the backache.
Keira managed to heave herself out of bed. The only clothes in the new apartment were the ones in her case. Luckily, Yolanta had insisted on washing all her stuff for her during the Christmas vacation, so at the very least she had clean clothes to wear. She chose her most work-like outfit from the selection of wool skirts and comfortable jeans, then headed out onto the streets of New York City.
The moment her shoes hit the sidewalk, she felt a surge inside her at being home. Even the smell of pollution comforted her, despite being in complete contrast to the crisp, clean mountain air she’d been breathing in Sweden.
She went to a coffee truck at the side of the road, joining the queue of bleary-eyed workers glued to their phones.
“I’ll have a double espresso,” she told the man when she reached the front. Then she paused. She’d been drinking the extra-strong Swedish coffee for weeks. Perhaps it was time for a change. “Actually, can I have a caramel macchiato with cream?”
The man shot her a tired, unimpressed expression, and Keira grinned.
“I’m just back from vacation. I want my coffee to taste of home.”
“Good for you,” he said in a dry, deadpan voice.
As she waited for her coffee, the people who’d been milling around at the other side of the truck adding sugars to their coffee moved away. For the first time, Keira noticed there was a stand of newspapers and magazines, and amongst them was the latest issue of Viatorum. Just as Nina had explained, the cover had been changed and it was now one of the original shots of the model they’d been planning to use in the first place. It was a relief to know she’d been listened to, but she still felt a swirl of anxiety knowing that today she was going to hand in her Norwegian article. She had no idea how Elliot would react to the ending.
Once Keira had her caffeine fix, she headed
