I never expected to see her again, especially not here in my little bookshop. Yet there she was, Elphaba, standing in the poetry section with her signature green scarf, thumbing through Neruda as if three years hadn’t passed since she walked away.
My heart did that familiar flutter, the one I thought I’d buried beneath countless cups of late-night tea and dog-eared pages of healing self-help books. I straightened my name tag – though she knew very well who I was – and pretended to reorganize the nearby shelf of classic literature.
“Still hiding behind books, Galinda?” Her voice carried the same warmth I remembered, like honey drizzled over autumn leaves.
I turned, trying to keep my voice steady. “Someone has to keep them in order. Welcome to Enchanted Pages.”
“Your own bookshop.” She smiled, closing the poetry book. “You always said you’d do it, and here you are.”
“Here I am.” I gestured vaguely at the cozy space around us, my pride and joy of the past year. “And here you are. Back in town?”
“For good, actually. The publishing house offered me a permanent position here.” She stepped closer, and I caught the familiar scent of earl grey and ink that always seemed to follow her. “I thought about you when I accepted.”
The confession hung between us like a suspended chapter, waiting to be continued. I remembered our last conversation, how we’d both been too young, too scared of the distance when she’d taken that temporary position in Seattle. We’d chosen our careers over our hearts, convinced it was the mature decision.
“Elphie…” The old nickname slipped out before I could catch it. “Would you like some tea? I have a kettle in the back room.”
“You still remember how I take it?”
“Two sugars, splash of milk, steeped exactly four minutes.” I smiled despite myself. “Some things you don’t forget.”
In the small back room, surrounded by stacks of new arrivals waiting to be processed, we sat on mismatched chairs as if no time had passed. The late afternoon sun filtered through the window, casting golden light across her face.
“I read your articles,” I admitted, passing her the steaming cup. “Every single one.”
“I bought your recommended reading lists online,” she countered. “Monthly subscription.”
We both laughed, and something tight in my chest began to loosen.
“I was scared,” she said suddenly. “Three years ago. Scared of failing, of holding you back, of losing you slowly across the miles until we became strangers. So I thought… better to end it cleanly.”
“We were both scared,” I replied, watching the steam rise from my cup. “But I’m not anymore. I built this place from nothing. I know who I am now.”
“And who are you, Galinda?”
“Someone who still believes in second chapters.” I met her eyes. “Someone who never stopped loving you.”
The silence that followed felt like the pause between heartbeats. Elphaba set down her cup carefully, her hands trembling slightly.
“I have a confession,” she said. “I didn’t just happen to wander in here today. I’ve walked past this shop every morning for a week, watching you through the window. Watching you arrange displays and help customers and laugh with that infectious smile I’ve missed so much. I was gathering courage.”
“Courage for what?”
She reached into her bag and pulled out a worn book – our book, the one we used to read together in college, filled with margin notes in both our handwriting.
“Courage to ask if you’d be willing to start our story again. To write a better ending this time.”
I took the book from her hands, our fingers brushing. Opening it to a random page, I found an old note in my handwriting: “Everything is better when I read it with you.”
“Maybe,” I said softly, “it wasn’t meant to be an ending at all. Maybe it was just an very long chapter break.”
When she kissed me, it felt like coming home to a favorite book – familiar and thrilling all at once, every word exactly where it should be. Outside, the bookshop bell chimed as customers came and went, but we stayed in our back room, planning new chapters together, rewriting our story one page at a time.
Some love stories, I’ve learned, don’t end with the last page. They just wait patiently on the shelf until you’re ready to pick them up again.