CHAPTER 76
"Did you double-check you took your charger?" Tony asks, lifting one of my duffel bags off the sidewalk as if it's full of feathers.
"Tony," I mutter, lifting the other one with considerably less grace, "for the millionth time—I took the damn charger. And two spares."
He smiles, and that's not making me happier or my even breathing. I should be considering details: ticket, camera gear, Queens Arrows' welcome package. But I can only think of the scent of the morning, hot asphalt and adrenaline. Strangers and stories hum in the train station, but I can only notice him.
Tony Zacks. The kid I feared. The man I chose.
We’re standing just outside the boarding zone, steam wafting from coffee cups and the engine itself, the whole place pulsing with departures. I’ve never felt more ready. I’ve also never wanted to stay more.
He adjusts the strap of my bag on his shoulder like he’s claiming something. Then he turns to face me, eyes too clear for someone who always walks the line between fire and fury.
"You don't get to forget your voice just 'cause the city's larger than you," he says to me.
I clench my throat. I hate that he knows exactly what I need to hear before I even know I need to hear it.
And you," I say, jabbing at his chest with two fingers, "can't just disappear into guilt or boredom or whatever hole of bad Legacy dug. You have your own fire now. Use it."
His smile contorts into something softer. "You're a menace, Lanka."
"And you're a wrecking ball, Zacks."
We don't move. We don't speak. We just breathe. Just memorize.
The conductor’s voice comes through the intercom, a garbled reminder that the train leaves in ten minutes.
I shift my weight, suddenly unsure what I’m supposed to say. “This feels like a goodbye.”
He shakes his head slowly. “No. It’s a checkpoint. A comma.”
“I suck at punctuation.”
“You’re literally a writer.”
I laugh, even as my chest aches. “Touché.”
He puts my bag down beside my foot, then rummages in his pocket. "I have something for you."
"Tony, no more presents. We're symbolic now, aren't we? Emotional maturity and all that horse crap?"
"I lied." He opens his palm.
It's a worn-out coin. Foreign, I think—weathered and old. I recognize the faded lettering as soon as I see them. I recall seeing it once jammed in the back of his locker. The one thing he never threw away when the world was burning around him.
"This was my grandfather's," he says. "Wore it during the war. Said it made him think there was still good luck in the world even when everything felt like hell."
He places it in my palm, closing my fingers over it. "It reminded me of you."
I blink several times. "You can't say something like that just before I board a train."
He leans down then, slow, like the seconds count. And they do.
His lips on mine—soft, certain. Not rushed. Not a movie moment. Just us, now. Unrefined. Perfect.
When we pull away, neither of us speaks.
I grab my bags. The moment is closing in like the close of a chapter.
Tony hangs back just behind the yellow platform line, hands buried in his pockets, eyes never leaving mine.
"I'll see you soon," I tell him.
He nods. "Every Friday, like I promised. I'll bring snacks and awful jokes."
"And you'd better bring your charger," I add.
He salutes me with two fingers and a grin.
I step onto the train.
I find my place near the window, set my bags in the overhead, and set my camera on my lap like shields. The engine hums beneath us, alive.
Tony remains standing at the window.
I raise the coin in my palm. He sees it. Nods once.
The train jerks forward.
It starts slow, as if it knows what it's pulling. A girl remade. A boy reborn. Something that feels like hope.
I don't look away from him.
Not until I have to.
The platform recedes behind me. And then he is gone.
\---
The rhythm of the tracks fills the space he left.
I lean on the window, watching reflections travel across glass. Trees, fences, other trains. Then me.
And I don't look haunted anymore.
I am not like the girl in the viral picture. I am not like the girl who snapped a moment and ruined a boy's life. I am not even like the girl who spent twelve months attempting to escape her shadow.
I am like myself.
Camera hung around my neck. Scars that have faded. Eyes that are clear.
Whole.
This is not the end of my book.
It's the start of my headline.
And this time—I get to write it.