Rewriting the Final Chapter

The clock in the print shop struck midnight as rain rattled the narrow windows.

Iris stood over the final page of her novel, fountain pen poised above the last unfinished sentence.

You left the light on.

She knew his footsteps.

She had written them into three different chapters and given them to three different men.

I thought you were on the northbound train.

I was.

A wet ticket landed beside the manuscript.

Outside, the station whistle called through the rain.

Then I read page two hundred and fourteen.

That page needs work.

The whole book is about us.

Ink gathered at the tip of her pen and fell, spreading like a small dark flower over the word stay.

It is fiction.

You gave him my crooked thumb, my terrible coffee, and the joke I told you at your mother's funeral because you hadn't laughed in six days.

The press machinery cooled behind them with slow metallic sighs.

Iris finally looked up.

In the book, he leaves.

I noticed.

It was easier to write the ending if I decided you had no choice.

Julian stepped closer, but did not touch her.

The restraint hurt more than an embrace.

Give me one line where I get to choose.

Thunder softened into distant rain.

Iris turned to the final sentence.

Her hand shook once, then steadied.

And before the ink could dry, he came home.

Julian read the words over her shoulder.

That line doesn't need work.