Chapter 14 - Twenty Years Too Late
Grant had not escaped custody.
Ethan confirmed it within minutes.
Which meant someone else had written the note.
Police surrounded Westbridge High before Ethan entered.
He refused to wait outside.
The old corridors seemed smaller.
Lockers had been replaced.
Walls repainted.
But memory remained.
He followed a light toward the science auditorium.
The door opened.
Eleanor stood inside.
Alive.
Beside her were Claire, Samuel, Margaret, Daniel, and dozens of Hale Orbital employees.
Ethan stopped.
Eleanor smiled.
“You look furious.”
He stared at the note.
“Grant?”
“Claire's idea.”
Claire raised a hand.
“Not my best work.”
Ethan nearly collapsed with relief.
“What is this?”
Eleanor walked toward him.
“You've spent months trying to find the perfect moment.”
His eyes narrowed.
Claire looked suddenly fascinated by the ceiling.
Ethan touched his jacket pocket.
The ring.
Eleanor knew.
“You searched my office?”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“Traitor.”
Claire shrugged.
Eleanor took Ethan's hands.
“You don't have to repair the past.”
He stared at her.
“You don't owe sixteen-year-old Eleanor anything.”
Her voice softened.
“But thirty-eight-year-old Eleanor has a question.”
She reached into her pocket.
Ethan's eyes widened.
She produced a small velvet box.
The room erupted in laughter.
“You've got to be kidding me.”
“I got tired of waiting.”
“You waited twenty years.”
“Exactly. I've reached my limit.”
She opened the box.
A simple silver band.
“Ethan Hale, would you like to stop wasting time with me?”
He laughed.
Then cried.
Then pulled out his own ring.
Eleanor covered her mouth.
“You were going to ask me?”
“Tonight.”
“Where?”
“Here.”
She stared.
“You copied me.”
“I booked the auditorium first.”
“You have proof?”
“I own an aerospace company. Of course I have documentation.”
Everyone laughed.
Then the room quieted.
Ethan looked at Eleanor.
“No.”
Her smile disappeared.
“What?”
“I don't want to stop wasting time with you.”
Claire looked horrified.
Ethan continued.
“I want all of it.”
Eleanor's eyes filled.
“The boring mornings. The arguments. The flights we miss. The meetings where you tell me I'm wrong.”
“I do that a lot.”
“Constantly.”
He took her hand.
“I want the years we actually get. Not the ones we lost.”
He knelt.
The room became silent.
“Eleanor Rowan, will you marry me?”
She was crying now.
“Yes.”
Then she laughed.
“Yes, you impossible man.”
He placed the ring on her finger.
She pulled him up and kissed him.
Six months later, Horizon's first commercial deployment succeeded.
Hale Orbital's employees gathered around enormous screens as the satellite reached orbit.
Ethan did not watch the numbers first.
He watched Eleanor.
She was crying.
Again.
“You cry a lot around me.”
“Occupational hazard.”
He kissed her temple.
Their wedding was scheduled for September.
Small.
Family.
Friends.
No magazine exclusives.
No business spectacle.
The morning before the ceremony, Ethan received a package.
No return address.
Inside was the original photograph from 2004.
Teenage Ethan.
Teenage Eleanor.
This time he saw something he had never noticed.
In the background, reflected in a window, Eleanor was looking at him.
And Ethan—
was looking back.
He smiled.
Perhaps he had noticed her once.
Perhaps life had simply interrupted before either understood.
Then he turned the photograph over.
There was new handwriting beneath the old date.
Eleanor recognized it immediately.
Her mother's.
One sentence.
Before you marry him, there is one last thing you need to know about that photograph.
Eleanor slowly unfolded the note attached behind it.
She read the first line.
May you like
Then she looked at Ethan.
“Oh my God.”
