But now that the moment when I could read it was getting nearer, I felt afraid. What if this was just a final goodbye? What if he just didn’t want to have to tell me in person? But I decided that it couldn’t be that. Elias wouldn’t do that to me.

I took a deep breath, reaching into my pocket, and pulled it out. I read the letters on the back again, ran my fingers over them.

I decided that no one needed to know if I opened it twenty goddamn minutes earlier than I was supposed to. How much fucking restraint was a person expected to have?

I pushed my finger under the flap, tore it open, then pulled out the paper. There were only three lines. I read them quickly, gasping as the words sank in.

I chose myself, konjo, and you, if you still want me.

I will see you very soon.

Love, Elias

I wasn’t sure what that meant, but with everything in me I believed he would keep that promise.

I closed my eyes as tears streamed down my face, the tightness in my chest I’d been trying to ignore for days finally loosening. Sensing the meaning of those words seeping into my bones. The relief of being certain that I hadn’t been in this alone.

In the distance I heard an announcement that they would start boarding in a few minutes, and I pocketed the note, trying to get myself together. Suddenly I felt someone standing close to me, and what sounded like Elias’s low, husky chuckle coming from above.

“I told Saba you wouldn’t wait.”

I snapped my head up and saw him only a couple of feet away. He was wearing his leather jacket, gray scarf, red Chucks, and the most beautiful smile I had ever seen on his face. I stood up fast, knocking over my laptop bag, and almost jumped him before I remembered where I was.

I couldn’t just kiss him. I had to keep my head. This was not me realizing my lover—who I thought I might never see again—was actually getting on the flight home with me. Elias and I couldn’t be that to each other here. No, right now I was just saying hello to a friend.

Touching him always made everything simpler, so I closed the small distance between us as my body shook so violently my teeth chattered. I could see a flutter in Elias’s cheek; he was working as hard as I was to keep from grabbing me.

“You’re here,” I gasped, still astonished he was standing in front of me.

That smile again. “I am, and I’m going to New York. I’ll need to come back to Addis before classes start, but this is it…”

“Can we say a proper hello?” I asked, shaking like a leaf.