Bridging the Divide

I guess this is goodbye then

Keefe

Keefe looked over at Sophie, who was blushing and smiling at him at the same time. "I'm glad you're okay, Sophie." He had breathed the words so softly he wondered if she had heard him, but the deepening of her blush confirmed that she had.

"Not calling me Foster anymore, then?"

He could tell that the question was sincere and sarcastic, which caused the grin on his face to spread wider. Now was the time for him to stop using his safety jacket of jokes and truly, sincerely tell her how he felt. He knew that.

"Yeah, teasing you doesn't seem to be very effective."

"You're really good at it, though. You always make me laugh."

"True, but you never realized how much I like you from those words."

Sophie's breath caught, and when Keefe looked into her eyes he could practically see her brain whirling, trying to make sense of this possibility. He waited, even though it was almost torture to do so, until Sophie seemed to make up her mind. 

Slowly, carefully, she leaned her head towards him, and kissed him hesitantly. It was weird, but also perfectly imperfect in the way that most of the best things were. Sophie pulled back, then leaned her head against his shoulder, tucking the blanket around their shoulders carefully.

"Grady is probably chewing Ro out for letting me come find you, but... this is worth the epic level of freak."

"That's very true."

"It's nice here. I can see why you chose this place."

"Everything here reminded me of home, and you."

"It's funny, how once someone you love leaves, you see traces of them everywhere you go, isn't it?"

"It really is."

They spent who knows how long there, until Sophie eventually stood up and left for Havenfield, promising to come back tomorrow after he had said goodbye to his friends and bring him home. As he watched her go, his mind fixated on that word. 

Home, the one place he had thought he hated. Now, all he wanted was to go there, because now home didn't mean his parents and the huge, empty towers of Candleshade, but rather his friends, Ro, Sophie, everyone he cared about. He would miss his new friends, but that was his home, and he was soon going back to it.

Sophie

Sophie looked out over the camp, at all the people below the golden statue of Athena, going about her day, and made a mental promise to come back next summer, to bring Keefe here and visit his new friends. 

Just then, her eyes caught on the group of people she was waiting for, and she smiled. Keefe ran up and spun her around in a huge hug, setting her down right before she got too dizzy and turning to his friends again.

"So, I guess this is goodbye then, huh?"

Sophie smiled up at... her boyfriend? She didn't know for sure, only that they were connected somehow, and it was amazing in its own way. "We'll come and visit every summer." Keefe smiled gratefully, and after another round of goodbyes took her hand and followed her off the cliff edge and into the void.

She focused on home, on going to Havenfield where she knew their friends and family, everyone she cared about and everyone who cared about her were waiting for them. No more hiding, no more looking to the past, no more divide. They were free.

This is the end! Again, thanks to my ama-ZHANG team of editors for dealing with my weird quirks and drilling this formatting into my skull so that I remember to use it here.