“Come home this weekend,” her mother said over the phone on a rainy Friday. “The garden is growing. Your brother is pretending he did it with his mind.”
“I have deadlines,” Olivia said, staring at the blinking cursor on her screen.
“Bring them,” her mother said. “We have Wi-Fi. And coffee. And I want to see you in my kitchen, not on TV.”
Olivia smiled.
“I was on a webcast once,” she said. “Not TV.”
“Same,” her mother said dismissively. “Are you bringing him?”
That was the question these days.
Everything came with it.
Family dinner? Is Jake coming? Little cousin’s birthday party? Is Jake coming? Community meeting at the center? Is Jake coming?
Sometimes he could. Sometimes he couldn’t.
She liked that he tried.
She also liked that he didn’t force it when he couldn’t.
“I’ll ask,” she said.
He said yes.
“South Side field trip?” he texted. “I’m in. I heard there’s basil now.”
“Don’t let my mother hear you talk about basil like that,” she wrote back. “She’ll put you to work weeding.”
“Free labor is part of my penance,” he replied.
They took the train together.
He didn’t even suggest a car.
On the ride, squeezed into a half-empty car that smelled faintly like wet umbrella and yesterday’s fries, she watched him interact with the city the way he always had.
He stood, holding the pole with one hand, feet braced, leaving the seats for older riders and people with kids. He glanced up at the digital sign whenever the train delayed between stations, eyes narrowing as if he could see the underlying routes.
At one point, when the car jerked suddenly, he automatically outstretched an arm in front of her, steadying.
Her heart did a small, familiar flip.
“Reflex,” he said, noticing her look. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she said. “I like not falling on strangers.”
He smiled.
At South Side, the station smell hit her—old damp, metal, a hint of something fried.
Some things didn’t change.
Outside, the sky was a low, heavy gray, spitting intermittent drizzle. The community garden, though, was a riot of unexpected green.
Raised beds that had been sad patches of dirt the last time she’d been now boasted rows of small plants.
Tomatoes, basil, cilantro, onions.
A few neat rows of something her mother had claimed were “fancy lettuces that rich people pay too much for.”
LED rigs arched over a couple of the beds, simple and unobtrusive, powered by a small solar panel on the fence.
“Look at this,” her mother said, hands on her hips, pride in her voice. “We are a farm now.”
“You’re a very small farm,” Jake said. “With very opinionated farmers.”
“You make fun,” her mother said, swatting his arm lightly. “But wait until you taste. Then we see.”
She led them on a tour, giving Jake more detail than she’d ever given Olivia about soil composition and planting schedules.
He listened, genuinely attentive.
“See this?” she said, pointing to a bed with small tomato cages. “He told me the lights will trick the plants into thinking the day is longer. I said, ‘Lies. The plants know.’ But they are growing, so maybe he was right.”
“The plants like a little extra sun,” he said. “Just like people.”
She squinted at him.
“You are still not God,” she said. “Don’t try to be.”
He laughed.
“I’m… learning,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “Now, come inside. I made tofu.”
He paled.
“Tofu?” he echoed.
Olivia bit back a smile.
“Penance,” she whispered.
Dinner was lively.
Her uncle told blackout stories again.
Marco bragged about a new raise.
Her mother served tofu tacos alongside chicken ones, insisting “balance is good.”
Jake ate both.
After, while her mother and uncle argued about whether their landlord would ever fix the stairwell light, Olivia and Jake drifted outside, toward the front stoop.
They sat on the cracked concrete, side by side, legs stretched.
The street hummed.
Kids on bikes. A car stereo thumping in the distance. The smell of someone grilling somewhere, despite the drizzle.
“Déjà vu?” Jake asked quietly.
She looked at him.
Ten years ago, they’d sat like this.
On this very stoop.
Young. Angry at the world. A little angry at each other.
She’d told him then that she couldn’t do it anymore. That she needed more than promises and code.
He’d begged.
They’d both said things they regretted.
Tonight, the air felt… different.
“Heavier,” she said. “But… better.”
“Better heavy than empty,” he said.
She hummed.
“I wanted to hate you,” she admitted, staring at the street. “For a long time. It was easier than… missing you.”
“I know,” he said.
“I didn’t… realize,” she went on, “that hating you… kept you in my head just as much as… loving you did.”
He exhaled.
“I deserved a lot of that hate,” he said. “But… I hoped someday… you’d… move on. Not because I wanted to be forgotten. Because I wanted you… free.”
She snorted softly.
“You built an empire and ended up.. back on my stoop,” she said. “Not very efficient.”
He chuckled.
“Who said I was efficient?” he said. “I just… persisted.”
She turned her head.
Watched him.
His profile was etched against the dim glow from a streetlight that, miracle of miracles, actually worked tonight.
“Are you… happy?” she asked.
He considered.
“With… this?” he asked.
“With… all of it,” she said. “The company. The city. Me.”
He let the question sit.
“I’m… tired,” he said. “And scared. And… often frustrated. But… yeah. I’m… weirdly… happy. Happier than I’ve been since… maybe ever.”
Her chest tightened.
“Even with… everything?” she asked. “The hate. The pressure. The… feeling like you could flip the wrong switch and break half the city?”
He nodded.
“Because this time,” he said, “I’m not… doing it alone. I have a board that actually pushes back. A team that… tells me when I’m wrong. A city that… yells. And… you.”
He glanced at her.
“You,” he said again, softer.
Her breath hitched.
“I’m… happy too,” she admitted. “Even when I’m mad. Even when I’m… scared I’m screwing up the ethics. Even when the trolls send me… creative slurs.”
He frowned.
“They’re… still leaving things?” he asked.
“Less,” she said. “The building camera seems to have scared them off. Or they moved on to someone else.”
He looked like he wanted to argue.
She squeezed his knee.
“It’s… part of it,” she said. “Being… visible. Being… a woman with a pen.”
“Doesn’t make it okay,” he said.
“No,” she said. “But… I don’t want that to be the thing that… decides our life.”
He nodded slowly.
“Okay,” he said.
They sat in silence for a few breaths.
Then he shifted.
“Do you… ever think about… the night we broke up?” he asked.
Her stomach clenched.
“Sometimes,” she said.
“Me too,” he said. “More lately. Maybe because… we’re here. Again.”
She remembered.
Rain. Streetlight flicker. His face, wet and furious. Her own voice, hoarse from yelling.
“You told me,” she said slowly, “that I was… selfish. For not being willing to… live on crumbs of your time.”
He flinched.
“I remember,” he said. “I… hate that I said that.”
“You also said,” she went on, “that someday, when you’d… made it… I’d regret leaving.”
He closed his eyes briefly.
“Yeah,” he said. “I… really… hate that I said that.”
She turned slightly, facing him more fully.
“I don’t,” she said.
He opened his eyes.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t… regret leaving,” she said. “I regret how. I regret… the hurt. But… I don’t regret… choosing myself.”
He swallowed.
“Good,” he said quietly.
“Do you… regret… anything?” she asked.
He huffed a small laugh.
“Many things,” he said. “Specifically about that night? I regret… not listening. Not taking you seriously until you were already halfway down the block. I regret… throwing your fears back at you like weapons. I regret… thinking I could… buy my way back into your life later.”
She looked at him.
His face was open.
No defensiveness.
“That’s… a lot of regret,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said.
“But,” he added, “I don’t… regret… not… giving up on TerraNova. I don’t regret… pushing. I don’t regret… building this thing. Even if it cost us. That sounds… shitty. But…”
“I get it,” she said.
“You do?” he asked, surprised.
She nodded.
“If you’d… chosen me over… the code,” she said, “you would’ve… resented me. Eventually. Maybe sooner than we think.”
He winced, like she’d plucked a nerve.
“I… don’t want you to ever feel like… choosing me now… means… losing this,” she added, gesturing vaguely toward the city.
He exhaled.
“I don’t,” he said. “Because… now… I know… how to… balance. Better. And because… I have… help.”
“Therapy,” she said.
“Therapy,” he agreed. “And… you. When you text me at 2 a.m. and say, ‘Stop refreshing dashboards and go to bed.’”
She smiled.
“You need someone to tell you that,” she said.
“Apparently,” he said.
He tilted his head.
“And you?” he asked. “Do you… feel like… choosing me… now… pulls you away from… your work?”
She let the question sit.
“Sometimes,” she admitted. “When… people say… my coverage softened. When… Ethics looks at me like a… case study. When… I wonder if… some story I didn’t chase because I was… here… might have… mattered.”
He swallowed.
“And?” he asked.
“And,” she said, “I… don’t think… there’s a version of my life where… I’m not torn between… two things I love. The work. And… this.”
She waved a hand between them.
“Journalism doesn’t… leave a lot of room,” she added. “Neither does… running a city’s nervous system.”
He huffed a laugh.
“So we’re… both… bad at… easy,” he said.
“Yeah,” she said. “We are.”
He reached for her hand.
She let him take it.
“Then maybe,” he said quietly, “we… get good at… hard.”
She snorted.
“That sounds like a sex joke,” she said.
He grinned.
“Doesn’t it?” he said.
She laughed, nudged his shoulder with hers.
Then sobered.
“It’s… work,” she said.
“Everything worth anything is,” he said.
She turned her head, resting her temple against his shoulder.
“Don’t… fuck this up, okay?” she whispered.
He pressed his cheek to the top of her head.
“I’ll do my best,” he said. “And… when I inevitably… screw something up… I’ll listen. And… fix it. Or try.”
She nodded.
That was all she could ask.
Not perfection.
Effort.
Accountability.
From him.
From herself.
From the systems they built and wrote about and lived inside.
On the stoop of the building where they’d first fumbled toward adulthood, two slightly older, slightly wiser idiots sat wrapped in each other’s warmth and the low hum of the city.
Fault lines ran under them.
They always would.
But now, at least, they weren’t pretending they didn’t exist.
They were learning how to build on them anyway.
Together.