Open Roads

Edge of the Map

It's been three weeks since the trip. 

Three weeks since the quiet mornings by the lake, since the air tasted like pine and dew, since I thought I could bottle that peace and bring it back to the city with us. But peace never really stays bottled, it seeps out through the cracks of daily life. 

We've fallen back into our rhythm, work, home, the soft domestic rituals that make a life. Mornings start with coffee and Avery's music playing low through the loft, some easy acoustic song that follows me into the shower. Evenings are a blur of laughter, small messes, shared dinners, the sound of our lives stitching together in ways neither of us could've predicted a year ago. 

But there's something shifting under the surface. Something restless.

I notice it first in the way Avery starts spending longer at the window, leaning on the sill, eyes scanning the horizon like its taunting him.  He's healing well, the bruising faded, the scars have softened. 

His body is settling into itself, finally his in ways that make my heart ache with both pride and longing. But his gaze keeps drifting outward, as if there's something waiting just past the skyline.

He catches me watching him one night. We're curled up on the sectional, half-watching a movie, the room washed in amber light. 

"What?" he asks, his voice soft, a small smile tugging at his mouth. 

"You've been quiet." I say.

He turns toward me, eyes thoughtful. "You ever feel like...you've been standing still for too long?"

I think about it. About the years I spent keeping my heart guarded, about how even now, when I have everything I thought I wanted, part of me still flinches from the unknown.

"Yeah," I say. "Sometimes."

He nods slowly, gaze dropping to where our hands rest together. "I keep thinking about that drive to the lake. About how it felt just...being out there. The open road, no plans. I miss that."

There's a beat of silence, and I know where this is going before he says it.

"I've been looking," he admits, voice careful. "At maps. Routes. Maybe heading west for a while. Seeing what's out there."

My chest tightens. Not because I'm surprised, but because I knew this moment was coming. He's never been one to stay still for long; he's built for motion, for discovery.
Still, a part of me wants to freeze the world as it is...this loft, this quiet, this version of us.

"You want to move?" I ask.

He shakes his head. "Not move. Just...go. For a while. We could take the Jeep, camp, work remote. Just drive."

There it is...the Jeep.

The Sahara soft top he'd talked about for weeks before finally finding the right one. It's parked downstairs now, all gleaming dark green and freedom. I teased him that it looked like something out of a commercial. He said that's exactly why he bought it.

He looks at me now, hopeful, the same way he looked at that Jeep. "Come with me," he says.

I try to breathe past the knot in my throat.

I love him. God, I do. But my roots are deep, my job, my life, the safety of routine. Yet when he says it, come with me, something stirs inside me that feels dangerously close to yes.

"What about work?" I ask weakly.

"I can write anywhere. And you've got time off banked. A month, right?"

I stare at him. "You've been thinking about this a lot."

He grins sheepishly. "Maybe."

We sit there, the silence stretching between us, filled with all the things I want to say and all the things I'm afraid to. The city hums outside, a reminder of the world we've built together, solid, familiar, safe. And yet, looking at him now, his eyes lit with that untamed spark, I know that love doesn't always live in safety.

Sometimes it's in the unknown. In the road that hasn't been taken yet.

He reaches out, tracing his thumb over the inside of my wrist, the same way he does when he's trying to pull me back into the moment. "You don't have to say yes tonight," he says softly. "Just think about it."

I nod, but words feel too heavy to form. Instead, I lean in, my forehead brushing his. The smell of his skin, salt, coffee, something warm and real, grounds me. 

He kisses me, slow and certain, and I can feel every question I've been avoiding hum beneath it.

When we finally pull apart, he murmurs, "Whatever we do next...I just want it to be us."

I let out a shaky breath. "It already is."

Later, after he's asleep, I lie awake beside him, the city's glow spilling across our sheets. I watch the rise and fall of his chest, the small scar peeking from the edge of his shirt, the way his hand curls loosely around mine even in sleep.

My mind drifts to that open road, to miles of sky and possibility. To fear, yes, but also to the kind of freedom that scares me in all the right ways.

Maybe standing still isn't what love is meant to be.

Maybe loving him means learning to move, too.

And maybe, just maybe, I'm ready.