i n c o n s o l a b l e

- chapter 49 -

| Elliot |

Boarding for Flight 477 to London has begun and will be departing at 0700.

Elliot tossed his now-empty Starbucks cup into the trash. He could see a snaking line around Gate 21, and assumed that a few of his fellow musicians would be dispersed about the line. He took his place at the end, and unlike those standing in line, he wasn't in a rush to board the flight. Boarding would mean that he was actually leaving. That he would be leaving everything he knew behind for the next few months.

Boarding would make the entire situation real. Somehow, through prom, graduation, his graduation party and orientation week at Juilliard, it still didn't feel real. It felt as if the fact of him leaving for a European tour was nothing but a figment of his imagination; that the past few months were simply a bad dream, and he continued to hope that he would wake up soon. That Elise would be by his side when he did.

Realistically, he knew that he was, perhaps, overreacting - making the situation larger than it really was. He was a now-graduated teen. He was in university pursuing his dreams. He was on the brink of adulthood, or, middleage-hood - it simply didn't make sense that he was so broken up, so tormented by the past few months. He needed to stop. This needed to stop.

Elliot shook his head, noticing that the line now only held a few impatient travellers. He handed over his boarding ticket, heart hammering in his chest.

This is it. This is the start of a new beginning.

He sent one last desperate message out into the universe - I hope Elise finds happiness and success -and he stepped into the tunnel, wildly fighting the urge to look, and turn back.