A taxi pulled up to the curb, rolling over a thin layer of fresh snow. Miles stepped out into the cold, winter night, the wind picking up and nipping his nose.
His cheeks grew pink—but that was because he was a nervous wreck.
Squinting against the snow, he looked up at the apartment building and bit the inside of his cheek. He imagined getting here, he imagined walking up these steps and he imagined speaking the words that he'd been rehearsing the whole way here. But as he looked up, he felt his heart pulsing in his throat. His knees locked and refused to move. His knuckles grew white from his clenched fists.
He spent too much money to turn away. He forced himself up the stairs. He forced one foot in front of the other, and he trudged up the wooden steps with haste. He hauled himself to the door on the right—the door he hadn't seen in years.
He lifted his hand to knock—a gesture so automatic now feeling so bold—but he hesitated, letting his arm drop to his side again.
How was he supposed to face him again? It was late and unannounced. It's been years.
Pull yourself together, he thought. He pursed his lips and knocked.
The very sound startled him—he jumped and stepped away from the door, facing the opposite wall. His hand covered his mouth.
"Just a minute!" called a voice from inside.
"Okay," he mumbled. "Okay, okay, okay..."
Just as you rehearsed. Just say what you practiced.
The door opened slowly, and when Miles heard it the words exploded and he blurted out, looking away.
"I know this isn't going to be very easy, but I was just out there all alone in the world and I was just so scared, and all I could think about was how I had no place in this world and then I realized that I did, I did have a place in this world and that was with you, so I flew and I took a taxi to get to you because I had to see you." He turned toward him. Thank God you're—"
The man who looked back at him was not who he expected. He was slouching, wearing baggy, smelly clothes. His face was unshaven and he wore a beanie—the man was disheveled. The man was not who Miles was talking to.
He spluttered. "Oh—oh...you—you're not—" he opened his phone, checked his map. He glanced at the area in which he stood, the area he was almost certain he knew well.
"This...this is the place..."
The man seemed just as confused. He was tired and his eyes were heavy, but he leaned against the doorframe, watching Miles struggle to figure out what the hell happened.
"You're not..." he cleared his throat. The nerves seemed to die down, but now he was worried. "Does Phoenix Wright live here? I'm looking for Phoenix Wright."
The man furrowed his brow. "You're looking for—"
"—looking for Phoenix Wright, yes. He lives here. I thought. But..." it started dawning on him, slowly and surely. A reality, or, a flaw to his impulse that he called a plan.
"He...he doesn't, does he?"
The man didn't respond.
"I'm...I'm terribly sorry," Edgeworth attempted to recover. He pushed up his glasses and turned away, but his face was pinned than before. "I...I made a mistake. You must think I'm a fool."
The man didn't respond. Edgeworth couldn't make himself stop talking.
"I just thought he'd be here. I thought he'd be here, always."
How was he supposed to recover? Was he going to have to explain this whole ordeal to a stranger?
"Do you know him? He wears a blue suit. He has black, spiky hair. Firm build. Stupid grin. Do you know him?" He wasn't getting any clues, not making any progress. "He's an attorney. He's one of the best, I think."
The man opened his mouth to respond but Edgeworth was moving on.
"Don't even answer that. That's not the best description I could give him, but that's how he was last I saw him. I don't expect everything to be the same now, much less do I expect anyone to recognize him based off the most vague description in the universe."
He faced away again, now embarrassed that he couldn't keep from rambling. He had a whole speech prepared and now he wasn't sure what to do with it.
"I don't live here anymore," he spoke again, and felt a need to explain it all to someone. To let all of this be projected somewhere so he wouldn't have to carry it anymore. "But when I did, no one seemed to correctly remember who he was. He hated it so much that it was...kind of...funny."
He smiled at the thought. Phoenix being annoyed over the darnedest things, a little pout and a furrowed brow and those big, sad eyes.
Edgeworth zoned back in and frowned. He faced the man again, the total stranger who hadn't left or closed the door yet.
"I'm so sorry," he said, "I was just so sure..."
The man shrugged. There was not much to say.
"When his boss passed away, he kept the office. He stayed in the city to defend people. I thought he stayed." A weight pulled his feet to their place and he couldn't lift them.
"I didn't. I went away."
"Most people do," said the man.
"Yes. And I guess he did too. I never thought he would. I must've lost track."
His chest tightened when he thought over it more. Maya was training in the mountains, and Miles up and left. It made sense.
"If only there was something you could keep people in for when you need them, huh?" He said, wryly attempting Phoenix's way of lightening a dull conversation.
The man was kind of smiling.
Miles cleared his throat and couldn't figure out how to correctly leave—maybe Phoenix just moved to a different part of the building. He couldn't have left, could he? "It's very cold."
The man said, "Yeah."
"I took a taxi here, from the airport. I flew in from London to see him."
"Wow," said the man. His brows raised but hid behind his hat. "That's far."
"I guess I traveled a lot farther than I thought I would. I never realized how far I went from here."
"Why did you do that?"
"I needed to find my answers."
"No," the man said, "I meant, why did you come back?"
Edgeworth sucked in a cold breath. "I needed to see him as soon as possible."
"Why?"
"Because I was able to find some—answers, I mean. I wanted to answer a question he asked me."
The man raised his brows again. On his tired face, it did little to change his expression, but he was listening. "Oh?"
"Before I left, he asked me a really important question and I didn't answer it. I later realized that you can't—you just can't do that to someone."
He clenched his fists again, kind of glad now that Phoenix wasn't there to see what a mess he'd become.
"Oh come on," the man assured him. "Don't you think that's being a little hard on yourself?"
Miles frowned and looked at his shoes. "He asked me to marry him."
The man said, "Oh."
And they stood there for a second. He watched Edgeworth look away, the shame ridden all over him that he just couldn't hold himself up and hide behind the wall he could easily hide behind. Here he was, completely vulnerable to a total stranger.
"And you..."
"Didn't answer him, no."
The man whistled.
"That's why I'm here. I need to answer him." He scrambled to hide behind his colder, emotionless demeanor. He hated being so open, especially on the rare occasion that he did wrong.
"I didn't answer him because I simply didn't have an answer at the time. It was the night before I left, before I planned to head out and get my answers and figure out where I was in my life. The night before I left, he asked me to marry him! I was leaving in the morning! What was I supposed to do?"
"I don't know."
"I told him I'd have to think about it. I told him I'd have an answer before dawn, before sunrise, and then I left. I left him standing...right..."
Phoenix stood where the man was standing, very same spot. But it was summer then, and it was warm and they were coming back from a nightly stroll. Phoenix wore those sad eyes. Miles hadn't known what else to do.
"...right there. I didn't make it back before the sun came up. Or...at all."
The man shifted his weight. "That sounds like an answer to me."
"No! That wasn't—that wasn't my answer! I went off into the world and that couldn't have been my answer. I think..."
He stopped. He never thought about how he left things; just how wrong he'd been. It sounded so horrible, out loud, even as he said it to another person.
"What?" The man leaned his head on the doorframe.
"I think he thought I'd say 'yes'."
The man said, "A person probably wouldn't propose if he didn't think his partner would say 'yes'."
"I know, I know. I'm aware. I'm afraid he might've waited all night, hoping I would come by. I wanted to tell him that I know now, how you just can't do that to a person, much less to someone you love."
"You loved him?" The man asked.
Edgeworth tried to hide again. "Well—I...I don't know if...I mean—we were working professionals..." he felt his face redden. He could feel the man's eyes on him. "Yes, I did. I do."
He frowned. He made himself look away. "I must've dashed his hopes and dreams."
"Now, come on," the man's hands sat warmly in his hoodie pocket. He shifted his weight again, trying to find what to say. "You give yourself to much credit. He was young, and things were probably going really well all around him. That's all you need to get your hopes dashed. Besides...I don't think you really dashed his hopes. When you dash somebody's hopes, well...that's just a nice way of letting them down. Because it hurts, but it's quick. If you had said 'no', that would've been 'dashing his hopes.'"
He watched Miles's face fall. He wasn't trying to sound mean—he just wanted to explain how it must've really felt.
"But you didn't say 'no'. You didn't say anything. At all. That's...that's kind of like killing hope the long, slow, painful way, because it never goes away. It hangs on. It's like giving someone a little less air to breathe, every day. Until they die."
Miles bit the inside of his cheek, a moment ago he hoped he'd be assured. Now he wasn't so sure he should've come. Maybe that would've hurt him even more.
He cleared his throat. "Well, thank you." And he turned to leave.
The man lifted his head. "For what?"
Edgeworth had already started walking, but he stopped. Maybe it was time for his own hope to die. "I'm not sure."
He turned to leave again, almost at the stairs. Back into the world, back into the cold. Behind him, the man said, "Goodbye, Edgeworth."
And he turned around. "I'm sorry to have bothered you. I really thought that if I came back—I was just out there and I was alone and I thought that I could find my place with him again—"
He paused.
"...what...what did you...?" He hurried back, observing him closer. He squinted at him. "You called me 'Edgeworth'. I never told you...how...?"
And he realized. And his eyes widened.
"Wright?!"
The man smiled his wide, cheesy smile and scratched the back of his head. "Hello, Miles."
"But—!" He spluttered, really taking him in. Really looking at him, how much he'd changed. His head was spinning. "You're—! I didn't even rec—"
"I know."
"I didn't—"
"I know."
"I didn't even recognize you!"
"I know." It was not the first time Phoenix had heard this.
"You're so..."
"I know."
"...messy."
"I know." He fit his hands into his pockets again. "I...I lost a lot of hope. That'll do a number on you."
The pause that followed was painful. Miles couldn't even begin to explain how sorry he was—Phoenix already knew. He had heard the whole thing.
He wanted to be angry at him for not giving away his presence, but he had to admit, it was easier for him to talk that way. Besides, he wasn't the one who should be angry.
"Phoenix..." he wished they were on better terms. He wished he could've rushed to him and fallen into his embrace. But there was too much hurt he left behind. He knew that.
"I'm...I'm so sorry...I never should've—"
Phoenix shushed him. He was kind of smiling again. "Hey, it's okay. Because you know what? You're early."
Miles blinked. "What?"
"You're early! You said you'd be back before the sun came up. The sun's not even close to being up, yet! It went down a few hours ago, so you're really early. That's good of you."
That warm smile of his put all of Miles's restlessness at ease. He found himself smiling too. Damn it. Phoenix's smile was contagious.
"So...a flight all the way from London?"
"Yes."
"To tell me...?"
Miles was about to speak but a voice came from inside the apartment.
"Daddy...? Who's there?"
Miles looked down, behind Phoenix's leg. A little girl clung to it, hiding behind it.
"Just someone...who needs directions." He said, picking her up and holding her to his chest.
"It's really late for directions." She said.
"I know, Trucy." He looked at her with that warm smile of his. "Why dont you go back to bed? I'll be right in."
"Okay. But don't catch a cold."
He set her down, letting her walk back to her room. She yawned.
Miles felt his chest tightening. If Phoenix had a daughter, he might've had a wife—maybe he had already moved on?
"I'm glad you're back, Miles," Phoenix said, looking back at him. "And I hope you found your place in this world. Good night."
"Good night." He watched Phoenix close the door.
He stood there. A loss for words. Stuck to the ground. An answer rising up in his throat, an answer so long delayed. He knew Phoenix wouldn't hear him, and maybe that was for the best.
"Yes," he said, to him. To the door. To the man he left behind.
"Yes."