Sarah set the heavy cardboard box on the sparkling breccia countertop and strayed over to the floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the bustling city. The penthouse apartment was surprisingly spacious, and she couldn't wait to see this view at night. After traveling for so long, it was going to feel weird to be in one place indefinitely, but it also felt like a sigh of relief. The weirdness would pass soon enough.
"This is the last of 'em." Alex kicked the front door closed with his foot, his hands full with the last of the boxes of Sarah's belongings.
And so the ending of her tour life was also the beginning of her life with Alex.
They stood on the balcony - a much smaller balcony than Sarah thought it should be - and watching the New Years fireworks exploding over the buildings. The sharp air bit at Sarah's nose and coloured her cheeks, making her blink hard at the shimmers of green and red and gold against the deep darkness. Alex's arms wrapped around her waist and held her tight. The small beep of his watch reminded them of the time, and he turned to face him. While the people on the streets below gave a resounding shout, champagne flew and confetti floated, Sarah and Alex rang in the new year with a kiss.
After the hectic week of unpacking, and after a few more weeks of settling into a routine, Sarah was able to focus on writing her next book. Life found a steady rhythm, and Sarah enjoyed it. Long mornings to sit and ponder and write and edit, afternoon trips to shops and the cinema, evenings at various restaurants interchanged with take-out and Netflix.
The book stalled in places, but sped by in others. Finally the first draft was finished and sent off to the editors. Sarah, having just arrived from the post office, sprawled across the sofa and sighed happily. She would have a week off now, at least. She deserved it, after all that. She pulled out her cell phone and made reservations at her favourite sushi place for the evening. Alex hated sushi, but he had promised her they would both go after the first draft was finished.
Reservations made, she turned on the tv and flipped through the channels, giving each one a couple seconds to prove its watchability, and judging each one unworthy of viewing. Until, that is, a commercial that caught her interest. In honesty it was not so much the commercial itself as the song being used in the background of the commercial. She hadn't heard that song in ages, it felt like. Memories of junior year in college came flooding back - sticky pleather booths, greasy cheese sticks and acidic marinara sauce, the neon signs reflecting off the ice cubes in half-drunk glass of Sprite... And the boy in the bright blue jeans up on the stage.
She didn't realize she was crying until she chanced to put her hand to her face. How silly I am, she thought. Why am I crying?
Her life with Alex was good.
Wasn't it?
But she couldn't deny that rush of emotions that had come unbidden, that deep, hollow ache in her chest as she thought as of the past, of the passage of time, and the words left unspoken.
She turned off the television, wiped her hands across her face and then on her pants, and began to try to tidy up the already insanely tidy room. Twice more in this endeavour she found herself crying again. On the fourth attempt to move a candle that didn't really go well anywhere it was put, her mind half stumbled out a thought that had been repressed for so long - but she stopped herself, asking where this would even lead. She was with Alex. What was she expecting? As much as it hurt in the moment, to see him again and say goodbye again and try to go on without him would hurt even worse.
No. That wish could not be wished. She would go on as Sarah Williams, human, writer, girlfriend of Alex, and whatever other descriptors fit her current situation. And he would go on as King of the Goblins, presumably living Underground, and continuing whatever he was doing. There could be no more than that. At least, not right now.
She rubbed her eyes and went to reapply her makeup.
It was early afternoon in the Underground. Jareth was out of the castle, horseback riding on a trail through the fields on the outskirts of the kingdom. He pulled back on the reigns, palomino horse pausing its canter.
He heard the wish - or the start of it at least.
He heard it pause, heard it falter and trail off, unfinished.
He knew why it wasn't finished.
He knew that he could infer the rest of what would have been said, could surely show up at that very moment and she would not turn him away.
But he wouldn't. He didn't. She hadn't finished the wish. He must let her live her life how she chose, and she had chosen.
He urged the horse back into a gallop, and told himself that the stinging he felt around his eyes was from the wind.
