I didn't realize I'd made a decision until I was writing a request to Tower Flight Control. Flight paths are public record, so I had Polaris put in a query that would ping when Telysa's jumpship filed an inbound flight path.

So yeah, I was waiting for her.

But I wasn't putting my life on hold. I started signing up for open-ended patrols in the Cosmodrome. Didn't pay much, but they got me out of the City for a few days at a time. And when I was back in the City, I spent as much time training as I could. I wanted to get a good grasp on sword combat. And it kept me too busy to overthink it.

You see, Shaxx and Tuli both told me the same thing: Make up my own damn mind. What that meant, for me, was seeing things with Telysa through. If we were going to end, we were going to end it together.

But a big part of me still wanted things to work out. Emotions are like that.

I actually don't remember getting the alert. Must have been training, because I do remember an anxious shuttle ride back to the Tower in my exercise gear. It couldn't have been more than a few minutes, but it felt like hours.

I went to the deck on the north end of the Tower Plaza. Gave me a good view of the arriving Guardians. The place was as busy as I'd ever seen it. Oryx was dead but there were plenty of Taken to clean up.

And then there she was. An athletic, beautifully sculpted woman with gray vest and a beat-up blue cloak.

She darted over to the postmaster. I was too far to hear her question but watched her deflate at Kadi's response. After that she slinked over to the line in front of Master Rahool.

Watching her wait was tying my insides in knots. She had her hair down instead of up in a tail. I'd only seen her do that a few times before, during our long jumpship rides together.

She finally got her engrams decrypted and went straight to the nearest open vault terminal.

Polaris cleared his throat.

"When I'm ready," I said.

Like I thought I'd ever be ready.

When she finished rummaging around her vault, she wandered up to the tree in front of Banshee and pulled out her Ghost.

Screw it.

"Telysa," I called.

She looked up and met my eyes. We stood like that for a moment, staring at each other across the plaza. I motioned for her to come up to the balcony.

She crossed to the stairs in an instant and before I knew it she was standing in front of me.

"You stayed," she said.

I crossed my arms. "You left."

She grimaced a little, and I noticed she was tired. Dark circles under her eyes. A pale cast to her lavender skin. "I…yes."

The silence stretched between us.

"Why?"

She stared at her feet, face looking sick.

Seeing her like that, seeing her at all, made me want to melt into a puddle. But no, I didn't come this far just to keep living on someone else's terms again.

"No chance to talk it over, not even a goodbye." I hoped my voice was firmer than I felt. "Do you know how much that hurts?"

She turned away from me and leaned on the railing. "Why? Why did you stay? I'll just keep hurting you."

"Telysa…"

"This thing we were doing…whatever we were, it was exactly what I did before. With my last relationship. I left because if you stay with me, you'll just keep getting hurt."

I thought back to Tuli. Their Ghost. That disastrous after-action report.

I put my hand on her shoulder. She looked at me with watery eyes.

"Tel. I waited for you after you dumped me. At least have the decency to hear me out."

She didn't respond, so I went on anyways.

"Maybe I'm an idiot for wanting to keep trying, but I still like you. I was…I was hoping we could give this one more shot. You keep telling me that any relationship with you is doomed, but you also lived like some crazy space hermit for years. You can't know until you try again."

I leaned on the rail next to her. "You're hurting, anyone can see that. I'm hurting too. Maybe we can hurt together?"

Telysa snorted. "How long have you been practicing that?"

"Not nearly as long as I've been missing you."

She punched my shoulder. "You're hopelessly romantic."

We watched Guardians coming and going across the plaza for a while.

"So what do you say?" I said eventually. "One more shot?"

She met my eyes. "You really want this?"

"I do. Do you?"

"A part of me does. A part of me is scared."

"Well, we can figure it out. Take it slow maybe. But you can't just leave me like that again. We have to talk to each other. Figure it out together."

"Okay. Deal."

"Alright." I nodded down at the bounty board. "Let's find a job, get the hell out of this City."

—Excerpt from a journal bound with brass covers.