Eight Months Later

Cora clapped as Simon duct-taped the last of the cardboard boxes shut. It had taken them the better part of three days to pack up everything in his apartment, but they'd finished with some time to spare before Natasha arrived.

Rasmus had popped in and out to help them, of course, but Cora purposely didn't ask for much extra assistance. She couldn't remember the last time she had gotten to hang out with Simon for so long, so was enjoying every second of their time together before he moved away to finally live with his girlfriend.

Cora and Rasmus wouldn't even be needed once Nat showed up, as she supposedly was bringing along a few of her friends to help with the move. They'd wanted an excuse to go to NYC for a couple of days and then see the town where she grew up—enough so that they didn't mind making the gruelingly long road trip to do it—so Nat had been off playing tour guide while Cora was soaking in all these last moments with Simon living so close to her.

But she certainly wasn't grieving for him—it felt like everyone was going exactly where they needed to be. He was going to be so much happier actually getting to see his girlfriend in person every day and Cora didn't want to be the person that kept him tied to New York considering how much she herself was moving around for work these days. She and Rasmus were still keeping Manhattan as their home base of sorts, but they'd already moved to Toronto for two months for a limited-engagement run of Illicit Affairs and would be packing up their lives for their next adventure in a matter of weeks.

Simon was resting his chin atop a tall stack of boxes, giving her a tired but happy smile. "You're a life saver, Corrie. I'm sorry I won't be around to help you pack for London."

London. She could still hardly believe that she and Rasmus had been asked to go do the show for five months on London's West End—it probably wasn't going to hit her until they were putting their belongings in storage and taking a plane across the Atlantic. But the two months in Canada, though obviously much closer to home than England was, had made her much more confident in her capabilities to move around for her job without getting too homesick. She didn't get too nostalgic for material possessions anymore.

Home wasn't a place, it was the people she was with. So as long as she had Rasmus with her and kept video calling her friends and family whenever she could, she was going to be perfectly happy in the U.K. for a little while.

Rasmus was doing well with all of it, too. The person he missed the most when they were gone was definitely Ava, but they'd already made plans to fly her to London for part of her Christmas break since she got two whole weeks off of school. And she had plenty to keep herself occupied with these days—mainly the early stages of college applications. She wanted to study English and minor in theatre with the hopes of one day becoming a playwright. He'd admitted to Cora that he'd once been stressed by the idea of his sister trying to follow in his footsteps because of how unsupportive their parents were of it, but his relationship with his mom had taken a pretty sharp turn for the better ever since she made it to their final show. It was by no means perfect, but it was moving in the right direction, enough to make him believe that Ava was going to have a much smoother experience with pursuing what she loved than he did.

They were building a little life together, she and Rasmus. It was an unconventional one, but it was a happy one, and it wouldn't bother Cora one bit if they kept getting cast together as dysfunctional couples. Getting to play make-believe with her boyfriend all the time (and get paid for it) had been one of the most joyful experiences of her life. They both taught voice lessons and did masterclasses as a side gig to keep a steady trickle of income coming in and they'd both gone back to voice lessons themselves to prepare for their next big, secret project: the musical The Last Five Years was finally coming to Broadway for the first time next fall and they'd already been asked to do it, though no one knew yet besides them and their agents.

And after that? She didn't have a clue, but it was a miracle in the theatre industry to know what you would be doing any further out than six months from the present. Maybe they'd get to stay in New York for a while; maybe they'd end up back in the U.K. or somewhere else on the other side of the world. Maybe they'd go on the road—there were already whispers of a national tour of Illicit Affairs coming within the next couple of years, so if their schedules would allow it, she would love to get to travel around the country with Rasmus for a while. Maybe they'd even wind up stopping in Nashville and get to visit Simon and Natasha.

With their careers definitively not flopping, Cora felt so much freer to try out whatever opportunities came her way without having to be so worried about the money or what was coming next. The sky was the limit, and now that they'd already experienced what it felt like to climb so high and then fall so far, she wasn't scared of the future. If she failed, she'd get up and try again.

When she heard a car pull up outside, she peered out the window, suspecting it was Rasmus. While Cora and Simon were finishing up with the packing, he'd gone out and grabbed lunch for them so that they could eat something before Nat and her friends arrived with the moving van. Sure enough, she saw her boyfriend getting out of her car with a huge fast food bag in tow.

Simon and Rasmus had been opposing entities in her life for so long that it still sometimes felt a little bizarre to see them in the same room together and getting along, but the feeling was always followed by immense gratitude. She liked the life she was living now much better than that old one with so much unnecessary hate pent up in her heart.

The three of them sat in a tiny square of bare space on the living room floor while they ate their cheap chicken strips and fries. Cora was finding it quite odd to see this apartment that Simon had been living in for years reduced to piles of boxes, but he himself seemed to be quite calm about it all. She couldn't detect any hidden stress behind his eyes, his posture. If anything, he seemed eager to get all of this stuff packed into a van and move on rather than linger around with his nostalgia.

A jolt of anticipation ran through her when a text from Natasha notified them that she was about five minutes away. There was no circumstance in which saying goodbye to your best friend without knowing when you'd see them again was completely easy, but one of the upsides to this was that she was finally getting to meet these friends of Nat's who she'd heard so much about. She had already considered the fact that they were about to become Simon's friend group too, which made her even more curious to finally see what they were like.

Cora, Rasmus, and Simon waited for them outside, and when the van finally pulled up in front of the apartment building, she could see Natasha's bright red hair behind the wheel. Following behind it was the car they'd brought up, driven by a curly-haired boy who Cora had seen in pictures.

The keyring to the moving van jingled in Nat's hand as she hopped out and came over to give Simon a kiss and quickly introduce the friends she'd brought with her. (Cora already knew that their names were Amelia, Henry, Lily, and Liam, but she wasn't about to admit to them that Nat had already told her a considerable amount about them) before they got to work with loading everything into the van.

Since they had so many people there, packing Simon's entire life into the van was surprisingly easy. Cora was relieved not to be drenched in sweat by the end, but the fact that it all happened so quickly also meant that her time with him was coming to a close even quicker than she realized.

"You okay?"

It was Amelia who had spoken up. They were both in the kitchen grabbing the last boxes of cookware. Cora hadn't realized that she must be looking glum.

"Yeah," she answered. "Thanks...it just feels a little strange, you know? I've known Simon basically my entire life. Keep an eye on him for me, will you?"

Amelia nodded. "We'll take good care of him, I promise."

Cora felt a sudden impulse to hug her, but she refrained, knowing that she was talking to a near stranger. And yet if Nat trusted Amelia, Cora did too, so the words soothed her nonetheless.

"Thank you," Cora said quietly. "Oh, and congrats on the wedding. I can't even imagine how excited you must be."

An engagement ring glistened on Amelia's finger—she and Henry were getting married in just a couple more months. Cora was well aware of this because Nat had already been gushing for weeks about how excited she was that Simon was going to be in town to come as her date for it.

"Thanks," Amelia smiled. "I don't think I've even fully processed how excited I am yet. I would have loved to make it to your show, I'm sorry we didn't."

"Hey, if you somehow find yourself in London in the next several months, you know where to find me."

Her smile turned a little more devious. "We're actually going to be in Italy after the wedding—maybe I can convince him to let us make a pit stop in London on the way back," she mused.

"If you manage to talk your fiancé into spending even more money, your tickets are on me."

Amelia giggled. "I'll try my best."

By the time Cora and Natasha emerged from the apartment with the very last boxes in their arms, Simon locking the door behind them, Nat's friends were already lingering back by their car to give him space to say his goodbyes. Nat hugged Cora and Rasmus both before she retreated to the van, and Rasmus gave Cora a swift kiss on the cheek before also stepping away to let her and Simon have a moment alone.

Here they were, back at the beginning, just the two of them. Corrie and Simon, Simon and Corrie.

She threw her arms around him and squeezed him as tightly as she could muster. "I love you," she murmured into his shoulder. "Be safe and let me when you get there, okay?"

"I will," he promised. "I love you, too."

He held onto her for a moment longer before letting go; she wiped the moisture from her eyes.

"Don't be a stranger," she mumbled. "Call me when you can."

"You're never gonna stop being my best friend, Corrie," he said softly. "I promise."

"Pinky promise?"

He laughed and hooked his finger through hers. "Pinky promise."

Rasmus was waiting for her by their car. She silently reached for his hand as she came to his side and they stayed there for a minute longer. Simon waved to them one last time before he climbed into the driver's seat of the van and the engine started up with a loud rumble.

Gripping onto her boyfriend's hand, Cora watched the van disappear into the distance. But beneath this thin layer of sadness, she knew that this wasn't really a goodbye at all, just a see you later. There were new adventures to be had, new roads to be discovered. So she smiled, grateful that Simon had invited her here today so that they could have this pretend goodbye.

She'd always been fond of playing imitation games.

THE END

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A/N:

Don't worry if you were confused about why I brought Natasha's friends into the epilogue—they're from one of my other books, The Search for Lily Myers, which is where Nat makes her first appearance.

I'll be saving the majority of my sappy thoughts about finishing this book for the acknowledgments, so make sure to read on to the next part for a final author's note and a little bit about what project I'll be working on next if you're interested.

But for those of you who choose to stop here, thank you for taking the time to read my book. Your support really means so much to me!