"And if I don't take it?"
"Then I'll still have to live with the knowledge that you could have, and that you chose a life that includes me without making me the only reason," Theo said. "That seems healthy and slightly terrifying."
Rowan laughed into the phone. "Welcome to my entire year."
She came home with a sunburn on one shoulder and a decision that was not yet words. Theo met her at the airport with coffee and no sign big enough to embarrass her. In the taxi through Queens, Rowan leaned against the window and watched the city reassemble itself.
"I need a week," she said.
"Take it."
"Ugly honest: part of me wants you to decide for me so I can resent you instead of risking regret."
"Ugly honest: part of me wants to decide for you so I can feel useful instead of scared," Theo said. "I'm declining both of our worst ideas."
"Good," Rowan said. "Decline harder."
The week Rowan asked for turned into eight days because life rarely respects round numbers. She coached. She sat with Bridie on the bakery's back step after closing, eating burnt-edge cookies that would never be sold. She wrote two columns in a notebook: Minneapolis builds / New York builds. Under each, she listed not dreams but tasks. Curriculum. Rent. Friends. Knee specialists. The sound of her students' laughter in a lobby that smelled like rubber mats. The possibility of new laughter in a lobby she did not yet know.
Theo did not text every hour. He sent one message on day three: Still declining our worst ideas. Here if you want a walk that contains no persuasive speeches.
Rowan took him up on the walk on day six. They moved along the river in humidity that made every thought feel slightly melted at the edges. Rowan did not speak of Minneapolis until the George Washington Bridge lit up against the dusk.
"I'm taking it," she said.
Theo's body reacted before his manners did: a small flinch, a breath held too long. Then he nodded, once, as if accepting a weather report. "August."
"August," Rowan said. "I am not taking it to punish April. I am not taking it to test you. I am taking it because the work there matches the part of me that still wants to build, and because staying only to protect a fragile almost would make the almost fragile forever."