may 9th, 2017 
boston, massachusetts & tokyo, japan
It’s been hours. You’ve gone back and forth between sitting and pacing, picking up the pen, tapping it on the counter and putting it down again. It’s gotten to the point where the words on the page are starting to blur together because you’ve just looked at them so many goddamn times by this point and you’re still not sure what any of them really mean. It’s just all that legal mumbo jumbo about dissolving the marriage that make your eyes go cross and your stomach do a somersault. Somewhere in the back of your mind, you’re just wondering how the hell things got so fucking backwards.

The pen is in your hand again, hovering over the line titled wife, and you’re staring at the ballpoint tip, at his signature sitting there like some slap to the face. The thing is, you know why he’s doing it, because you know him. He’s only doing it because you couldn’t say it back, because he doesn’t want you to be saddled with someone you don’t love.

The only problem with that is that you do love him.

A groan slips off your lips and the pen falls from your hand, landing on the counter with a clatter as you push your fingers through your hair. You squeeze your eyes shut, burying your face in your hands. Why the hell was this happening? Wasn’t there some way to get a do-over on the past twenty-four hours? All you wanted was to go back and try again, to swallow whatever fear you were feeling in that moment and just say those words.

You miss him and your heart hurts and you wonder where he is and how he’s doing and if he’ll answer if you call him, because you want to hear his voice.

There’s so much going through your head and it feels like your brain is swimming. You drop your hands to the counter, exhausted and spent from everything that’s happened over the course of the last day. But the sound of a light click! catches your attention, and you glance down at the teleporter on your wrist, just in time to realize what just happened. “Oh, godda—” You don’t get a chance to finish the word before you vanish into thin air.

“—mnit!” You manage to finish, seconds later, when you reappear somewhere you’ve never been before, never even seen, with papers you managed to bring along with you scattering through the air… Then drop into someone’s lap and roll to the floor.

The oof! of the air getting knocked out of you when you land is drowned out by the yowling from whoever you landed on, though. It takes a second for you to pull yourself together and sit up, your back to whoever it was you just fell on. You’re rubbing the top of your head, talking to yourself about needing to get better at these landings when the sound of a voice, of his voice, calls you back to reality. You turn around, wide eyed and embarrassed, and raise a hand, waving.

He gives you his hand, helps you up and asks you what you’re doing there, and you can’t think of a reasonable explanation. So you’re honest, even if it kind of makes you sound like a tool, but you’ve never understood how this thing works and it wasn’t like it came with a user manual or anything, but you’re probably talking too fast, so you stop. You press your lips together and you look at your hands. At least until you remember to breathe, and you look at him, frowning, and apologize for landing on his balls.

And then he laughs. It’s more of a chuckle, really, but it’s a sound that causes a hitch in your breathing and a blush in your cheeks. He explains how the teleporters work, and that if you’re here, then it meant that you were thinking about… well, him. (You don’t tell him that all this time, you’ve just been crossing your fingers and hoping you don’t die whenever you teleported anywhere.) All you can really do is nod along with what he’s saying because he’s right. You were thinking about him. That’s all you’ve been doing for hours.

But his tone changes when he sees the papers strewn all over the floor and your heart falls out of your chest and onto the floor. Well, not really, but it certainly feels like it and the sound of his disappointment is echoing in your ears. It only takes you a split second to realize what’s going on and you immediately shake your head and start gathering up the papers, mumbling a series of panicked ’no’s, just trying to set his mind at ease. You explain that they were on the counter when you accidentally hit the teleporter button and they must’ve gotten caught up or whatever. (You don’t tell him that the rest are probably sitting at home, clogging the garbage disposal.)

Of course, you’re doing that thing where you’re talking too fast and you’re probably rambling a little bit, so you drop the papers to the side, abandoning them, and sit on the arm of the couch across from him. You look at your hands and swallow down the lump that’s settled into your throat.

It’s word vomit that comes next. You tell him everything you were thinking about, and how you couldn’t sign the papers because you couldn’t in good conscience sign the papers knowing that you loved him, and you were wondering if he was okay… And then you ask him if he’s absolutely sure his balls are okay.

You didn’t even realize that you’d said that until he stops halfway through telling you that his boys are fine, and asks you if really you just said what you said.

When you’d left the Bahamas to go home and look for him, you’d planned out this whole, corny, stupid speech. You wanted it to be special and romantic, like some movie bullshit, because you aren’t really sure what real protocol for this sort of stuff is, but that… wasn’t how this was going. Instead, you were being spazzy and blushing and rambling like a total idiot, but it was going to have to do. You laugh and nod, and you smile, a little bit sleepy, a little bit sheepish, because you’ve hardly slept in god-knows how long.

“Yeah,” you tell him, and despite what it took to get here, it’s the easiest thing you’ve done. “I love you.”