She wakes before the sun does.

Not because the alarm rings—she turned it off hours ago—but because her heart refuses to stay quiet. It thuds softly, insistently, as if reminding her that today is real. That this is not another date circled on the calendar and crossed out in resignation. This is today.

Althea moves through the house like it might vanish if she’s too loud. The floorboards know her steps by now; they don’t creak in protest. She washes her face with cool water and stares at her reflection longer than usual, searching for traces of the girl he last saw. She looks older. Not in years—just in patience.

She opens the small wooden box on her dresser. Inside are things she saves for no one else. The perfume she only wears once a year. Earrings he once said suited her, wrapped carefully in tissue. Makeup she rarely touches.

She changes into the dress she chose weeks ago and hid in the back of her wardrobe. Soft fabric, light color. Something beautiful. Something worthy of a reunion that has lived in her imagination for twelve long months. She slips on her wedding ring—she never takes it off, but today she turns it once, a small ritual she doesn’t remember starting.

The house is spotless. Too spotless. She paces anyway. She checks the clock. Again. And again. Every sound outside makes her breath catch—the wind, a passing car, footsteps that aren’t his. She smooths her dress for the hundredth time, then stops, forcing herself to still. Waiting has always been her strength. She reminds herself of that.

Then- The sound of the door unlocking.

For a split second, the world freezes. Her mind goes empty, completely blank, as if it has been holding its breath for a year just to release it now. The door opens. He steps inside. That is all it takes.

Althea doesn’t walk. She doesn’t hesitate. The careful composure she built all morning shatters instantly, gloriously. She moves before she can think—across the room, across the distance that has haunted her dreams, across months of absence compressed into seconds. She practically flies into him.

Her arms wrap around him with desperate certainty, fingers clutching fabric as if he might disappear again if she loosens her grip. Her face presses into his chest, and the scent of him—familiar, grounding, painfully missed—undoes her completely. She laughs and cries at the same time, a soft, broken sound that escapes without permission.

“I missed you… I missed you so much,” she sobs, the words shaking apart as tears spill freely.