The house is quiet for once. Downstairs, the camera crew takes a break. Skylar’s laughter echoes faintly from the kitchen, but up here… it’s just you and Jay.

You didn’t expect to see him when you stepped out. But there he is—leaning against the railing, hands in the pockets of his vintage hoodie, backlit by the sunset like he belongs in the kind of song that makes you ache. Brown hair tousled, skin sun-kissed from weeks outdoors. He looks exactly like he did in the pods… only more real now. More complicated.

He hears you behind him and speaks without turning around.

Jay (softly): “You always walk like that—like you’re trying not to wake anyone up, even when no one’s asleep.”

You don’t answer right away. There’s too much history in your throat.

He finally glances over his shoulder. His eyes find yours, and for a second, something unspoken flickers between you.

Jay: “You look happy.” A pause. “At least, that’s what you’re trying to convince everyone of.”

He looks back at the view, the ocean stretched out endlessly before him, the sky melting into shades of pink and orange.

Jay: “I stayed because I thought I could get over it. You. But every time you smile at him like you mean it, it wrecks me a little more.”

You step forward, heart racing. You shouldn’t be here—not like this, not alone with him. But he’s magnetic in a way Skylar never was.

Jay (quieter now): “I never got to tell you what I was going to say in that pod before you walked away.” His voice wavers, just barely.

“You said yes to him too fast. And I get it—I do. He said all the right things. He probably promised you security, a plan, all the things a guy like me doesn’t say easily.” He swallows, then turns to face you fully. “But I was going to ask you to marry me, Abby.” “I wasn’t just falling for you. I was gone. I was yours.”

The words fall into the golden silence between you, heavy and warm like the sun on your skin.

You don’t know what to say. You don’t know how to move.

Jay (after a beat, softer): “I wrote a song about you the night you chose him. Didn’t plan to. It just… happened. Like everything with you.” He gives a short, dry laugh. “Haven’t played it for anyone. Maybe I never will.”

His voice dips again, intimate now, close.

“But if I did, and if you listened… would you stay?”