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Andrea Sachs knew exactly three things for certain by the time the call disconnected.
Firstly: Emily had been crying. Secondly: something was very, very wrong. And thirdly: Andy had absolutely no idea where she was.
The silence after the signal cut out felt catastrophic.
Andy stood frozen beside her desk at the New York Mirror, phone pressed hard against her ear while the dead line hummed softly back at her like static mockery.
“No, no, no, come on.”
She pulled the phone away immediately and redialed.
One ring.
The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.
Andy stared at the screen in horror.
Around her the newsroom continued moving at ordinary Friday-afternoon speed completely unaware that the world had just tilted violently off-axis. Phones rang. Keyboards clattered. Someone near features argued loudly about headline spacing while printers spat paper endlessly into organized chaos.
Melissa glanced up from across the desk cluster. “Andy?”
Andy barely heard her. Because Emily had been sobbing. And Andy had never, not once in all the months she’d known her, heard Emily Charlton cry like that.
The sound still echoed horribly inside her chest now. Broken. Helpless. It sounded like something inside Emily had finally snapped apart completely.
Andy redialed immediately. Unavailable.
Again. Unavailable.
Jesus Christ.
“Andy,” Melissa repeated more sharply now, standing halfway from her chair. “What happened?”
Andy looked up finally, visibly pale. “I don’t know.”
Which somehow made it worse. Because if Emily had screamed at her, Andy could’ve handled that. If Emily had accused her of something, hung up on her, insulted her in seven emotionally devastating British syllables, at least Andy would understand the shape of the problem.
But Emily had called her crying. Crying hard enough she couldn’t even speak properly.
And then the line died.
Andy’s stomach twisted violently. Her brain replayed everything at once now in ugly fragmented flashes: Please stop calling me. Emily avoiding her texts. The strain in her voice at the airport. The way she tried speaking but physically couldn’t.
Something was wrong. Really wrong.
“What happened?” Melissa asked again.
Andy grabbed her coat so quickly it nearly fell off the back of the chair. “Emily called me.”
“And?”
Andy was already shoving notebooks blindly into her bag. “She was crying.”
Melissa blinked immediately. “Wait, what?”
“I don’t know where she is.” Andy’s words started tumbling out too fast now, panic making her breath uneven. “The signal cut out and now her phone’s unreachable and she sounded—God, Melissa, she sounded horrible.”
Across the newsroom, Andy’s editor emerged from his office holding marked-up copy pages. “Sachs, did you get the revisions for—”
“I have to go.”
The editor stopped mid-sentence. “You have to what?”
Andy was already halfway into her coat. “Emergency.”
“What emergency?”
“I don’t know yet.”
Which admittedly sounded insane. But there genuinely wasn’t time to explain that the terrifying woman Andy was accidentally in love with had just dissolved crying over an international phone call before disappearing into static somewhere possibly overseas.
Melissa stared at her. “Wait, where are you even going?”
Andy froze for half a second. That was the problem, wasn’t it? She had absolutely no idea.
Emily was gone. On a plane somewhere. For work, presumably. But Andy suddenly realized with awful clarity that she didn’t actually know Emily’s travel schedule. Or where Miranda was this week. Or whether Emily was even still in the states at all.
Her pulse kicked harder. Think, Andy, think.
Runway. If anyone knew where Emily was, it would be Runway.
Andy grabbed her bag fully onto her shoulder. “Runway.”
Then she turned and bolted.
“Andy!” her editor shouted behind her. “Your draft’s due at five!”
“I don’t care right now!” Andy yelled back without slowing.
“That’s not a valid excuse!”
Melissa, bless her, stepped in. “It’s okay, I’ll do her revisions!”
The elevator doors were already closing by the time Andy reached them.
She jammed the button hard enough to make another employee jump. “Sorry.”
The doors slid shut. And suddenly she was alone with her reflection in mirrored steel and the full force of panic finally crashing properly through her bloodstream.
Emily had sounded devastated. No, actually, worse than devastated. Scared. That was what kept replaying now underneath everything else. It didn’t sound like just sadness. There was fear underlying. Like she’d been trying desperately to hold herself together and finally couldn’t anymore.
Andy pressed the heel of her hand hard against her forehead while the elevator descended too slowly.
Where are you?
The second the doors opened into the lobby, Andy practically ran through them.
Cold February air hit her instantly outside the Mirror building. Manhattan roared around her in noise and motion. Taxis surging through intersections, steam rising from subway grates, pedestrians moving fast beneath weak gray afternoon light.
Andy stepped directly to the curb and threw up an arm. “Taxi!”
A yellow cab swerved aggressively toward her almost immediately.
She climbed inside breathless. “Elias-Clarke. Please.”
The driver glanced at her through the mirror before pulling into traffic. “Bad day?”
Andy stared down at her phone. Emily’s contact still glowed on the screen beneath multiple failed calls.
“You have no idea.”
The cab lurched hard into traffic while Manhattan blurred outside in streaks of winter gray and dirty gold light.
Andy sat forward immediately, one hand gripping her phone so tightly her knuckles ached while the other braced uselessly against the cracked vinyl seat every time the driver swerved between taxis.
She called again. Nothing. The automated message returned in the same flat indifferent tone: The number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.
Andy hung up instantly and redialed anyway. Still nothing.
Her pulse refused to slow.
Outside the window, pedestrians rushed along sidewalks beneath the cold while steam curled upward from subway grates into the February air. Ordinary Thursday afternoon. Ordinary city noise. And somewhere inside all of it Emily Charlton had completely fallen apart over the phone before vanishing.
Andy pressed the phone hard against her thigh trying to think properly.
What the hell happened?
Because none of this made sense. Emily had been distant for days now, yes. Quiet. Careful in a way that made Andy feel like every text she sent landed against something closed off on the other side.
Yet this had sounded different. Emily sounded like she’d been destroyed and God was it not a heart wrenching thing to hear.
Andy closed her eyes briefly and immediately heard it again. That awful broken little sound Emily made before she started crying.
Her chest tightened painfully. Andy had never heard someone sound so alone before.
And to stir the pot Emily had tried to say something, right before the signal died.
I thought—
That was all she got. I thought. Thought what?
Andy replayed every recent conversation desperately searching for something she’d missed. Something she should’ve noticed earlier.
Please stop calling me.
God. The words hit differently now.
At the time Andy thought Emily was angry. Or overwhelmed. Or maybe simply trying to pull away gently before things between them became too serious and complicated and real.
But now she wondered if Emily had sounded strained because she’d already been crying then too. The possibility made her stomach twist sharply.
The cab slammed over a pothole. Andy barely noticed.
“What happened?” the driver asked casually, glancing at her through the mirror. “Relationship problems?”
Andy looked up distractedly. “What?”
“You look panicked.”
“Oh.” Andy swallowed once. “Someone I care about called me upset.”
The driver nodded like this explained everything. “Ah.”
“And now I can’t reach her.”
“That’s never good.”
No. It really wasn’t.
Andy looked back down at her phone. Emily’s contact photo stared back at her. The one Andy had secretly taken weeks ago during the dinner after Emily turned toward the candlelight mid-sentence looking sharp and beautiful and unexpectedly soft around the eyes.
Andy’s chest hurt suddenly with startling force. Because Emily had sounded genuinely shattered. And all Andy could think now was that she was alone when she called. Somewhere far away. Crying hard enough she couldn’t breathe properly. And Andy couldn’t even get to her.
The helplessness of it crawled beneath her skin unbearably.
She hit call again. Unavailable.
“Come on,” Andy whispered under her breath.
The driver merged aggressively through traffic while Elias-Clarke slowly rose closer ahead of them in steel and glass against the winter sky.
Andy stared out the window, pulse still racing.
Please just let her be okay.
The cab screeched through a yellow light. Outside, Elias-Clarke rose into view at last — all steel and glass and impossible polished power against the Manhattan skyline.
Andy was already throwing bills toward the front seat before the cab fully stopped. “Keep it.”
“Good luck with your girlfriend,” the driver called after her.
“She’s not—” Andy stopped herself halfway out the door.
“…It’s complicated.”
The driver laughed knowingly and pulled away.
Andy turned immediately toward the revolving doors of Elias-Clarke, pulse hammering hard enough now to make her hands shake slightly.
Inside, the lobby gleamed immaculate beneath towering marble columns and warm gold lighting. Assistants crossed polished floors carrying garment bags and coffees and existential despair.
The receptionist looked up automatically as Andy approached the desk at dangerous speed.
“Hi,” Andy said breathlessly. “I’m here to see Emily Charlton.”
The receptionist blinked once. Then recognition flickered instantly across her face. “Oh. You’re Andy Sachs.”
Andy froze slightly. “Uh—”
“You worked for Miranda.”
Not exactly worked for Miranda. Survived Miranda, maybe.
Andy forced a quick smile. “Right.”
The receptionist relaxed immediately now that she’d placed her. “You can head up.”
Relief hit Andy so fast it nearly weakened her knees. “Thank you.”
She hurried toward the elevators before anyone could stop her.
The ascent felt endless. Andy bounced anxiously on the balls of her feet while mirrored elevator walls reflected back someone visibly unraveling inside a secondhand wool coat.
Please just be okay.
The doors slid open onto the Runway floor with a soft chime.
And miraculously, for once, chaos elsewhere in the office had swallowed reception whole. Phones rang deeper inside the magazine. Garment racks rolled past distant hallways. Somewhere someone shouted about Valentino.
But the front desk itself sat momentarily unattended. Andy barely hesitated. Then she slipped inside Runway again for the first time in months.
-
The Runway floor looked exactly the same. And somehow completely different.
Andy moved quickly past the reception area before anyone could stop her properly, the familiar sounds of organized fashion-world warfare rising immediately around her. Phones ringing nonstop. Heels striking polished floors in sharp rapid rhythms. Someone shouting about missing Prada samples somewhere deeper inside accessories. Garment bags swept past like moving ghosts while exhausted assistants speed-walked through corridors carrying coffees and panic in equal measure.
For one strange disorienting second Andy felt ten months younger again. Like if she turned the right corner she’d find herself clutching The Book and praying Miranda Priestly never learned her name.
God. She hadn’t missed this place at all. And yet her feet still knew exactly where to go.
Miranda’s outer office sat ahead beneath bright editorial lighting, glass walls gleaming immaculate while the atmosphere surrounding it carried the same low-grade terror Andy remembered vividly from her assistant days.
At the desk on the right sat a woman Andy didn’t recognize—young, stylish, visibly stressed, surrounded by towering stacks of itineraries and color-coded folders while typing at approximately the speed of panic.
Miranda’s new second assistant, obviously.
Andy noticed her old desk instantly. Or rather, the desk she used to nearly die behind daily.
She slowed slightly. Ah. Replacement. The realization landed oddly inside her chest.
And then immediately afterward she noticed Serena standing nearby flipping through a garment rack while arguing quietly into a headset with someone who sounded deeply incompetent.
“Because if the Valentino samples arrive wrinkled,” Serena was saying tiredly, “I will actually make that your entire personality.”
Then she looked up. And froze.
“…Andy?”
Andy gave a breathless little wave. “Hi.”
Serena blinked rapidly once like her brain physically needed a moment to process why Andrea Sachs had suddenly materialized back inside Runway looking visibly panicked.
“What are you doing here?”
“I need to talk to Emily.”
At the mention of Emily’s name, the new assistant looked up automatically from the desk. Andy noticed it immediately.
And because her brain was still operating at approximately twelve levels above normal panic threshold, she heard herself saying impulsively, “Hey. I used to have your job.”
The girl stared at her. “…You did?”
“Briefly,” Andy admitted.
Serena snorted softly under her breath. “Debatable.”
Andy opened her mouth to argue automatically—
Then stopped.
Because sitting directly in the center of the new assistant’s desk was a massive vase overflowing with sunflowers.
Andy blinked.
The flowers glowed absurdly bright against the cold polished steel and endless monochrome aesthetic of Miranda’s outer office. Golden petals. Eucalyptus stems. Warm and cheerful and deeply familiar.
Andy recognized them immediately. Her stomach dropped slightly. Her bouquet. The one she’d given Emily.
For one suspended second confusion overtook panic completely. Why were they here? Did Emily not want them in her apartment anymore? Had she brought them into the office because she didn’t like them enough to keep? The thought landed with weird unexpected sharpness.
Andy stepped closer almost unconsciously, eyes fixed on the arrangement. The flowers looked carefully maintained too. Fresh water, stems trimmed properly, not a single wilting petal anywhere. Which somehow made it stranger.
“…Why do you have those?” Andy asked before she could stop herself.
The new assistant followed her gaze downward immediately. “Oh.” Her entire expression changed slightly. Somewhere between fear and responsibility. “Emily left them with me.”
Andy frowned faintly. “Left them?”
“She’s in Rome,” the girl explained quickly. “And she said if anything happened to them while she was gone she’d ruin my life permanently.”
Serena looked up immediately. “That was not an exaggeration, by the way.”
The assistant—Georgia, according to the little engraved notebook Andy noticed now—nodded seriously. “I fully believed her.”
Andy barely heard her because another part of Georgia’s sentence had finally caught up inside her brain. “…She’s in Rome?”
Her voice came out sharper than intended. Emily was in Rome. No wonder the signal died. No wonder the call sounded strange. No wonder Andy couldn’t reach her. An entire fucking ocean sat between them.
Serena’s eyes narrowed instantly. “Yes…why?”
Shit. Andy’s brain scrambled immediately for something plausible that did not involve: Emily called me sobbing internationally and disappeared into static.
“I—” Andy pushed a hand quickly through her hair. “Emily promised she’d let me do a fashion feature with her.”
Serena blinked once.
Andy continued rapidly before anyone could question this too closely. “For the Mirror.”
“A fashion feature,” Serena repeated slowly.
“Mmhm.”
“With Emily.”
“Yes.”
Serena lowered the headset from one ear completely now, looking openly suspicious. “I don’t remember you two getting along this well.”
Andy laughed once nervously. “Well, we were never sworn enemies.”
Serena gave her a look that suggested history disagreed strongly.
Nearby, Georgia glanced uncertainly between them while clutching a stack of schedules against her chest.
Andy immediately turned toward her instead. “Which hotel are they staying at?”
Georgia blinked. “What?”
“In Rome.”
“…Why?”
“Because I need to interview Emily.”
“Internationally?”
Andy smiled too quickly. “The dedication to journalism is really inspiring.”
Serena folded her arms now, fully invested in this increasingly bizarre interaction.
Andy pushed forward desperately before anyone could stop her momentum. “When are they coming back?”
Georgia looked visibly hesitant. “I probably shouldn’t—”
“Please.” The word slipped out more honestly than Andy intended.
Something in her expression must have landed because Georgia’s uncertainty faltered slightly.
Andy looked exhausted now that Serena really examined her. Pale. Breathing too fast. Still clutching her phone tightly in one hand like she expected terrible news any second. And suddenly this no longer looked like journalism.
Serena’s gaze sharpened quietly. “…Did something happen?”
Andy looked up immediately. “No.”
Too fast. Serena exchanged one quick glance with Georgia.
Andy realized she was losing control of this interaction rapidly. So she stepped closer to Georgia’s desk lowering her voice instinctively. “Look, I just really need to reach her.”
Georgia hesitated. “The signal is probably bad.”
“I know.”
That answer came quietly enough that Serena noticed immediately.
Andy swallowed hard. “Could you just send me the itinerary? Or the hotel details? Please?”
Georgia looked deeply conflicted now in the specific way only assistants trapped between professionalism and human concern could look. “Emily would kill me,” she muttered weakly.
“She never has to know.”
“She always knows.”
Honestly. Fair.
Andy rubbed tired fingers briefly across her forehead. God, she did not have time for this.
“She called me upset,” she admitted finally, voice low. “And then the line cut out. I couldn’t reach her again.”
The room went quieter. Serena’s expression changed first. The suspicion softened instantly into something more alert. More serious.
Georgia blinked. “Oh.”
Andy looked between them helplessly now, panic slipping visibly through the cracks in her composure. “I just need to make sure she’s okay.”
And that, at least, sounded real enough that nobody questioned it. Because it was.
Serena straightened slowly beside the garment rack. “She sounded upset?”
Andy laughed once under her breath. A terrible exhausted sound. “She sounded so distressed she could hardly breathe.”
Georgia’s eyes widened immediately.
Serena swore softly. “…Jesus.”
Andy looked back toward the flowers automatically. Still alive. Carefully arranged. Protected enough that Emily apparently transported them across Manhattan instead of leaving them behind. Something warm and painful twisted hard inside her chest.
Georgia noticed the look accidentally. And because she possessed exactly one survival instinct fewer than Emily preferred in employees, she blurted, “Emily brought those all the way to work.”
Andy looked up sharply.
“She carried them all the way here?” she asked before she could stop herself.
Georgia nodded immediately. “Like emotionally significant cargo. She wouldn’t let anyone touch them.”
Serena snorted softly. “That was genuinely one of the strangest things I’ve ever witnessed.”
Andy stared at the flowers again. Emily had taken them with her. The realization landed so unexpectedly tender it physically hurt.
“She made me promise to change the water every day,” Georgia continued. “And trim the stems diagonally.”
Andy’s chest tightened harder. God.
Serena watched Andy carefully now, watching understanding move slowly across her face in real time. “…Interesting,” she murmured.
Andy looked up instantly. “What?”
“Nothing.”
It absolutely was not nothing.
But before Serena could pursue that thought any further, Andy turned quickly back toward Georgia. “Please tell me everything. Or email. Whatever works.”
Georgia still looked nervous. “Everything?”
“Hotel. Schedule. Flight details. Whatever you have.”
“Andy—” Serena started cautiously.
“I’m not doing anything insane,” Andy interrupted immediately.
Serena raised one eyebrow. “You burst into Runway looking like a hostage negotiator.”
“…Okay, mildly insane.”
Georgia bit her lip. “If Emily finds out—”
“She won’t.”
Again, “She always knows,” Georgia said gravely.
Honestly, Andy believed that too.
Still, after one final uncertain pause, Georgia slowly reached for a sticky note.
Andy nearly sagged with relief. “Thank you,” she breathed.
Georgia scribbled quickly while muttering under her breath. “You’re both going to ruin my life.”
“Probably,” Serena agreed calmly.
Georgia handed over the note and Andy grabbed it immediately like classified intelligence.
Rome. Jesus Christ. For one brief second the reality hit her properly. Emily was crying alone on another continent.
Andy scribbled down her email address for Georgia before stepping backward toward the hallway already moving again mentally, already planning.
Airport. First flight out. Figure out the rest later.
Serena watched her closely. “Andy.”
Andy paused.
“…Don’t make this worse accidentally.”
The warning landed gently. Not cruel. Almost concerned.
Andy swallowed once. “I’m trying to fix it,” she admitted quietly.
Then before either of them could stop her again, Andrea Sachs turned and bolted back out of Runway like a woman about to commit either the greatest romantic gesture of her life or a federal aviation violation.
“Good luck!” Georgia called after Andy, which she then immediately received a pointed look from Serena.
-
By the time Andy reached her apartment again, her entire nervous system had dissolved into pure momentum.
She barely remembered the cab ride uptown. One second she was leaving Elias-Clarke clutching flight details and half-legible notes about Rome schedules. The next she was fumbling her keys into her apartment door hard enough to miss the lock twice.
“Come on—”
The door finally swung open. Andy stumbled inside breathless.
Her apartment looked exactly as she’d left it that morning: books stacked unevenly beside the sofa, yesterday’s coffee mug still abandoned near the sink, drafts scattered across the kitchen counter beneath weak winter light filtering through the windows.
Ordinary. Safe. Entirely irrelevant now. Because Emily Charlton was crying in Rome.
Andy crossed straight toward the bedroom without even taking her coat off properly. Her bag slid from one shoulder onto the floor while she yanked open dresser drawers at random.
Passport. Where the hell was her passport?
She dropped to her knees beside the nightstand immediately, pulling open drawers too fast. Receipts. Pens. Old boarding passes. Lip balm. No passport.
“Oh my God.”
Andy stood abruptly and crossed toward the bookshelf where she kept important documents shoved inside novels because apparently she’d inherited survival instincts from raccoons.
There. Blue cover wedged inside a copy of Great Expectations.
“Thank Christ.” She grabbed it instantly.
Then came packing.
Or rather: violent improvisational throwing of belongings into a duffel bag while her brain continued spiraling in seventeen different directions simultaneously.
Sweaters. Phone charger. Toothbrush. Jeans. Two shirts. A jacket. Underwear probably.
Andy paused briefly holding mismatched socks in one hand while staring blankly ahead. What the hell was she doing?
Objectively speaking, this was insane. She was flying internationally because a woman she wasn’t technically dating had cried over the phone. A woman who, a day earlier, had explicitly told her to stop calling.
And yet none of that mattered against the awful helpless sound Emily made beside that fountain.
Andy shoved the socks into the bag anyway.
God, life came at you fast. Roughly two weeks ago she’d been trying not to think too hard about how pretty Emily looked in candlelight at dinner. Now she was apparently speedrunning international emotional crisis management.
Her phone buzzed suddenly against the bed. An email from Georgia.
Andy grabbed it immediately.
FROM: Georgia Miller
Subject: Rome schedule
Attached were:
- hotel confirmations
- fitting schedules
- runway timings
- flight details
- enough logistical information to qualify as espionage
Andy stared down at the hotel name again.
Borghese Contemporary Hotel.
Emily was there. Somewhere inside Rome. Still upset. Still unreachable.
Andy zipped the duffel shut hard enough to nearly catch the fabric. Then grabbed her coat and ran.
-
JFK at night looked like organized psychological warfare.
Bright fluorescent lighting reflected harshly against polished floors while exhausted travelers dragged carry-ons through endless lines beneath overlapping airport announcements.
Andy moved through all of it at dangerous speed.
The departures board glowed massively overhead in shifting rows of destinations: Paris. Madrid. Berlin. Lisbon. London.
No Rome. Her pulse kicked harder.
Andy crossed straight toward the nearest international ticket counter where an airline employee sat typing with the detached calm of someone emotionally protected from other people’s emergencies.
“Hi,” Andy said breathlessly. “I need the nearest flight to Italy.”
The woman blinked once. “Italy where?”
“Rome.”
More typing.
Andy bounced anxiously on the balls of her feet while crowds streamed around her dragging luggage and fatigue through the terminal.
Finally the employee looked up apologetically. “All direct flights tonight are full.”
Andy’s stomach dropped instantly. “What?”
“I can get you to London Heathrow at eleven.” The woman clicked through another screen. “Then there’s a connecting flight to Rome tomorrow afternoon.”
Andy stared at her. “When would I arrive?”
The woman scanned quickly. “Approximately seven p.m. local time.”
Almost twenty-four hours from now.
Jesus Christ. For one horrible second Andy considered every impossible alternative simultaneously. Private jets, bribery, swimming the Atlantic.
Instead she gripped the counter tighter and nodded immediately. “Okay. I’ll take it.”
The employee blinked slightly at the speed of agreement. “All right.”
Keys clacked beneath practiced fingers.
Andy barely listened while boarding passes printed because her mind remained hopelessly elsewhere. Emily crying. Emily alone. Emily saying “I thought—“ What had she been trying to say?
The employee slid the tickets across the counter. “Gate B27. Boarding begins at ten-fifteen.”
Andy nodded distractedly. “Thank you.”
Then she grabbed the tickets and her passport and moved away.
-
The hours before departure crawled.
Andy wandered the terminal in a strange exhausted blur carrying her duffel over one shoulder while announcements echoed overhead every few minutes in soft practiced voices.
Somewhere near departures she bought a sandwich and coffee mostly because her hands had started shaking faintly and she realized she hadn’t eaten since noon. The sandwich tasted like cardboard.
She sat near the windows overlooking the runway while planes moved slowly through darkness beyond streaked glass. And for the first time since leaving the Mirror, the panic settled enough for quieter thoughts to creep in around the edges.
What exactly was she going to say when she found Emily? The question sat heavily now beside the coffee growing cold in her hands.
Because if Emily had been crying because of work, or exhaustion, or Miranda, then Andy flying across an ocean might qualify as deeply concerning behavior.
But if Emily had called her specifically—Andy looked down at her phone again.
No new messages. No returned calls. Nothing.
Her chest tightened painfully.
Somewhere overhead another boarding announcement echoed through the terminal while travelers moved around her in tired shifting currents.
Andy leaned back slowly against the airport chair and closed her eyes briefly. Please just be okay. That was still the only thought underneath everything else.
-
By the time she went through departures, Andy felt exhausted enough to vibrate.
She moved through security half-aware of her surroundings while her brain continued replaying the phone call in miserable fragmented loops. Shoes off. Devices out. Passport ready.
“Ma’am.”
Andy blinked up.
A TSA officer stood in front of her holding the plastic security tray while Andy apparently stared directly through it without moving. “You need to walk through the scanner.”
“Right. Sorry.”
She stepped forward automatically. Then immediately got pulled aside because she’d forgotten the bottle of sparkling water still inside her bag.
The officer removed it slowly. “You can’t bring liquids through security.”
“Oh.” Andy stared at the bottle blankly like this information arrived from another dimension.
“You okay there?”
“Honestly? Not especially.”
The officer looked vaguely concerned now.
Andy took the confiscated-water humiliation silently and continued onward gathering her things with the distracted coordination of someone whose soul had temporarily left her body three terminals ago.
At one point she nearly walked away without her passport entirely.
“Miss!”
Andy turned around.
Another security worker held it up. “You’re gonna need this for wherever you’re heading.”
“Oh my God.”
She hurried back immediately. “Thank you. Sorry. My brain’s—”
“Somewhere else?”
“Rome, apparently.”
The worker handed back the passport with visible sympathy. “Good luck.”
Andy laughed weakly. “Yeah. I think I’m gonna need it.”
-
The plane boarded at 10:22 p.m. By then the airport windows reflected only darkness outside while snow threatened faintly somewhere beyond the runway lights.
Andy stepped aboard carrying exhaustion, panic, and one hastily packed duffel bag.
The cabin smelled faintly of recycled air and stale coffee. Passengers shuffled into overhead bins and seat rows with quiet end-of-day misery while flight attendants smiled professionally through visible fatigue.
Andy found her seat near the back beside the window. Then finally sat down.
For the first time all night, she stopped moving. The stillness hit immediately.
Outside, runway lights stretched endlessly through the dark while baggage crews moved slowly beneath flashing orange signals.
Andy rested her forehead briefly against the cold window glass and exhaled hard. She was really doing this.
Somewhere across the Atlantic Ocean, Emily Charlton remained heartbroken enough to cry over the phone. And Andrea Sachs was now on a plane chasing her across continents with absolutely no coherent plan beyond: find Emily. Make sure she’s okay. And figure out the rest afterward.
Honestly, terrifyingly, that felt enough.
-
By the time Andrea Sachs landed in London, it was already Saturday morning. Which felt personally offensive somehow.
The overnight flight had dissolved into a strange sleepless blur of engine noise, turbulence, and intermittent panic. Andy had maybe slept three hours total, folded awkwardly against the airplane window while her brain continued catastrophizing subconsciously across the Atlantic.
Every time she drifted off, she heard Emily crying again.
So by the time Heathrow appeared beneath pale gray dawn clouds outside the aircraft window, Andy felt emotionally concussed.
The airport itself glowed with that uniquely miserable early-morning international energy. Bright lights, dragging suitcases, overpriced coffee, and hundreds of exhausted travelers moving through terminals with thousand-yard stares.
Andy stumbled off the plane clutching her duffel and immediately realized something horrifying. She had absolutely none of the logistics figured out. Not one.
The realization hit fully while she stood beside an airport window watching rain streak softly down the glass beyond rows of waiting aircraft.
She was going to Rome. Great. And then what?
Andy frowned hard at herself before finally dropping into one of the waiting-area chairs near her connecting gate.
“Okay,” she muttered aloud.
A businessman nearby glanced at her briefly before returning to his laptop.
Andy dug through her bag until she found a tiny notebook half-crushed beneath a sweater and a pair of socks. Then she clicked open a pen and began writing with the grave intensity of someone preparing military operations.
THINGS TO DO IN ROME:
- Get euros???
- Figure out transportation
- Get to Borghese Contemporary Hotel
- Find Emily
- Don’t have emotional breakdown first
Andy stared at the list.
Then added:
6. Possibly sleep at some point
Reasonable.
She chewed distractedly on the end of the pen while Heathrow buzzed around her in soft multilingual chaos.
Right. Money first. Because currently she possessed:
- one American credit card
- approximately two hundred dollars in cash
- and absolutely no euros whatsoever
Which seemed potentially problematic for a spontaneous transatlantic emotional rescue mission.
Andy scribbled:
currency exchange immediately!!!
Then came the harder part. Finding Emily.
She already knew the hotel thanks to Georgia. That part was manageable.
But how exactly was she supposed to figure out Emily’s room number without sounding clinically unwell?
Hi yes hello I flew internationally because the terrifyingly beautiful woman I’m in love with cried over the phone and disconnected emotionally somewhere here in Rome, could you please tell me where she’s sleeping?
Yeah…not ideal.
Andy leaned back in the airport chair and rubbed tiredly at her face. Maybe she could sweet-talk the hotel staff. Or bribe them. Or lie.
Honestly she’d figure it out when she got there. Future Andy’s problem. Current Andy’s problem was simply getting to Rome first.
And underneath all the logistical panic sat the one thing she knew for certain now. She wasn’t calling Emily again beforehand. Not yet.
Because whatever this was, the silence, the crying, the distance, the confusion, it had grown too large and painful and tangled for another fragmented phone conversation across continents. They needed a real conversation now. A direct one. An honest one. Face-to-face. No more disconnected calls. No more missed signals. No more avoidance.
Just Emily and Andy and whatever would happen afterward.
The thought made Andy’s stomach tighten nervously despite herself. Because once she found Emily, there would be nowhere left to hide from any of it. Not the feelings. Not the hurt. Not the terrifying possibility that this mattered equally on both sides.
A boarding announcement crackled overhead for Rome Fiumicino.
Andy straightened immediately. Well. Too late to become emotionally reasonable now.
-
The second flight felt less stressful somehow.
Maybe because daylight softened everything. Or maybe because once the plane finally crossed into Italian airspace, anticipation drowned out exhaustion completely.
Andy sat by the window watching clouds drift below while the Mediterranean eventually appeared in flashes of impossible blue beneath them.
Rome. She was actually doing this.
At one point a flight attendant offered coffee. Andy accepted it gratefully despite the fact her bloodstream was probably ninety percent caffeine already.
“You on vacation?” the attendant asked pleasantly.
Andy stared briefly out the window before answering. “…Sort of?” (Really, Andy?)
The attendant smiled politely in the way people do when they sense emotional complications and wisely choose not to investigate further. Fair.
About two and a half hours later the plane finally began descending.
And suddenly there it was beneath the aircraft wing. Rome.
Golden buildings stretched endlessly beneath afternoon sunlight while ancient roads curled through the city in pale winding lines. Domes gleamed softly in the distance. Terracotta rooftops clustered together beneath warm February light.
The entire city looked impossibly beautiful from above. Andy’s chest tightened immediately because her first stupid thought was: Wow, Emily would be in love with this place.
God. She leaned her forehead briefly against the window glass as the aircraft lowered through soft clouds toward the runway.
Okay. This was it. Somewhere down there, Emily Charlton was existing entirely unaware that Andrea Sachs had just crossed an ocean for her.
And in less than three hours, if everything went according to plan, which honestly felt unlikely considering the last thirty-six hours, Andy was going to walk into a Roman hotel and somehow explain all of this like a sane person. Terrifying.
The wheels hit the runway with a hard jolt. Passengers around her immediately began unbuckling seatbelts despite the warning lights still glowing overhead.
Andy barely noticed. Because after nearly a full day of airports and flights and panic and longing and exhaustion, only one thought remained clearly alive beneath all the chaos: Find Emily.
-
By the time Andy finally escaped customs, baggage claim, passport control, and what felt like seventeen consecutive lines designed personally to test human endurance, Rome had fully settled into night.
The big digital clock read 9:17 PM.
Andy stood in the middle of Leonardo da Vinci Airport looking like someone who had survived a minor natural disaster. Her hair had collapsed somewhere over the Atlantic. Her sweater smelled faintly of airplane air and stress. She had slept perhaps four hours total across two flights and one emotionally catastrophic layover in Heathrow.
And somehow, despite all of this, adrenaline still kept her upright. Because Emily had been crying.
Andy could still hear it if she let herself think too hard. The sound of Emily breaking apart somewhere far away beneath static and water noise and panic.
Baby, please talk to me.
Then nothing.
The memory tightened painfully inside her chest all over again.
Andy adjusted the strap of her overnight bag higher onto her shoulder and kept moving through the airport crowd beneath harsh fluorescent lights and rapid Italian announcements echoing overhead.
Okay. Logistics. She needed euros first. Because currently she possessed exactly:
- two hundred and thirty-seven American dollars,
- one credit card,
- and approximately zero understanding of the Italian transportation system.
Promising.
Eventually she spotted a currency exchange counter glowing brightly near arrivals.
The woman behind the desk looked deeply exhausted in the universal airport employee way. Andy approached immediately.
“Hi,” she said breathlessly, already pulling cash from her wallet. “Can I exchange American dollars for euros?”
The woman nodded mechanically. “Passport please.”
Andy handed it over.
A few minutes later she walked away clutching a small envelope full of euros with disproportionate emotional attachment considering the amount. Not much. But enough, hopefully, to get her through whatever this insane impulsive transatlantic emotional rescue mission actually became. Okay. Good. Progress.
Next: hotel.
Andy dug quickly through her coat pocket until she found the folded paper where she’d scribbled the hotel name from Georgia’s email somewhere over the Atlantic: Borghese Contemporary Hotel.
Right. Fancy. Terrifyingly fancy. Of course Miranda would stay somewhere that looked like European royalty committed tax fraud there.
Outside the airport, cold Roman night air hit her immediately. Taxi lights gleamed beneath damp pavement while drivers smoked cigarettes beneath awnings and called casually toward arriving passengers.
Andy flagged one down almost instantly.
The driver leaned across the seat. “Taxi?”
“Si,” Andy said quickly, climbing inside. “Borghese Contemporary Hotel, per favore.”
The driver nodded once and pulled smoothly into traffic.
Rome blurred around her afterward in streaks of gold and rain-dark stone. Scooters darted recklessly between lanes with suicidal confidence. Tiny cafés glowed warmly beneath striped awnings. Ancient buildings rose suddenly out of darkness beside modern storefronts like the city itself couldn’t decide what century it belonged to.
Under different circumstances, Andy would’ve loved this. Tonight she barely saw any of it properly.
Her knee bounced anxiously the entire ride. What if Emily wouldn’t see her? What if she’d made everything worse somehow? What if Emily genuinely didn’t want her there?
That one hurt most.
Andy looked out the cab window toward blurred Roman streets while exhaustion and anxiety tangled together painfully inside her chest. Because she still didn’t understand what happened.
One minute Emily had been distant. Avoiding her. Pulling away slowly and painfully over days while insisting everything was fine. Then “Please stop calling me.” And now this. Emily sobbing over international phone lines like something terrible had happened.
Andy pressed tired fingers briefly against her eyes. God. Whatever this was, they needed to talk properly. No more careful texting. No more guessing. No more silence stretching painfully between them while both of them apparently lost their minds separately on different continents.
The taxi finally slowed outside an enormous cream-colored hotel glowing gold beneath elegant exterior lights.
Borghese Contemporary Hotel looked less like a hotel and more like somewhere diplomats got assassinated discreetly.
Andy paid the driver quickly, grabbed her bag, and stepped out onto polished stone pavement beneath towering windows and immaculate brass doors.
Okay. Now came the difficult part.
Inside, the lobby gleamed with marble floors, fresh flowers, soft piano music somewhere in the distance, and the kind of terrifying wealth that made Andy suddenly aware her sneakers probably violated several unspoken European laws.
A young receptionist stood behind the desk in a tailored black uniform, typing something into a computer.
She looked up politely when Andy approached. “Buonasera.”
“Hi,” Andy said, instantly summoning every scrap of charm she possessed. “Um. I’m looking for someone staying here.”
The receptionist smiled professionally already preparing to deny her. “Name please?”
“Emily Charlton.”
The receptionist typed briefly. Then paused.
“Yes, Miss Charlton is currently a guest with us.”
Relief hit Andy so hard she almost physically sagged. Okay. Good. Emily existed. Emily was here.
“Right,” Andy said quickly. “Great. Amazing, actually. Could you tell me which room she’s in?”
The receptionist’s smile immediately tightened apologetically. “Ah, I’m sorry, signorina. We cannot give guest room information.”
Andy nodded immediately. “Totally understand. Completely reasonable. Normally I would never ask this.”
The receptionist looked relieved.
Andy inhaled once. “Okay, so this is going to sound insane—”
The receptionist’s expression changed instantly into the exhausted patience of someone about to hear airport-level emotional drama.
Andy pressed on anyway. “She called me yesterday from Rome crying. Like really crying. Then the call disconnected and now she won’t answer her phone and I flew here from New York because I think something’s genuinely wrong.”
The receptionist blinked.
Andy kept going helplessly because honestly there was no dignified version of this anymore. “I know how this sounds. I do. But she’s here with work and I think she’s upset and I just—I really need to talk to her.”
The receptionist hesitated visibly now.
“I’m not dangerous,” Andy added quickly. “I’m just emotionally unstable.”
That earned the tiniest startled laugh. Progress.
Andy leaned slightly closer lowering her voice conspiratorially. “Please. I crossed an ocean for this. Literally. I haven’t slept properly in like thirty hours.”
The receptionist bit her lip uncertainly.
“We had some sort of misunderstanding,” Andy admitted softly now. “And I think she’s hurting because of it.”
Something in her face must’ve finally landed. Because the receptionist’s expression softened just slightly afterward.
She glanced discreetly around the empty lobby. Then leaned forward very carefully.
“…You did not hear this from me.”
Andy straightened instantly.
“Room 614.”
Relief flooded through her so fast she nearly grabbed the woman’s hands across the desk.
“Oh my God. Thank you.”
“But please,” the receptionist added quickly, “if anyone asks, I told you nothing.”
“Absolutely. You’ve never seen me before in your life.”
The receptionist smiled faintly now despite herself. “Good luck.”
Andy laughed once breathlessly. “Yeah,” she said honestly. “I think I’m gonna need it.”
Then before she could lose her nerve completely, Andrea Sachs turned sharply toward the elevators clutching her overnight bag while her pulse hammered wildly against her ribs.
Room 614. Emily was upstairs.
After two flights, one airport breakdown, emotional warfare, and approximately four thousand miles, Andy had finally made it to Rome.
Now she just had to figure out what the hell to say when Emily opened the door.