He handed her the phone. The images were stunning vast empty landscapes, a lone house against volcanic rock, the curve of a glacier like a frozen wave. But the photo that caught her was different: an elderly woman in a bright yellow raincoat, laughing at the camera, her weathered face full of joy.
"Who's this?"
"Rósa. She ran the guesthouse where I stayed. Seventy-six years old, widowed twice, still got up at 5 a.m. every day to bake bread." His voice was fond. "She told me that people who are afraid of love have forgotten that the pain of loss means you had something worth losing."
Maya's throat tightened. "That's… I don't know if that's comforting or devastating."
"I think it's both." Ethan took the phone back, looked at Rósa's photo. "She also told me I was running away from something and that Iceland was too cold for cowards."
"Did you tell her she was wrong?"
"I tried. She laughed at me and gave me extra bread."
Maya smiled despite herself. "I like her."
"You would have loved her." He pocketed his phone. "She made me promise to come back with someone I loved. She wants to meet the person who could make me stay still."
"That seems like a lot of pressure for a hypothetical person."
"Absolutely. Which is why I'll probably never introduce her to anyone." His tone was light, but Maya heard the truth underneath the assumption that he'd always be alone.
"What about you?" Ethan asked. "If you could go anywhere right now, where would it be?"
Maya considered. "Honestly? Nowhere. I like my city, my apartment, my routine. The idea of packing up and going somewhere unfamiliar sounds exhausting."
"Even for a vacation?"
"I went to Mexico with Sienna last year. It was beautiful. But the whole time I kept thinking about work, my clients, whether I'd remembered to pay my electric bill.
I couldn't…" She struggled to explain. "I couldn't let go. Couldn't be present. I was just waiting for it to end so I could go back to normal."
"That sounds exhausting in a different way."
"It is. I know it is. But at least it's predictable. At least I know what to expect."
"Except you don't," Ethan said quietly. "Your mom's death proved that. You can control everything and still lose what matters."
The words should have stung, but they didn't. They were simply true.
"So what's the answer?" Maya asked. "If my way doesn't work and your way doesn't work, what does?"
"No idea. Maybe there isn't an answer. Maybe we're all just pretending we have control when we don't."
"That's bleak."
"But honest."
They sat with that for a while. Maya watched the sky begin its slow shift from black to deep blue, the first hint that sunrise was coming.
"Tell me about your art therapy work," Ethan said. "What's it actually like?"
Maya hesitated, then found herself opening up about things she rarely discussed. She told him about Lily, a seven-year-old who'd witnessed domestic violence and wouldn't speak but painted the most heartbreaking images. About Marcus different Marcus a teenager with PTSD who created entire worlds in clay. About the moment when art bypassed trauma and allowed something trapped to finally release.
"It's sacred," she said. "That's the only word for it. When someone shows you their pain through art, they're trusting you with something they can't even verbalize. It's terrifying and beautiful and" She stopped. "I'm talking too much."
"You're not. I could listen to you talk about this all night." Ethan's expression was open, genuinely interested. "You love it. Your whole face changes when you talk about your clients."
"It's the only thing that feels meaningful. After my mom died, everything else felt hollow. But the work… the work still mattered."
"Do you still paint? For yourself?"
Maya looked away. "No. I haven't since she died."
"Why not?"
"Because" The answer lodged in her throat. "Because she was the artist. I was just copying her, learning from her. Without her, I don't know what my art is supposed to be."
"That's grief talking, not truth."
"Maybe grief is my truth now."
Ethan reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away, and took her hand. His palm was warm, calloused from camera equipment. "I don't think so. I think you're scared that if you paint again, you'll have to feel everything you've been avoiding. And maybe you're right to be scared. But maybe that's also the only way forward."
Maya looked down at their joined hands. She should pull away. This connection was already too much, too fast, too dangerous.
She didn't pull away.
"Tell me something else," she said. "Something you've never told anyone."
Ethan was quiet for a long moment. "Sometimes I take photos of couples. Just strangers I see on the street, in cafes, airports. I never share them, never use them for work. I just… collect them. Evidence that people can make it work, that some relationships last."
"That's not cynical at all."
"Right?" He laughed softly. "I'm a romantic who doesn't believe in romance. A photographer who collects proof of what he can't have."
"And I'm a therapist who can't heal herself. We're quite a pair."
"The worst," he agreed.
The sky continued to lighten, deep blue fading to something softer. They talked about everything and nothing favorite foods, worst travel experiences, books that changed them, music that saved them.
Ethan told her about the time he accidentally ended up at a wedding in rural Japan and was adopted by the bride's grandmother. Maya confessed she'd seen every episode of a terrible reality dating show and couldn't stop watching.
"You judge other people's relationship disasters?" Ethan grinned. "That tracks."
"It's research. Professional interest."
"Sure it is."
They laughed, and Maya realized with shock that she felt light. Not happy she wasn't sure she remembered what that felt like but lighter. Less burdened.
"I should tell you something," Ethan said as the sky turned from navy to violet. "I leave for Portugal in a week. Six-week assignment shooting a travel campaign. And after that, I'm booked through the spring. Thailand, New Zealand, Scotland."
"Of course you are," Maya said, and was surprised to find she meant it without bitterness. "You're not staying in one place."
"Never do."
"And you don't want to."
"No." He paused. "Not usually."
The qualifier hung between them, weighted with possibility.
Maya felt panic rising in her chest. This was exactly what she feared connection that felt real but couldn't last. The beginning that promised an ending.
"I should go," she said, but didn't move.
"You should," Ethan agreed, his thumb tracing circles on her palm. "But you're not."
"This is a bad idea."
"Terrible."
"We're strangers."
"Are we still? After all this?"
Maya looked at him really looked. At the way the approaching dawn caught the angles of his face, the honesty in his eyes, the vulnerability he'd shown her. He was right. They weren't strangers anymore.
That was the problem.
"I can't," she whispered.
"Can't what?"
"This. Whatever this is. I can't" She stood abruptly, breaking the contact between them. "You're leaving. You're always leaving. And I'm the person who can't handle people leaving. It's a disaster waiting to happen."
Ethan stood too, but didn't reach for her. "Maya"
"My mom was right. I am afraid of living. But she was wrong about one thing fear is smart. Fear keeps you safe. And this" She gestured between them, at the night they'd shared, at the connection that had formed too fast and felt too real. "This is the opposite of safe."
"Maybe safe is overrated."
"Easy for you to say. You leave before it can hurt. I stay and feel everything." Her voice cracked. "I felt everything when she died, Ethan. Every molecule of loss, every second of pain. I can't I won't do that again."
The sun was cresting the horizon now, painting the sky in shades of gold and amber. It was beautiful and Maya hated it hated how perfect this moment was, how much she wanted to lean into it despite every instinct screaming at her to run.
"I'm not asking you to," Ethan said gently. "I'm not asking for anything."
"Yes, you are. Just by being here, by being" She couldn't finish. By being someone she could fall for.
She turned and walked toward the terrace door, each step an act of will.
"Maya."
She stopped but didn't turn around.
"Can I at least give you my number? No pressure. Just… in case you change your mind."
Every rational thought told her to say no, to make a clean break, to protect herself from the inevitable hurt. But some small, stubborn part of her the part that sounded like her mother wanted to believe in possibility.
"Okay," she heard herself say.
She felt him move closer, still giving her space, and he held out his phone. She typed in her number with shaking hands, then gave him hers.
"Thank you," he said. "For tonight. For being honest with me."
"You too."
Maya finally turned to look at him. He was backlit by the rising sun, his expression soft and sad and hopeful all at once.
"Goodbye, Ethan."
"Goodbye, Maya."
She walked inside without looking back, through the empty reception hall littered with the debris of celebration abandoned champagne flutes, wilted centerpieces, a forgotten jacket draped over a chair. The hotel lobby was quiet, the night staff looking tired, ready for shift change.
Maya made it to her car before the tears came. She sat in the driver's seat, gripping the steering wheel, her phone heavy in her pocket with his number saved under his name.
She should delete it. Right now, before she could talk herself into using it. Before she could make the mistake of hoping.
But her mother's voice echoed in her head: When are you going to take a risk?
"I can't," Maya whispered to the empty car, to her mother's memory, to herself. "I'm not brave enough."
The sunrise continued, indifferent to her fear, beautiful and relentless.
Maya drove home as the city woke up around her, carrying the weight of a perfect night and the certainty that she would never call him, never take that risk, never find out what could have been.
It was safer that way.
It had to be.