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Chapter 2

Autor: Cicada
Summer opened the cake box and lit the candles.

Our three glasses touched with a soft chime.

My only best friend and the boy I loved said it together. "Happy birthday, Mia."

"Make a wish!"

And suddenly, for one foolish second, I heard voices from another birthday.

"Baby, I'll be beside you for every birthday for the rest of your life. I swear."

"Please. Mia obviously wants me at every birthday, not you. Whether you're there is honestly optional."

"Your Highness, be reasonable. I'm her boyfriend. Obviously I'm the one who should be celebrating every birthday with her."

"Mia and I are best friends. Best best best friends. The kind even a flood couldn't separate. Of course she wants me there forever."

I opened my eyes and blew out the candles.

Smoke curled upward, softening their faces.

For a moment, I had thought I was eighteen again.

I wasn't.

This time, there had been no teasing, no fighting over me.

They had simply raised their glasses, wished me a happy birthday, and gone quiet.

Summer seemed distracted.

When she set down her wineglass, her wrist struck the edge of the table.

She winced.

Ethan shot to his feet.

"Are you okay?"

The words came too quickly.

He realized it at once.

So did Summer.

Both of them looked at me with the same uneasy expression.

I stared at the cake instead.

Every year, Summer made my birthday cake herself.

This one was no different.

On top sat two little girls made of fondant and chocolate, holding hands tightly.

It reminded me of the day we met.

I was fifteen.

My period had started at school, and I had no money for pads.

A group of girls noticed the stain on my pants and laughed loud enough for everyone in the hallway to hear.

Summer had just transferred to our school.

She didn't know me.

She still took off her uniform jacket, tied it around my waist, grabbed my hand, and glared down every person staring at me.

From that day on, she came into my bleak little life like the first warm day after a long winter.

I remembered the wish I'd repeated three times in my head and smiled through sudden tears.

"Wow. Another year older. Time is brutal. Come on, let's cut the cake."

My wish had been simple.

May the people I love get everything they want.

May they always be happy.

As for me...

It was okay.

Really.

It was okay.

Seven days after my birthday, I received the acceptance letter for the Antarctic Glacier Research Program.

I was studying environmental science, and I had always been fascinated by field research — the idea of discovering something hidden inside ice, climate, or ecosystems.

But I had never imagined joining a twenty-year polar research program.

This time, I signed without hesitation.

My finger hovered over Send.

Then I froze.

Panic fluttered in my chest.

I closed the chat with my advisor and clicked around the desktop without thinking.

An old program opened.

A heart-shaped background filled the screen, scattered with little silver lights.

I stared for a second before I recognized it.

Ethan had built the app years ago, back when he was still obsessed with coding.

He called it Night Letters.

It was basically a private journal for things he wanted to tell me before bed.

Only I had access.

He used to write something every night.

He once told me that when we were old, we'd open it together and read everything from the beginning.

All those entries, he said, would form one long poem about how much he had loved me.

I smiled as I scrolled through the old posts.

"My wish is that my girl and I both crush our college entrance exams and get into the same university."

"I can't sleep. You told me you loved me for the first time tonight. You were so embarrassed, and I swear I've never seen anything cuter. I'm going to love you forever."

"I miss you so much, but I know you're asleep, so I won't call. Good night, my love. I hope I'm in your dreams too."

"That little diner we always went to closed down! Tragic. But don't worry — I learned how to make your favorite chicken and mushroom soup. I can recreate it perfectly."

"Mia, you've only been away at training for five days and it feels like five years..."

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  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 10

    I turned toward him in disbelief.The pain in Ethan's eyes was almost unbearable to look at."I understood after you left," he said.Then he told me about the kitten — the one he had found when he was eight, the one his parents had refused to let him save.His eyes reddened as he spoke."When I started having feelings for Summer, I convinced myself I'd misunderstood everything about us."I told myself I'd transferred that childhood obsession onto you. That I'd seen someone helpless and mistaken pity for love."His voice broke."But when I learned you'd disappeared without telling me, the pain was so bad I thought I was dying."He pressed a hand to his chest."That's when I realized what I felt for Summer wasn't what I thought it was."He struggled for the words."It was novelty. Excitement. I mistook being startled by something new for falling in love."He gave a broken laugh."I was so sure I was finally listening to my heart. The truth was, I didn't understand my own he

  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 9

    Antarctica was far larger than he had imagined, and far more merciless.Extreme weather and storms that arrived out of nowhere stopped him every time, long before he had covered any real distance.Each attempt ended the same way: hypothermia dropping him onto an endless white plain.Even with his mind going dim from the cold, one thought kept repeating itself.He hadn't found me yet. He couldn't die out here.That was the only reason he managed, each time, to drag together the last of his strength and send a distress signal.Eventually he understood that the whole approach was stupid and a waste of time.So he pinned his hopes on other routes.He applied for temporary logistics crews, support teams, anything attached to a polar expedition.Every application died quietly.Over that year, he lost weight he couldn't afford to lose. Guilt, urgency, missing me.Then his former supervisor came to him.There was a major media assignment, he said. Land it cleanly and the network wo

  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 8

    Mia's POVThe Antarctic sky during polar night might be one of the most breathtaking sights on Earth.Stars crowded the darkness like sharpened diamonds.Beautiful enough to hurt.I stood outside in heavy expedition gear after a full day of glacier monitoring.The cold was brutal and I was exhausted.But when I looked up, I stayed a little longer anyway.Most of the time, when I sat alone out there, I thought about nothing.Occasionally, though — like tonight — the past returned.It still hurt a little.But then I imagined Ethan and Summer finally together without guilt.No longer worrying about my bland tastes when they both loved spicy food.No longer spending entire days trapped in libraries because I preferred quiet places.They could do whatever made them happy.That thought still made me smile."Mia! Come inside. The Polar Institute arranged a media visit to profile the interior research team. A reporter is already on the way. We need to figure out what we're going

  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 7

    Ethan spent three nights unable to sleep.On the fourth day, he found Mia again.After that, he started orbiting her life.He was clumsy about it, persistent, and completely sincere.At first, Mia resisted all of it.But slowly, she began to smile at him.If he scraped his arm playing basketball, she would stare at the injury with obvious worry before pretending she didn't care.Ethan had read enough romance novels to believe he understood what was happening.Wanting to protect someone for no logical reason...That had to be love.So he confessed.So he promised forever.And six years passed.He treated Mia like something fragile and precious.He remembered everything.Everyone called him the perfect boyfriend.He was proud of that.Then one night, at a dance competition, he looked at Summer differently for the first time.The girl he had always found loud, opinionated, and impossible was moving across the stage like a swan. Bright, confident, alive.Something opened

  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 6

    Third-person POVWhen Ethan was eight, he found a tiny stray kitten on the side of the road.Its fur was gray with dirt and soaked through by rain, plastered in thin clumps against a body so small he could count its ribs.Even its cry was weak.It stared up at him with pale blue eyes full of fear and desperate hope.Something inside Ethan broke open.He let go of his mother's hand and rushed toward it.He wanted to take it home.His parents refused.They hated animals, hated mess, hated the idea of a stray entering their immaculate house.He cried.He begged.He screamed until his throat hurt.He threw himself down in the rain and refused to move.None of it mattered.His mother pulled the kitten from his arms and put it back beside the road.His father slapped him.Then they dragged him home.It was the first time Ethan understood what it meant to be powerless.His parents had always controlled everything.They had decided that at five, he would memorize vocabulary

  • No Migratory Birds in Antarctica   Chapter 5

    I never figured out whether I followed him because I was worried about Summer, or because some self-destructive part of me wanted to see, one last time, what Ethan looked like when he was terrified for another woman.Either way, I went to the hospital.The antiseptic smell hit me as soon as I entered the hallway.Summer's room wasn't hard to find.The door had been left slightly open.Wide enough for me to see everything.Summer lay in the hospital bed with a cast on her right leg.She looked pale and exhausted.Still beautiful.Ethan stood beside her."Why didn't you tell me?"Summer looked away."Why would I? You're my best friend's boyfriend. You—""Summer."His voice broke."Why are you still saying that? We already admitted what we feel. You know that.""Enough."Summer closed her eyes."That night was a mistake. Don't hold on to it. I've thought everything through. Mia is the most important friend I've ever had. I won't hurt her, and I won't let you hurt her eit

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