Novel & Cerita Goodbye Under The Northern Lights

"You call something this fancy a meal between friends?" Liam gave me the flowers and answered vaguely, "I haven't been romantically involved for all these years." I blinked at him dumbly. We'd known each other for years. So, I knew what he was implying right after hearing that statement. Sadly… I turned to look at the starry sky beyond the window and slowly shook my head. "I'm sorry. I prefer to fly solo." The city lights seemed to stretch on endlessly, and I knew that my future would shine brighter than the night sky tonight.

Chapter 247: The Fire Beneath the Ice The northern lights shimmered faintly through a veil of polar clouds, their color dimmed by the wind that swept down from the Arctic shelf. Beneath that glacial calm, the Pan-Arctic Coalition command base pulsed with sleepless activity. By morning, something invisible had cracked. A rumor. A leak. A recording — only twenty seconds long — of Sophia’s quiet voice saying: “We hold each other first. Then we hold the world.”

Without thinking, I called out, "Carl, I feel awful." But the room was dead quiet. That was when it hit me—today was the day Carl and Wendy were supposed to hook up. Wendy had posted a bunch of updates on Instagram—probably to make sure I saw them. Carl's face was hidden in the pictures, but their hands were intertwined. The caption read, "I finally found my destiny." Destiny? I sneered and commented, "Destined to be a homewrecker?" Not long after, I saw she had deleted my comment.

“Come on. One step. I promise it won’t shatter like your ego.” With an exhausted breath, I stepped forward. The bridge didn’t break. But I still hated every second of it. We crossed slowly, Lira practically dragging me by the elbow, the glass cold underfoot even through our boots. Above, a wide arched window framed the velvet sky, where the first streaks of something—not stars, not clouds—began to pulse across the dark. “The Northern Lights,” I murmured. Lira looked up, face bathed in that shifting light—silver, rose, lilac, deep blue. “Valen’s signal.”

In the video, they were standing by the sea and watching the fireworks. Shane was carrying Arielle in his arms. He gently tucked a strand of hair behind Vera's ear when the wind blew it loose. Behind them, the sea shimmered with layers of golden light. Their laughter was clear yet distant, like something from another world. The caption read: [Fireworks bloom with happiness, lighting up the night with love.] My breath caught in my throat. That fireworks show was supposed to be for me. It was a part of the birthday trip I had planned for myself.

The men slowly lowered my body into the earth, wailing and continuing on until all I could see was white sky. “Goodbye, Life.” -THE END-

I yanked the magnetic ribbon out of the cassette. I took out a lighter and lit it. I watched the whole thing go to black ash. "A man moving himself with his own devotion is worth nothing. His life being worse than death is exactly what I want." "Next life. The one after. All of them. Don't ever cross my path again." --- Six months later. Northern Finland. Lapland. Blizzards across the country, temperatures at thirty below. The aurora was spread across the sky. Under the aurora, in a log cabin.

Ernest said. "January or February," Don said. "The darkest month or the one after. I want to experience the dark properly, not at its edges." He looked at the book. "The book says that the people of northern Norway have a word for the quality of light in the winter dark. It translates roughly to 'the blue hour' but that is not accurate. The quality is specific to the winter, to the snow reflecting what little light there is, to the particular angle of the sun when it is below the horizon but not far below." He looked at Ernest. "I want to see that. Not read about it. See it."

He held me locked tight against him, his face inches from mine, his shaky breath mingling with mine in white puffs in the night air. "Gotcha," he rasped, his eyes dark, intense, and completely unblinking. I couldn't move or say another word. My chest was heaving, my fingers clutching his coat lapels, my lips parted just an inch from his. Above us, the heavy dark clouds suddenly parted, and the sky exploded into brilliant, dancing ribbons of green and violet light, the northern lights bursting across the mountain peaks, casting a glowing, magical sheen over his bare face and my upturned eyes.

Brandon's voice broke as he cried out behind me, "Jocelyn, please don't leave me! I know I messed everything up! Just give me one last chance to make it right… I swear, I'll treat you right…" I let out one last cold laugh and cut him off. "Do you know something? In those three years when you were watching the northern lights with Alanna, it was Dwayne who cleaned me up. "When you were off chasing sunrises in the mountains with her, it was still Dwayne holding me, helping me recover after losing my baby. "So do you understand now? Once some things are broken, they stay broken. There's no fixing them, no forgiveness." Dwayne and I walked away without looking back.