‘It’s weird to see the apartment, again,’ says Aruna, looking around at the space that must seem both familiar and strange. Jazz wonders what she is thinking, as she casually picks up the takeaway menus on the kitchen counter that they used to rely on excessively; he has only recently started to cook for himself, which impresses June, as she can’t cook at all. He sees Aruna glance with a slightly baffled look at June’s porcelain containers of ‘Spring in a Bowl’ and ‘Fields of Freshness’ potpourri; surely guessing that they are nothing to do with him. There are photos of him and June stuck to the fridge door with magnets, which Aruna studies with a rueful smile, as though she might think that compared to beautiful, youthful June, she has somehow let herself go. ‘Thanks for coming up with me,’ says Jazz, ‘I’ve got what I needed now. I’ll give you a lift home.’
‘I don’t need you to do things for me any more,’ says Aruna, ‘I can do things by myself from now on.’
‘I know,’ says Jazz, ‘but this is one thing I want to do for you. So let me.’
In the car, it quickly becomes obvious that Jazz isn’t driving her back to her apartment in Holland Village after all. ‘Where are we going?’ she asks, confused.
‘You’ll see in a minute,’ says Jazz, and a little while later he takes the turning for Changi Airport. Aruna looks at Jazz, stunned, but doesn’t say anything further until he pulls up at the terminal building.
‘What are we doing here, Jazz?’ she asks quietly, as they both get out.
‘You know why we’re here, Rooney,’ says Jazz. ‘You didn’t come back to Singapore to come home, and you didn’t come back for me. You came back to ask me to forgive you for leaving, and to let you go. To say goodbye because we never had the chance to do it before. To finish our story.’ Aruna looks like she’s about to argue with him, but he doesn’t let her. ‘And that’s what I’m doing, for both of us. I wouldn’t change a moment that we shared together, and you will always be my best friend, but now I’m letting you go. And saying goodbye. And saying that you don’t need me to forgive you, because I love you; I always have, and I always will.’
Aruna doesn’t argue after all, and her eyes fill with tears, ‘I don’t know, Jazz. I don’t know what I’m meant to do now.’
Jazz pulls her into his arms, and hugs her closely, ‘I do. I know you too well. I knew that you were never going to stay; you brought your phone with you, Rooney. You never took off your wedding ring.’ He strokes her hair, and says, ‘I’m just telling you what you already know. On the other side of the world, there’s someone who loves you. The rest is up to you.’
Aruna says nothing; she seems so weak-limbed in his arms that he is practically holding her up. ‘How should a story finish, Jazz?’ she asks at last.
Jazz smiles wryly, ‘There are lots of good ways to finish a story,’ he says. ‘With a party, or a birth, or a death, or a disquieting anticlimax.’
‘But what’s the best way?’ she persists, smiling herself now, even with her damp eyes.
‘You know that all my stories end the same way.’ He shrugs with a little embarrassment, ‘With a kiss, and happy ever after.’
‘So can that be how we’ll end ours?’ she asks. And with that simple, final request, Jazz knows that he was right. They lean across, and kiss each other gently, and warmly on the lips. Their happy ever after kiss. Their secret.
‘I’ve got a present before you go,’ says Jazz, and he gives her the proof of his latest book, which he has just taken from the apartment. ‘I’m sorry it’s not very original, to give you another book, but I couldn’t think of anything else. We never gave each other presents, did we?’
‘Thank you,’ says Aruna, looking down at his novel, seeming absurdly touched. She looks at him seriously, and asks, ‘You do know how much I love you, don’t you?’
Jazz nods. ‘Of course I know. You don’t need to tell me.’ He smooths back her hair from her face, and the tears from her eyes, with a familiar gesture, that is even a little proprietorial, like a parent tidying a child before a school gate. ‘Go on, Rooney,’ he says. ‘Go home. I hope it works out for you. Remember, I believe in happy ever after. I believe in magic. And I believe in you.’ He adds with a grin, ‘I always have. And I always will.’
He gets back in the car, and sees Aruna take a few hesitant steps towards the terminal building, and then pausing as though still not absolutely sure of what she intends to do. She opens his book, and as she reads the note that he has written to her, scrawled on the inside page in his untidy hand, she turns swiftly to look back at him, smiling again through her tears, almost laughing. I’ve done it, thinks Jazz, I finally had the strength to give back what I no longer had the right to own. And then he watches her walk away.