“We spent eight months fighting.”
Mark looked at her, tears running down his face.
“Elina…”
“Eight months, Mark. I woke up and planned what I would say if I saw you. I argued with you in my head. I hated the cup you forgot to take away. I hated your books. Your sweater. Your name in my phone.”
She swallowed.
“And now we have a few minutes left.”
He stepped toward her.
“I’m sorry.”
“No,” she shook her head. “I… I need to apologize too. I didn’t let you speak. I decided my pain gave me the right to be cruel.”
“You lost your father.”
“And you lost me,” she said. “And I never even asked how you survived that day.”
He closed his eyes as if those words hurt more than the explosion.
Behind them, people kept running. But fewer now. Many stopped. They understood. They hugged right there on the walkway. Someone kissed a child’s forehead. An old man held his wife’s hand and looked at the city that had been their life. A young woman typed a message that would never be sent.
Mark slowly opened his backpack.
“The recording,” he said. “I still have it.”
Elina looked at him.
“What?”
He took out a small digital recorder. Old. Scratched. He held it to his chest for a second, then handed it to her.
“I carried it with me all this time. I wanted to give it to you. Every time I thought: today. Then I got scared.”
Elina’s hands trembled as she took the recorder.
“His voice is on here?”
“Yes.”
She pressed the button.
At first there was static. Crackling. A distant breath.
Then a voice.
Weak, a little hoarse, but alive.
“Eli… if you’re listening to this, then I probably failed again to find a normal way to say something important in time.”
Elina cried out and pressed the recorder to her lips.
Her father’s voice continued:
“You were always angry that I stayed silent when I should have spoken. I suppose it runs in the family. Forgive me for that. But I want you to know this: life is too short to wait for the right moment to love someone. The right moment almost never comes.”
Elina closed her eyes. Tears ran down her cheeks.
“If there is someone beside you whom you love, don’t waste days on pride. Pride won’t hold you at night. Pride won’t bring you tea when you’re sick. Pride won’t remember how you laugh when you’re trying not to laugh.”
Mark turned away, but she saw him crying.
“And one more thing,” her father’s voice softened. “Mark is a good man. Stubborn, of course. Quiet. Takes too much on himself. But good. If he makes a mistake one day, don’t judge him only by that one day. We are all more than our worst day.”
The recorder hissed.
Elina pressed her hand to her mouth.
The shockwave was closer now. The air grew hot. The hair on their heads lifted with static electricity. The sky above the city darkened. Debris, foam, and smoke flew across the water.
“He knew,” she whispered.
“What?”
“He knew we would fight. He knew us.”
Mark tried to smile through his tears.
“He said we were both too proud for our own happiness.”
Elina looked at the ring box still clenched in her hand.
“I wanted to give it back to you so it would hurt less.”
“Did it?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
He came closer.
“I love you, Elina.”
She looked straight into his eyes. The world was collapsing around them, but for the first time in eight months there was no wall between them.
“Say it again.”
“I love you.”
“Again.”
“I love you. I loved you that day. I loved you through all these months. Even when you didn’t answer. Even when I hated myself. Even when I thought I no longer had the right to say your name.”
She cried as if everything she had been holding inside had finally broken.
“I love you too,” she said. “I’m so tired of pretending I don’t.”
He touched her face carefully.
“I would give anything to get our time back.”
Elina covered his hand with hers.
“We have this.”
“A few minutes.”
“No,” she looked at him through her tears. “We have now.”
He understood.
Their whole life suddenly collapsed into that one word.
Now.
Not yesterday, which could no longer be fixed.
Not tomorrow, which would never come.
Now.
His fingers on her cheek. Her breathing. The sound of the water. The roar of the approaching end. The warm little ring box in her palm. Her father’s voice still coming from the tiny recorder.
“Put it on me,” Elina said.
Mark froze.
“What?”
“The ring. Put it on.”
“Elina…”
“Please. I don’t want to leave as your former fiancée. I want to leave as someone who chose love. Even if only now.”
He took the box. Opened it.
It was the same ring. Small, delicate, with a tiny stone he had once spent three weeks choosing because he was afraid of making a mistake.
His hands shook so badly that he could barely pick it up.
Elina held out her hand.
He put it on her finger.
And in that second, she smiled.