You didn’t notice the chair, did you? That’s what she said to him three seconds into their blind date. And in that moment, Alexander Cole, a man who’d spent three years building walls around his heart, realized he’d just walked straight past every defense he’d ever constructed. Alex didn’t believe in blind dates.
At 33, the CEO of Cole Design Group had perfected the art of polite distance. his best friend Jake had been pushing for months. You’re disappearing, man. One coffee, just give it a shot. So, here he was at Cafe Dawn on a rainy Tuesday afternoon. Phone buzzing with a work emergency as he pushed through the door. He fired off a quick text, handle it, then looked up, scanning for someone named Sophia.
The cafe smelled like cinnamon and old paper. Rain drumed steadily against the windows, and there, tucked in the corner booth, sat a shy girl with brown hair falling softly around her face, sketching with the kind of absorbed focus that made the whole world disappear.
Her hand moved across the page with quiet confidence, capturing something delicate raindrops on glass maybe, or the way afternoon light caught in water. This heartwarming scene, a stranger lost in her art, unaware of being watched, made Alex forget why he’d been reluctant to come. He walked straight toward her, drawn by something he couldn’t name. The concentration in her gentle eyes. The way she bit her lower lip while shading.
“You must be Sophia.” She looked up and her gaze held something knowing, almost amused. “You didn’t notice the chair, did you?” He blinked, looked down. The wheelchair tucked beneath the table, barely visible. Everything stopped. Not from shock, though part of him felt it, but because he realized he’d seen her first.
Just her, the shy girl sketching rain, not the wheelchair she sat in. “No,” he said honestly. “I didn’t.” She smiled, then a real smile that transformed her whole face. Good. Most people see it before they see me. Before they decide what this blind date is really about.
And Alexander Cole, who built glass towers and perfect angles for a living, felt something shift beneath his feet. What he didn’t know yet, this inspirational woman would teach him the one thing his architecture degree never could. How to truly see beyond surfaces. They talked for two hours that first day, long after their coffee went cold and the lunch crowd thinned out.
Sophia Hart was 26, a children’s book illustrator working from a small studio in southeast Portland. She told him about the stories. She drew worlds where heroes were small and frightened but brave anyway, where the underestimated became extraordinary. I love stories where the world underestimates someone, she said, tracing invisible patterns on the worn table.
Then they prove everyone wrong, not with magic powers, but just by being more than anyone expected. It’s heartwarming when readers see themselves in those characters. Alex leaned forward. Is that what you’re doing? Proving people wrong every single day. She met his eyes steadily. What about you? What do you build? He told her about his work designing spaces meant to feel open but somehow always ending up empty.
I spend my life creating perfection. Straight lines, precise angles, buildings that photograph beautifully for magazines, but nobody actually wants to live in them. Perfection scares me, Sophia said quietly. It feels lifeless, like something preserved under glass. Alex sat back, genuinely surprised. That’s exactly how I feel.
I build perfection every day, and it feels the same, beautiful, but dead. She laughed, not the polite laugh of a first date, but genuine and surprised, and something in his chest loosened like a knot finally coming undone. They talked about favorite books, terrible movies. They secretly loved the way Portland smelled after heavy rain.
She showed him her sketches, children with wings made of storm clouds, forests where trees had watchful faces, a city where buildings bent like dancers mid leap. These are incredible, he said, studying a drawing of a girl in a wheelchair flying through clouds. You see the world so differently. I have to, she said simply. The regular world wasn’t built with me in mind.
The weight of that statement hung between them. Not heavy, just honest. Before he left, he did something unplanned. Same time next week. Sophia hesitated, her fingers tightening slightly on the wheels of her chair. If you don’t mind imperfections, I come with a lot of them. I’m starting to think, Alex said slowly, meeting her eyes.

That imperfections are the only honest things left in this world. Outside as he walked to his car through the rain, he caught himself smiling. Really smiling for the first time in longer than he could remember. The blind date he dreaded had become something else entirely. Could one conversation really change everything he was about to find out? The second date happened at Powell’s books, where they got lost in the aisles for 3 hours.
The third at a small gallery featuring local artists, where Alex watched strangers discover and fall in love with Sophia’s illustrations on the walls. By the fourth week, he found himself thinking about her during board meetings while reviewing blueprints in the quiet hours past midnight when sleep wouldn’t come.
She never pushed him to talk about his past. Never pressed when his answers grew short or his gaze distant. Maybe that’s why one evening by the Willamett River he finally told her. I was engaged once, he said, watching sunset turn the water to liquid gold. Her name was Emma. 3 weeks before our wedding, a drunk driver ran a red light. She died instantly.
Sophia didn’t gasp or reach for his hand with pity in her eyes. She just listened the way someone listens when they’ve carried their own weight. I told myself I’d never feel that vulnerable again, he continued. safer to stay closed off. And now,” she asked gently. “Now I’m realizing safe isn’t the same as alive.
” She looked at him then, and he saw her guard drop for just a heartbeat. I understand completely. Four years ago, I was driving home from an art show in Seattle, a semi jack knifed on I5. I woke up in a hospital bed, and a doctor told me I’d never walk again. She paused her voice steady but carrying old pain. My fianceé David visited twice. The second time he said he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t watch me like this.
Those were his exact words. Alex felt something hot and sharp lodge in his throat. He was a fool. He was honest. Sophia said. Most people feel it. They just don’t say it out loud. They see the chair and see half a person. Something broken that needs fixing or avoiding. That’s not what I see.
Not yet, she said kindly but firmly. But eventually you will. Everyone does. Two weeks later, Alex invited Sophia to tour his latest project, The Glass Haven, a corporate building designed so every angle caught natural light. I want your perspective, he said as an artist. She arrived with her sketchbook eyes bright with curiosity.
His assistant, Norah, met them at the entrance. Her gaze swept over Sophia, lingered meaningfully on the wheelchair, then snapped back to Alex with barely concealed surprise. “Mr. Cole, you brought a guest.” An artist consultant,” Sophia said lightly, though her smile didn’t reach her eyes.
“Not an investor,” Norah’s answering smile was thined with something that looked unsettlingly like pity. “How nice.” Inside the building was stunning floor toseeiling windows, marble floors polished to mirrors, a grand staircase spiraling upward like something from a dream. Sophia wheeled forward slowly, taking it in with an artist’s eye. Then she stopped.
The entrance to the main exhibition hall required climbing 12 stairs. No ramp, no elevator access visible anywhere. She didn’t complain or make a scene, just turned her chair around quietly and headed back toward the exit. her face carefully neutral that practiced blankness Alex was learning to recognize as armor against disappointment.
“Wait,” he called out his voice sharp even to his own ears. She paused but didn’t turn around. Alex found the maintenance supervisor had them bring portable steel ramps. It took 20 minutes to set up properly. Sophia waited outside, sketching the skyline in her book with determined, swift strokes. When the ramp was finally secure, he came back for her slightly out of breath.
I’m sorry, my design is missing something important. She looked up at him with something complicated flickering behind her eyes. Accessibility and perspective. He held out his hand, not to help, but to invite. Should Will you show me what I’m not seeing? She studied him for a long moment, weighing something internal, then nodded slowly. “All right.
” As she wheeled up the ramp into the light-filled hall, Alex stood watching and felt the weight of every building he’d ever designed, without once considering who couldn’t enter them, who was excluded by his perfect vision. He was beginning to understand that seeing someone wasn’t the same as looking at them.
Margaret, the owner of Cafe Dawn, had been watching them for weeks with knowing eyes. She was 62, a former painter who’d traded oils and canvas for espresso machines after her husband passed away. She recognized the look in Sophia’s eyes when she watched Alex, the same vulnerable hope Margaret had seen in her own mirror three decades ago.
One rainy afternoon, Margaret sat down a warm blueberry muffin beside Sophia’s sketchbook. The drawing was unmistakable a man standing tall in a beam of light, while a woman sat below in shadow, reaching upward but not quite touching him. “You draw him like you’re afraid to lose him,” Margaret said gently, settling into the chair across from her. Sophia’s pencil stopped midstroke.
Maybe because people leave once they’ve seen everything. Once the inspirational story wears off and reality sets in. Margaret was quiet for a moment, then reached across the table to touch Sophia’s hand. My husband, Robert, had a massive stroke when he was 41. Lost all movement on his left side.
Couldn’t paint anymore. And painting was his whole life. Some of our friends disappeared overnight. They didn’t know what to say, how to act around us. What did you do? I loved him before the stroke, and I loved him after. He didn’t need to stand for me to see him whole. Margaret’s voice was warm, certain. We had 23 beautiful years until he died.
The people who leave were never going to stay anyway, and the ones who stay, they see you completely, honey. All of you. Sophia’s eyes glistened. I don’t know if Alex is one of those people. I don’t know if anyone is. Then give him the chance to show you. That evening, Alex arrived at the cafe earlier than planned. Sophia had texted that her ride service was running late.
She’d be there in 15 minutes. Her sketchbook lay open on the table pages, slightly ruffled by the breeze from the open window. He knew he shouldn’t look. Knew it was private. But his eyes found the drawing anyway, and it stopped his breath. Not because of the technical skill, though it was beautiful, but because of what it revealed him standing in light, seemingly unreachable. Her in shadow reaching upward, but never connecting.
Two people in the same frame, separated by something invisible and unbridgegable. His chest tightened painfully. He understood what she hadn’t said aloud. she was falling for him and she was terrified he’d leave when things got difficult. When the heartwarming beginning faded and real life took over. Before he could second guessess himself, he carefully removed the page and slipped it into his jacket pocket.
When she arrived 10 minutes later, slightly flustered and apologizing for the delay, he smiled easily and ordered them both cherry pie. and they talked about nothing consequential favorite songs from high school, worst cooking disasters, whether dogs could sense ghosts. But the entire time he felt the weight of that drawing against his heart, the truth of it pressing into his ribs like an accusation.
He was falling for her, too. Deeply, irreversibly falling. And it terrified him more than anything had in three years. Because the last time he’d let himself love someone completely, she’d been taken in one terrible instant, one drunk driver, one intersection, and Emma was gone forever. He’d promised himself he’d never give fate that much power over his happiness again.

Never let himself become that vulnerable. But Sophia wasn’t Emma. This wasn’t the same situation, except it was in the way that mattered most. He couldn’t control it. Couldn’t design it or blueprint it or engineer it into something safe and manageable. Love didn’t work that way. It never had. And that realization scared him more than any risk he’d ever taken in business. Two weeks later, Alex made a bold decision.
His company was hosting its annual charity gala, a blacktie event for investors, architects, city officials, and donors. He’d attended alone for three years running, but this year he wanted Sophia beside him. “You don’t have to say yes,” he said when he asked her over morning coffee. “I know those events aren’t exactly accessible, but I want you there.
” She hesitated, clearly conflicted. “People will stare, Alex. They always do. Let them stare. I’m serious. They’ll whisper. They’ll make assumptions. I want you there, he said firmly, holding her gaze. Not to make a statement, not as some inspirational story to tell colleagues. Just because I want you beside me.
She searched his face for a long moment, then slowly smiled. Okay, but if it gets weird, I’m blaming you entirely. Fair enough. The night of the gala, Sophia wore an elegant olive green dress that made her eyes luminous and brought out the warmth in her brown hair, which fell in soft waves past her shoulders.
When Alex picked her up in a specially arranged, accessible vehicle, he momentarily forgot how to form words. “You look absolutely beautiful,” he finally managed. She flushed, pleased. You clean up pretty well yourself, Cole. The venue was a restored historic building downtown. All crystal chandeliers, marble columns, and oldworld elegance.
Alex had personally ensured there was a proper ramp at the entrance, an accessible restroom on the main floor, and seating arrangements that allowed easy movement. But he hadn’t anticipated the stairs. People tried to be polite about it. They nodded, smiled, made pleasant conversation.
But their eyes lingered too long, filled with pity or curiosity or worse, discomfort, as if Sophia’s presence disrupted the evening’s carefully maintained illusion of perfection. Mr. Cole, wonderful turnout tonight, someone said, then turned to Sophia with exaggerated brightness. And you are Sophia Hart. I’m an illustrator. How wonderful. You’re so inspirational coming out like this. So brave.
The words hung in the air like smoke, well-meaning but suffocating. Alex felt Sophia stiffened beside him, her smile turning brittle as glass. Then Norah approached Champagne Flute in hand heels, clicking sharply against the marble floor. Sophia, you look lovely tonight. You’re incredibly brave to come. Not everyone could turn personal tragedy into such a public statement.
It’s really quite inspirational. The words landed like a physical blow. Sophia’s face went pale. She set down her untouched glass with careful precision. Excuse me, I need some air. She wheeled toward the terrace exit before Alex could respond. moving with practiced speed through the crowd. He found her outside rain beginning to fall in cold drops, her shoulders shaking.
Sophia, don’t. Her voice cracked like breaking ice. Please, just don’t. What Norah said was completely inappropriate. I’ll speak to her. This isn’t about Nora. She spun her chair to face him and he saw tears streaming down her face, catching the light from inside. This is about you bringing me here as some kind of proof. Proof that you’re enlightened, that you’re the kind of man who dates someone like me.
That’s not I don’t need to be your charity case, Alex. Her voice broke completely. I don’t need someone who’s staying out of pity or guilt or because leaving would make them look bad. I’m not staying out of pity. Then what? She demanded rain starting to soak through her dress, plastering her hair to her face.
Because I’ve spent all night watching you watch other people watch me. And I’m terrified. Terrified you’ll wake up one day and realize this is too hard. That I require too much accommodation. that you’d rather have someone who doesn’t come with ramps and stairs and strangers calling them brave just for existing.
He stared at her through the rain, his heart hammering. “You’re right,” he said horarssely. “I am scared. Not because of your chair, because of how much I care about you. The last time I loved someone, I lost her and it nearly destroyed me. Now I’m falling for you and I don’t know how to do this without being terrified every moment that something will take you away too.
The silence stretched between them filled only by falling rain and distant music from inside. I can’t be with someone who’s afraid. Sophia whispered. I’ve spent four years fighting to be seen as complete. I won’t spend the rest of my life wondering if you’re staying out of pity or fear or because you’re too scared to admit you made a mistake.
She turned her chair and rolled away into the rain, leaving him standing alone on the terrace, completely shattered, and for the first time in 3 years, Alexander Cole let himself break apart. 10 days passed like stones dropping into water. Alex went to work, led meetings, reviewed architectural plans, signed off on contracts.
On the surface, everything appeared normal. But at night, alone in his penthouse office, he’d stand at the floor to ceiling windows overlooking the glittering city and feel absolutely hollow inside. He’d taken out Sophia’s sketch a dozen times, the one he’d slipped from her book at the cafe. The two of them, light and shadow, reaching but never connecting.
Now he saw details he’d missed before in the shadow where she’d drawn herself. There was another figure barely visible like a ghost. Maybe Emma. Maybe the version of Sophia before the accident. The people they’d been haunting who they were now preventing them from reaching each other. They were both clinging to ghosts instead of reaching for something real.
On the eighth night, he drove past Cafe Dawn three times before finally parking across the street. Through the rain streaked window, he could see Margaret wiping down tables, the warm glow inside, looking impossibly distant. But Sophia’s usual corner booth stood empty. He sat in his car for 30 minutes, phone in hand, typing and deleting messages over and over. I’m sorry.
Delete. Can we talk? Delete. I miss you more than I thought possible. Delete. Finally, he just drove home and sat in the dark. Her sketch spread on his desk. Mozart’s reququum, playing softly, the same piece Emma used to hum while cooking dinner back when the future had seemed certain and safe.
He’d been living in the past for so long, building monuments to loss, that he’d forgotten what it felt like to have an actual future worth fighting for. On day nine, he did something that shocked his entire board. He stopped construction on the glass haven entirely. “What’s wrong with it?” His lead architect demanded, furious. “We’re already over budget and behind schedule.
” everything,” Alex said quietly. “But it’s beautiful and empty, like a museum to perfection that nobody actually wants to visit or experience. It’s missing heart.” On day 10, Margaret called his cell phone directly. “She hasn’t been back to the cafe,” Margaret said without preamble. “Seit it hurts too much. Reminds her of things that didn’t work out.
But she left something for you before she stopped coming. I’ve been waiting to see if you’d show up. He was at the cafe in 12 minutes, breaking at least three traffic laws getting there. Margaret handed him a worn Manila envelope, its edges soft with handling. She brought this three days ago. Made me promise I’d only give it to you if you came looking for her. Inside was a completed drawing.
No longer the divided image of light and shadow, but something transformed. The two of them in the cafe rain falling outside the window behind them. She was drawing. He was watching her, and they were both bathed in the same gentle light, no separation, no invisible barriers, just two people, whole and truly seen.
on the back in her careful, beautiful handwriting. Some people build houses, some build places to be seen. You built one in me, but I can’t live there if you’re still building walls around your heart. I need someone brave enough to love me, not in spite of anything, but because of everything, including the fear.
Alex’s hands shook so badly he nearly dropped the drawing. He read it three times, each word carving itself into memory. “Where is she?” he asked, looking up at Margaret with desperate eyes. “Washington Park every Saturday morning at 9 sharp. She teaches art to kids who need to know they’re more than their limitations.” He didn’t wait, didn’t plan or rehearse, just drove through the rain with her drawing on the passenger seat beside him, his heart pounding like it was trying to break free from his chest.
Everything he thought he understood about love was about to change forever. When Alex arrived at Washington Park, he spotted her immediately. Sophia sat under a covered pavilion surrounded by six children, some in wheelchairs, some with leg braces, one accompanied by a golden service dog. She was demonstrating how to draw clouds, her voice patient, and genuinely enthusiastic despite the cold morning rain drumming steadily on the roof above them.
“The secret is not overthinking it,” she was saying, moving her brush with fluid confidence. Just let your hand move naturally. Clouds don’t follow rules or worry about being perfect. A small girl in a bright pink wheelchair, maybe seven or eight years old, raised her hand tentatively. Miss Sophia, do you ever feel sad about your legs not working? Alex held his breath frozen on the pathway.
Sophia paused, set down her brush thoughtfully, and smiled genuine and kind. Sometimes I do feel sad, but mostly I feel sad when people think that’s my whole story. Because I’m also someone who loves chocolate chip pancakes at midnight and terrible puns and the way this city looks at sunrise when everything’s quiet and new. The chair is part of me, but it’s not the complete picture.
What is the complete picture? The girl asked with innocent curiosity. still being written, I think. Still being discovered. Alex felt something crack wide open in his chest, like ice breaking after the longest winter. He’d been so consumed by his own fear of losing her, of not being enough of history cruy repeating itself, that he’d completely missed the point.
She didn’t need him to save her or protect her from the world. She was already whole, already brave, already living a life overflowing with meaning and purpose and genuine connection. What she needed was for him to stop being terrified of that wholeness. To stop seeing her vulnerability as something fragile requiring protection and start seeing her strength for what it truly was absolutely extraordinary.
He waited until the last child had been picked up by grateful parents. Then he walked over slowly, umbrella in one hand, her drawing carefully protected in the other. Sophia looked up, genuine surprise flickering across her face. “Alex, I’m sorry,” he said without preamble. “For everything, for taking you to that gala and not protecting you from people’s ignorance and pity.
For making you feel like you had to prove yourself worthy of basic respect. for being too scared to say what I should have said from the very beginning, which is her voice was guarded but hopeful. He knelt down so they were eye to eye rain falling steadily around their small shelter that I see you.
Not despite the chair or because of some heartwarming narrative just you the woman who draws clouds without rules and teaches children. They’re already complete and somehow makes me believe that maybe, just maybe, I can be brave, too. I’m still scared. I probably always will be. But I don’t want to be scared alone anymore. I want to be scared with you.
Her eyes filled with tears that caught the gray morning light. I’m scared, too, that you’ll change your mind. That this won’t be enough when reality sets in. What if it is enough? He took her hand, laced his fingers through hers. What if we’re both just terrified people who found each other and that’s exactly the point? She laughed through her tears, the soundbreaking and beautiful.
That’s possibly the worst romantic speech I’ve ever heard. I know, but every word is true. Rain started falling harder. the kind of rain that feels like permission to start over. Alex opened the umbrella and held it over both of them, water drumming on fabric above their heads like applause.
“I never finished that building,” he said quietly. “The glass haven? I stopped construction completely.” “Why would you do that?” because I finally understood it was missing something fundamental. Not just ramps or accessible bathrooms. It was missing the kind of wisdom you carry. Understanding that beautiful spaces mean nothing if they don’t welcome everyone who needs them. He paused.
I want to redesign it with your help. Create something genuinely beautiful and genuinely accessible. a place where people don’t have to fight to be seen or accommodated. Sophia stared at him, rain falling in sheets around their sheltered space. You’d really do that? I’d do a lot of things if you’ll let me try. She reached up, touched his rain dampened face gently. I don’t see your chair, he whispered.
I see the woman who taught me how to really look at the world. She pulled him close and they kissed in the rain, soft and certain and real like a promise finally being kept after years of silence. Because love isn’t about being saved or fixed. It’s about being completely honestly seen. Six months later, the glass haven reopened to the public.
The redesign had taken longer than Alex’s board wanted, cost significantly more than they’d budgeted for. There were heated complaints about unnecessary accessibility features, tense debates about whether they were overdoing accommodations, pointed questions about dedicating valuable square footage to nonprofit programming that wouldn’t generate revenue.
Alex had stood absolutely firm. If we’re building something we’re calling a haven, it needs to actually be a haven for everyone. Otherwise, we’re just building another expensive exclusive box. Sophia had been involved in every major decision, consulting on design elements, ensuring doorways were wide enough for various mobility devices, confirming ramps had properly gentle slopes, making certain bathrooms were truly accessible rather than just minimally code compliant. But more importantly, she’d insisted on maintaining beauty throughout.
Accessible doesn’t have to mean institutional or clinical, she’d said during one particularly contentious design meeting. Let’s make it genuinely gorgeous. Let’s make people want to be here, not just able to be here. So, they did exactly that. Wide hallways featured rotating art installations positioned at wheelchair height. No neck craning required to appreciate them.
Braille labels were embedded elegantly in polished wood and brushed bronze. A glass elevator felt like floating through captured light. And on the third floor, the art for all studio, where children and adults with disabilities could take free classes year round with supplies and experienced teachers provided by a foundation Sophia had worked tirelessly to establish.
The ribbon cutting ceremony was intentionally intimate. Just 50 carefully chosen people. No champagne towers. No lengthy corporate speeches. Just Margaret standing at the entrance with ceremonial scissors. Alex and Sophia beside her, all three of them slightly nervous. “I’m honestly not sure why I’m the one cutting this ribbon,” Margaret said, her voice thick with emotion.
“I didn’t design or build anything here. You built us,” Sophia said softly, taking Margaret’s weathered hand and hers. “You saw us clearly before we could see ourselves or each other.” Margaret’s eyes filled completely. She cut the ribbon with slightly shaking hands, and the small crowd erupted in warm, genuine applause. Inside, the space exceeded everything they’d envisioned together.
Light poured generously through floor toseeiling windows, reflecting off glass and polished floors, but it didn’t feel cold or sterile or intimidating. It felt wonderfully alive, like a place where people could breathe deeply and grow and discover and become. A young man in a wheelchair rolled up to Sophia, nervous but smiling broadly.
Miss Hart, I took your Saturday class last year. I just got accepted to art school, Rhode Island School of Design, full scholarship because you told me I was already an artist. Sophia’s face absolutely transformed. Marcus, that’s incredible. I’m so proud of you. You told me my wheelchair didn’t define my art or my worth.
That changed everything for me. After he rolled away, beaming, Alex slipped his hand into hers. You created this. You made this whole thing real. We created this together. She corrected gently but firmly. You gave it space and structure and light. I just helped fill it with actual heart. They stood together in the soaring atrium watching diverse groups of people move freely through the building.
Parents with strollers, elderly visitors with walkers, teenagers on crutches, laughing with friends, children in wheelchairs, racing each other down the wide, beautiful hallways. All of them moving freely, easily, joyfully belonging. Do you remember that first blind date? Sophia asked. You said you built perfection, but it felt completely lifeless.
I remember every word. What does this place feel like to you now? Alex looked around slowly at the light, the people, the laughter echoing warmly off glass walls, the way the buildings seem to pulse with genuine living energy, like home, like the first real home I’ve built in my entire career.
That evening, they stood together on the rooftop terrace, watching the city light up as dusk settled over Portland. The glass panels caught the sunset, transforming everything to gold and amber and rose. I used to genuinely believe I lost everything in that accident, Sophia said quietly, leaning comfortably against him. But maybe I just lost the version of myself I needed to outgrow anyway.
The one who thought being whole meant being physically perfect and traditionally able-bodied. Who are you now? She smiled, peaceful and certain. Someone who doesn’t wait passively to be seen. Someone who builds her own light. Someone who understands that love isn’t about fixing broken pieces. It’s about recognizing they were never actually broken at all.
He kissed her, then soft and certain and full of future, and the city glowed around them like a promise being kept. Margaret, watching from below through a large window, smiled to herself and thought of Robert. How he used to say that real love wasn’t about two incomplete people becoming whole together, but about two already whole people choosing each other anyway every single day. Because the bravest thing isn’t walking again.
It’s choosing to love again.