Karen went perfectly still.
I blinked.
“That’s a rather direct question.”
“I’m trying a new communication style.”
“It’s terrifying.”
“Answer the question.”
I looked at Karen.
She wasn’t smiling now. She was watching me carefully, and I understood why.
Marriage was not a small word in her life. It was a promise she had once believed would last forever, and I would never treat it as something to say merely because the moment demanded reassurance.
So I answered honestly.
“I don’t know what the future looks like. But I know I want to keep choosing her. I want to build something with her, and I want to do it properly.”
Daniel nodded slowly.
“Good enough.”
Then he stood up.
“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to order pizza because this dinner has been a catastrophic failure.”
Karen laughed through her tears.
I leaned back in my chair.
And for the first time, I realized that perhaps our lives didn’t have to return to what they had been before.
