"You're human." Ethan brushed a tear from her cheek. "And for what it's worth, I think you're extraordinary."
Maya laughed wetly. "You barely know me."
"I know enough. I know you're brave even when you think you're a coward. I know you paint sunrise like emotion. I know you cry for your clients' progress and guard your own heart like it's the last valuable thing on earth." His hand cupped her face gently. "I know that three weeks isn't enough, but I'll take what you can give me."
"Ethan"
"Can I kiss you? For real this time?"
Maya's breath caught. This was the cliff edge, the point of no return. Say yes and she was in it completely. Say no and she was safe.
Safe and half-alive.
"Yes," she whispered.
Ethan kissed her slowly, carefully, like she was something precious. His lips were soft, his hands gentle on her face, and Maya felt herself unfold into it. The kiss deepened, became less careful and more honest want and fear and hope all tangled together.
When they finally pulled apart, both breathless, Ethan rested his forehead against hers.
"I should go," he said.
"Probably."
"I don't want to."
"I know."
They stood there, breathing the same air, neither moving.
"Tomorrow?" Ethan asked. "I want to take you somewhere. Let me surprise you."
Maya should say no, should slow this down, should protect herself. Instead, she heard herself say, "Okay."
Ethan kissed her once more brief and sweet and then forced himself toward the door. "Thank you. For tonight. For letting me in."
"Thank you for" Maya gestured helplessly. "Everything."
After he left, Maya stood in her living room for a long time, touching her lips, her face still damp from tears. The apartment felt different now. Less like a shrine to grief and more like a place where life was happening.
She picked up her phone and found a text from Ethan: Already missing you. Is that pathetic?
Maya smiled. Completely pathetic. Me too.
She went to bed that night with her mother's paintings watching over her, Ethan's kiss still tingling on her lips, and for the first time in two years, the fear wasn't the loudest thing in her head.
Hope was.
Quiet and tentative and terrifying.
But hope nonetheless. Or maybe you needed these two years to learn what you're learning now. Grief doesn't have a timeline, Maya. And choosing to try again isn't betraying anything. It's honoring the fact that you survived and you're still here."
"What if I'm not ready?"
"What if you are and you just don't know it yet?" Dr. Chen leaned forward. "What's the worst thing that happens if you see him?"
"I fall for him and he leaves and I'm destroyed."
"And the worst thing that happens if you don't see him?"
Maya was quiet for a long moment. "I stay safe and alone and prove my mother right about living small."
"Both options carry risk. The question is which risk you can live with."
November 3rd arrived cold and bright. Maya changed her outfit four times, settled on jeans and a sweater that felt casual but intentional, then changed again because she didn't want to look like she was trying too hard.
She was trying too hard.
They'd agreed to meet at a café near the art museum, neutral territory for both of them. Maya arrived fifteen minutes early and ordered a tea she didn't drink, watching the door with a mix of dread and anticipation that made her feel sixteen instead of twenty-eight.
Ethan walked in at exactly 2 p.m., and Maya's heart did that stupid complicated thing it had done at the wedding recognition and terror and want all tangled together.
He looked different. Thinner, maybe, or just tired from travel. His hair was longer, curling at his collar. He was wearing the canvas jacket she remembered and carrying a camera bag that looked like it had been through a war.
His eyes found hers across the café, and his entire face transformed into a smile so genuine it hurt to witness.
Maya stood on shaking legs as he approached.
"Hi," Ethan said, and his voice was exactly as she remembered warm and a little rough, like he'd been talking for hours or not at all.
"Hi," Maya managed.
They stood there for an awkward moment, neither sure of the protocol. Hug? Handshake? Nothing?
Ethan held out a small package. "I brought you something. From Iceland."
Maya took it with trembling fingers. Inside was a small watercolor set portable, expensive, professional-grade. The kind her mother would have loved.
"You said you didn't paint anymore," Ethan said quietly. "But I thought maybe you'd want to. Someday."
Maya's eyes burned with tears she refused to shed in a public café. "Thank you."
"Want to sit?"
They sat. They ordered more drinks neither of them wanted. And slowly, carefully, they started talking.
It felt like the wedding night and nothing like it. The ease was still there that strange comfort of being seen but now it was weighted with everything unsaid, with six weeks of postcards and silence and fear.
"How was Europe?" Maya asked.
"Cold. Beautiful. Lonely." Ethan wrapped his hands around his coffee cup. "I kept seeing things and wanting to show you. Which was new. Usually I'm pretty content alone."
"Usually I am too."
"But not lately?"
Maya shook her head. "Not lately."
They talked for two hours. About his travels and her work, about Sienna's marriage and Marcus's new baby, about nothing important and everything that mattered. The café filled and emptied around them, and neither of them moved to leave.
"I have three weeks," Ethan said finally, as the afternoon light began to fade. "Before Thailand. I thought I don't know what I thought. That maybe we could see each other. As friends, if that's all you want. Or as"
"I don't know what I want," Maya interrupted, honest and terrified. "I know I'm glad you sent the postcards. I know I'm glad I'm here. But I also know I'm scared, Ethan. Really scared."
"Of me?"
"Of this. Of wanting something that can't last. Of you leaving in three weeks and me being" Her voice broke. "Alone again."
Ethan reached across the table, slowly, giving her time to pull back. She didn't. His hand covered hers, warm and solid and real.
"I can't promise forever," he said. "I can't even promise I won't leave in three weeks, because I will. That's my job, my life. But I can promise that if you give me these three weeks, I'll be completely here. Present. Honest. And we can figure out the rest as we go."
"That's not much of a promise."
"It's all I have."
Maya looked at their joined hands, at this man who'd traveled across the world and still thought about her, who sent postcards like breadcrumbs leading back to possibility.
She thought about her mother's voice: When are you going to take a risk?
She thought about Dr. Chen: Which risk can you live with?
She thought about herself, alone in her apartment, safe and stuck and slowly disappearing into her own fear.
"Okay," Maya whispered. "Three weeks."
Ethan's smile was sunrise-bright. "Yeah?"
"Yeah. But I need you to know I'm probably going to be difficult. I'm probably going to panic. I'm probably going to"
"I know," Ethan said gently. "I'm probably going to be all those things too. We can be a mess together."
Maya laughed, surprising herself. "We're definitely going to be a mess."
"The best kind."
They sat in the café until it closed, talking and not talking, holding hands across the table like teenagers, both terrified and both brave enough to try anyway.
When they finally left, stepping out into the November cold, Ethan turned to her. "Can I take you to dinner? Tomorrow?"
Maya's instinct was to say no, to keep this controlled and limited and safe. But she was tired of safe. Tired of small.
"Yes," she said. "Tomorrow."
Ethan kissed her cheek gentle, brief, a promise of more and walked away toward his car.
Maya stood on the sidewalk, watching him go, her heart pounding and her mind screaming warnings she was choosing to ignore.
Three weeks.
She could do three weeks.
Maybe.