The question came on an ordinary Sunday.
That was how Issa knew it mattered.
They were sitting on the living room floor, takeout containers scattered between them, a documentary playing softly in the background—neither of them really watching it. Max leaned back against the couch, Issa curled beside him, her head resting against his shoulder.
"Do you ever think about what comes next?" Max asked, casually—but not carelessly.
Issa lifted her head to look at him. "Next how?"
"Life," he said. "Not in a dramatic way. Just… the shape of it."
She considered that. Once, questions like that would have filled her with panic. She would've wondered who would leave first, who would grow quieter, who would stop choosing.
Now, she felt something steadier.
"I think about it," she said. "But I don't feel like I have to solve it all at once."
He smiled faintly. "I like that answer."
Later that evening, they walked through the neighborhood, streetlights flickering on one by one. The air was cool, carrying the scent of rain and distant food trucks.
"I used to be afraid of planning," Max admitted. "It felt like promising something I might not know how to keep."
Issa slipped her hand into his. "And now?"
"Now I know plans aren't guarantees," he said. "They're intentions."
She squeezed his hand. "That's exactly how I see it."
They stopped at a corner where the city opened up—lights stretching outward, endless and alive.
"I want a future where we talk," Max said. "Even when it's uncomfortable. Especially then."
Issa's throat tightened—not from fear, but from recognition. "I want that too."
That night, Issa dreamed—not of the past, not of letters or goodbyes—but of rooms filled with light. Conversations that didn't trail off. A life where she wasn't bracing for silence.
When she woke, Max was already awake, watching her.
"You look like you were somewhere nice," he said.
"I was," she replied. "I think I'm already there."
He leaned in and kissed her forehead. "Good. I don't want us to live in almosts."
"Neither do I," she said. "I'm done with quiet love."
Later that day, Issa returned to her notebook—the new one, the one without ghosts.
She wrote:
The future doesn't scare me anymore.
Because I'm not walking toward it alone.
And because I know how to speak, even when my voice shakes.
She closed the notebook and set it aside.
The letters had once held her pain.
Now, her life held her words.
And as Issa stepped back into the room where Max waited, smiling like someone who had learned how to stay, she knew this chapter wasn't about endings or beginnings.
It was about continuity.
About choosing each other—not once, not dramatically—
but every day.