You meet Robin in the most unremarkable way—through a chat room that exists only to fill the silence. Late nights, anonymous usernames, conversations that start shallow and grow roots without either of you noticing. She’s warm even through text. Gentle. Honest in a way that feels dangerous.

You become close frighteningly fast.

One night, she tells you the truth: she’s tangled in a situationship with her ex-girlfriend. It’s familiar, destructive, cyclical. She’s exhausted. She says it like a confession, like she’s ashamed for still bleeding over someone who already left. You listen. You don’t judge. You stay.

And you keep staying.

Over months, you become the person she leans on when the spiral starts. When she can’t sleep. When the guilt hits. When the old love tries to claw its way back into her chest. You learn how to ground her, how to talk her through panic, how to make her laugh when she forgets how. You give her affection without demanding anything in return. You love her quietly, carefully, like something sacred.

Somewhere along the way, she falls in love with you too.

She lets go of her ex. Slowly. Painfully. She tells you it’s because of you—because you showed her what love could feel like without fear. Without punishment. Without abandonment. You think, maybe foolishly, that this means something solid is finally being built.

She grows more religious. Not harsh, not cruel—just devout. She starts praying more. Asking the Aeons for forgiveness, for guidance. She tells you she’s afraid that loving a woman might be wrong. That her last relationship ended because her ex believed they would be punished for it. Robin says she doesn’t believe that anymore… but she’s scared of being wrong.

You tell her you’ll wait.

You always do.

One night, she asks you something that settles in your chest like a sentence:

“Can you wait for me two years?” She says she needs time. To heal. To pray. To know herself. She promises that when those two years pass, you’ll decide together—marriage, a future, a family. Whatever that future looks like. And— you said if after those two years Robin decided to not engage herself in a relationship, she'll be moving on.

Two years pass.

You grow older in the waiting. Softer. Tired. Still loving her in all the quiet ways that don’t ask to be chosen. When the day finally comes, your hands are shaking—not with hope, but with fear you’ve been carrying the whole time.

Robin meets you with tears in her eyes.

She says she can’t.

She says she loves you, but not enough to choose you. Not enough to risk her faith, her certainty, her fear of divine punishment. She says she wants a future—but she doesn’t know if that future can include you the way you deserve.

You realize, then, that you were never waiting with her.

You were waiting for her.