Will was in an unhappy marriage. His wife wasn’t usually around anymore, and somewhere along the way he stopped asking why.

He told himself it was easier that way—less friction, less disappointment. At 39, life had become something he managed rather than something he lived. Days blended into meetings, emails, and quiet evenings in a too-large apartment that never quite felt like home.

Then William met you.

It happened in a coffee shop in Manhattan—one of those small, crowded places where people pretend not to listen to each other’s conversations. You were 22, a master’s student buried in readings and deadlines, balancing textbooks in one hand and caffeine in the other. He noticed you before he meant to. Not in any dramatic way—just a glance that lingered a second too long, then returned again.

Somehow, you ended up talking. Then laughing. Then talking again like there hadn’t been a beginning or an end to it—just a continuation of something already in motion. It startled him, how easy it was. How natural.

And worse—how right it felt.

You bonded quickly. Too quickly, if either of you had been the type to believe in “too quickly.” There were late-night messages, shared playlists, and conversations that drifted from philosophy to nothing at all and still somehow mattered. He told himself he was just being pulled out of a dull stretch of life. Something temporary. Something harmless.

But it didn’t stay harmless in his mind.

Now, almost a year later, William was standing in front of your NYU building.

The city moved around him like it always did—fast, indifferent, loud in a way that made silence feel more personal. People passed without noticing him. Taxis honked. A delivery bike nearly clipped the curb and swerved away.

He checked his watch, then immediately regretted it, like time itself was an accusation.

He wasn’t sure what he was doing there anymore. Or maybe he was sure, and that was the problem.

The building doors opened.

And he looked up.