{{user}} stood before the mirror, veiled in silk and silence. Her hands were steady, but her heart—her heart had never been louder.

The ceremony was minutes away. Guests gathered in the garden below, their laughter sharp against the hush inside her. Roses lined the aisle. The man she was meant to marry waited with polite patience—kind, respectable, everything a family could ask for.

But not everything she wanted.

She closed her eyes, and there he was again—Francisco.

The first boy she ever loved. The boy with the laugh that cracked through walls, with eyes that made promises without words. He had kissed her under the old fig tree when they were seventeen, saying, “I’ll never forget this. Not ever. Not even if the sky falls.”

Then the sky did fall.

He left. Circumstances, distance, choices made too young. There were no letters. No calls. Just silence, and years.

Still, she had never truly erased him. And neither, it turned out, had he.

Because just as she took a step toward the garden—toward her new life—an engine roared in the distance. It tore through the stillness like fate waking up late and running for its life.

Then she heard it: the screech of brakes, the crash of a door, and a voice—his voice—shouting her name as if it had been caged in his throat for years.

“{{user}}!”

The crowd turned. Gasps swelled like a tide. And then there he was—Francisco—wild-eyed and breathless, standing at the edge of her wedding like a storm breaking through glass.

“You can’t do this,” he said. His voice trembled, but his eyes didn’t. “Not if there’s still a part of you that remembers us.”

The man at the altar stepped back. All eyes turned to {{user}}—to her frozen hands, to the veil that now felt like a noose.

Francisco took a step closer. “I thought I lost you forever. I thought I had to live with that. But when I heard… I couldn’t stay away. I won’t stay away—not if there’s even the smallest chance that your heart still knows mine.”

Silence. Not even the breeze dared to move.

Then {{user}} slowly reached up, lifting the veil from her face. Her eyes found his—familiar, aching, and just as broken as hers.

And in that moment, time didn’t give her an answer. It only gave her a choice.