THE CHOICE
I was ready to let her go.
I'd convinced myself it was the right thing. The kind thing, even. She needed to figure out her own mess before she could be with anyone. I needed to protect what was left of my carefully constructed peace.
Then the exes started appearing.
I heard them before I saw them—a commotion outside, voices overlapping, someone yelling about cosmic vibrations (Greg, obviously, the man was nothing if not consistent). I looked out the window and saw her.
Diane. Surrounded by what looked like every man she'd ever considered dating, all of them clamoring for her attention. There was a teenager in a powder-blue polo. A man in neon workout gear doing something with a Rubik's cube. Greg, of course, resplendent in leisure-suited glory.
It was, objectively, the most ridiculous thing I'd ever seen.
My first thought:Of course. Of course she brought an entourage.
My second thought:She came back. After everything I said. She came back.
I opened the door. Said something cutting about the company she was keeping. Waited for her to make excuses, to explain, to run.
She didn't run.
She said: "EVERYONE STOP."
And they did. Even I stopped—stopped breathing, stopped thinking, stopped everything except watching this woman who had spent her whole life keeping doors open finally, finally decide to walk through one.
"I choose you," she said.
My heart stopped.
"Not because you make the phone stop buzzing. Not because you're safe—you're not safe, you're terrifying, you're the scariest thing that's happened to me in years."
Terrifying.She thinks I'm terrifying. I own an antique shop and drink tea. I'm about as terrifying as a disgruntled librarian.
"I choose you because you see me. The real me. The scared, commitment-phobic mess who's been running from everything for five years. And instead of accepting that, you demanded I be better."
She was walking toward me now, through the crowd of exes, her eyes locked on mine.
"I choose you because when I'm with you, I don't want to run. And that's never happened before. Not once. Not with anyone."
Behind her, I could see them all—Greg with his mix tape, the teenager with his corsage, the Rubik's cube guy, a dozen others whose names I'd never know. Every option the universe had thrown at her, assembled on my sidewalk like the world's worst reunion.
"I choose you, Marcus Chen. Not as an option. Not as a maybe. As the only door I want to walk through." She took a breath. "If you'll have me."
Silence.
I thought about Sarah. About the promise I'd made her—to keep living. To not just shut down.
I'd been breaking that promise for two years.
Maybe it was time to start keeping it.
"The shop is closed," I said.
Her face fell. She thought I was rejecting her.
"Which means everyone needs to LEAVE. NOW."
And they started to fade.
