Audrey leans into my shoulder. “You’re quiet.”
“I’m always quiet.”
“Quieter than usual quiet.” She tilts her head to look at me. “Where’d you go?”
Nowhere, I want to say. I’m right here. That’s the remarkable thing.
I’ve spent most of my life feeling like I was observing from behind glass—present but not participating, analyzing but not experiencing. Social situations were puzzles to be solved, conversations were algorithms to be optimized, and connectionwas something other people seemed to do effortlessly while I stood on the outside, trying to figure out an in.
But right now, with her warmth against my side and the sound of our friends arguing about whether Michaela can legally be a flower girl at multiple weddings, I don’t feel like I’m observing.
I feel like I’m home.
“I was just thinking,” I say slowly, “about probability.”
“Of course you were.” She’s smiling. “What kind of probability?”
“The kind that involves finding someone whose weird matches your weird.” I turn to face her fully. “The statistical likelihood of that is vanishingly small. And yet.”
“And yet?”
“Here you are.”
Her expression softens. “Here I am.”
I don’t say the rest. I don’t tell her that somewhere between the dolphin presentation and the breadstick architecture, something clicked into place. A decision I didn’t know I was making until it was already made.
I’m going to ask her to marry me.
Not tonight. Not with an audience. Not without a ring and a plan and an entire research project comparing proposal locations and optimal timing.
But I’m going to marry her.
Because she’s not just someone I want to be with. She’s the person who makes being myself feel like enough. The person who looks at my weird and raises me her own. The person who makes this room full of noise and chaos feel like somewhere I actually want to be.
She’s my forever human.
The phrase surfaces from somewhere deep, a term I don’t remember learning but that fits perfectly. Not soulmate—tooimprecise. Not partner—too clinical. Forever human. The one person whose presence makes all the other humans bearable. The anchor in every room. The constant in every equation.
“Logan?” She’s looking at me curiously, and I realize I’m grinning. I probably look like a golden retriever who’s just been told ‘walk.’ It’s embarrassing, but I can’t stop.
“Hmm?” I ask, taking her hand. “Did I miss something?”
“Not really. You were just looking at me like you’re solving a very complicated equation.”
“Maybe I am.”
“And? What’s the solution?”
I kiss her forehead, which is not something I normally do in public, but the math supports it.
“You,” I say simply. “The solution is always you.”
CHAPTER 30
Logan
The simulation has been running for six hours without a single anomaly.
