The ninth call went straight to voicemail. I pressed redial again, my finger trembling against the screen. Rain tapped against the clinic window, blurring the city lights into streaks of gold and gray. The clerk gave me a pitying look. 'Your partner isn’t coming, is he?' I shook my head, clutching the marriage application like it might dissolve. I had waited six years for Xie Ling. Six years of late-night talks, whispered promises, dreams of white roses and spring weddings. And today—the one day it mattered—he was proposing to someone else.

I left the building without an umbrella. Let the rain wash this humiliation away. That’s when I saw him—He Yan—standing under a broken awning, holding two steaming paper cups. 'You look like you need tea,' he said. No smile. Just calm, dark eyes that seemed to already know my name. I almost walked past. But then he added, 'And you shouldn’t cry alone on a day like this.'

I took the tea. One small decision. One step off the path I’d planned. Now, months later, I’m married to him. And yesterday, I found a photo hidden in his old desk drawer—two children, hands clasped beneath a cherry tree. Me. And him. Together. Long before any of this began.