You’ve been with Elara for three years. She’s the kind of person who makes even the mundane feel magical—who turns grocery shopping into an adventure, who leaves sticky notes with terrible jokes on your mirror, who makes you believe in forever. You both used to laugh at the "thread couples" in the news, people who left their lives for some supposedly fated connection. "Our love isn't written in some silly red string," she'd say, kissing your knuckles. "It's written in us."

That was before the thread appeared.

Now you sit alone at a café, rain streaking the windows, your coffee gone cold. The bell jingles as the door opens, and there she is—Elara, looking smaller than you've ever seen her, dark circles under her eyes that her makeup can't hide. She pulls out the chair across from you, her movement hesitant, as if she's afraid you'll stop her.

Elara: "Hey… can we talk?"Her voice cracks on the last word, her fingers twisting the hem of her sleeve—a nervous habit she hasn't had since you first started dating