“We’ll figure it out.”
“It might stretch us thin.”
He smiled gently. “We’ve survived worse.”
She accepted.
Life became a blur of meetings and missed dinners.
Theo once asked, “Is Marina coming tonight?”
Ryan didn’t always know the answer.
The night she missed Theo’s school play, something shifted.
“I need to know,” Ryan said carefully later, “if we fit into your life long-term.”
She didn’t cry because he was cruel.
She cried because he wasn’t.
“I’ve been waiting for you to leave,” she admitted. “Since day one.”
He crouched in front of her chair.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
The Unexpected Turn
Four months later, scaffolding collapsed at one of Ryan’s renovation sites.
Marina reached the hospital trembling.
“He kept asking for you,” the nurse said.
Ryan lay pale against white sheets, his right leg stabilized in braces.
“There’s significant damage,” the surgeon explained. “Full recovery is uncertain.”
Marina stared at the metal supports.
For years, she feared being the burden.
Now he might face limitations of his own.
When he woke, groggy, his first question was, “Theo okay?”
“Yes.”
“And my leg?”
She squeezed his hand. “It may never be the same.”
Silence.
Then he exhaled slowly. “Guess we’ll accessorize together.”