The question hung in the air like a fragile light.
"Would you like to go out with me sometime?"
Alina had spoken the words gently, as if she wasn't sure she had the right to them—but the look in her eyes said everything. She wasn't running anymore. Not from him, not from herself. She was standing there, her guard lowered just enough to let him see the person beneath the silence.
Eli blinked. For a moment, time slowed. He had imagined this moment—dreamt of it, written about it, whispered it in his head—but hearing it in her voice, from her lips, wrapped in that soft hesitation, made it more real than he could've ever prepared for.
He stepped forward, the distance between them folding like paper.
"Alina," he said, voice deep and warm, "you have no idea how many pages I've filled waiting for that question."
She laughed lightly, a little breathless. "I thought you'd be the one to ask."
"I was going to," he confessed. "I've just... never wanted to get something so right before."
She looked at him, really looked, and in his eyes she saw something raw—something that didn't just want her, but deeply valued her.
Eli took another step closer, his voice lowering.
"I want to say yes," he whispered. "Not just to going out with you. I want to say yes to every moment that lets me be near you. To the silences. To the glances. To watching how your smile starts on the left side before the right catches up."
Alina's eyes shimmered, and she covered her mouth with her hand for a second, overwhelmed. "You notice that?"
He nodded. "I notice everything about you."
The bookstore around them faded into a quiet hum, nothing but the soft ticking of the wall clock and the breathing between two hearts.
She tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear again—a nervous habit he'd learned to love—and whispered, "So... is that a yes?"
Eli leaned in just slightly, enough to keep their hearts suspended in the same beat.
"Yes," he said. "A thousand times yes."
Alina smiled, the kind that reached all the places inside her that had once felt broken. "Okay."
They stood there for a moment longer, nothing else needing to be said. Just the nearness of each other was enough.
Then Eli tilted his head, curious. "So... are you asking me to coffee? Dinner? A walk?"
She grinned. "I don't know. Maybe all three?"
He laughed. "Dangerous offer. I'm the kind who might want all three to last forever."
Alina didn't pull away from that thought. She simply looked at him like he was already becoming something she couldn't imagine leaving behind.
"I'm willing to take that risk," she said.
He offered his hand, not rushed, just steady.
"Then let's take it slow," he said. "But together."
She placed her hand in his.
Outside, the sky was still grey. But somehow, it felt like the first clear day.
---
That evening, Eli sat in his small room, pen in hand, eyes still holding the reflection of her smile. He opened his journal and wrote:
She didn't arrive like a storm. She unfolded like morning light— soft, unnoticed, until suddenly nothing felt cold anymore.
---
Alina, curled on her couch, her hands wrapped around the memory of his hand, leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
For the first time in her life, she didn't wonder what came next with fear.
She wondered with hope.
And that hope had a name.