It was a coffee morning. The same street Richard walked daily was flooded by people marching to their workplaces — their assigned destinations in life — and he was different, not one of them.
Richard had a philosophy he believed in completely: live in the present. No goals, no legacy, no fame, no grind, just modest work, a good cup of coffee, some news, and maybe a pretty face to meet. Not to waste life on struggle, toiling and pursuit of something that was never guaranteed anyway.
Although blessed with high intellect as per the IQ test he once conducted randomly with his friends, he didn't give any thought to using that sharp mind for anything serious. When mathematics, science and history came to him, he passed with bare minimum preparation just to get passing marks, left the paper without an ounce of interest in those subjects, and went ahead with his merry life.
The days were simple with a self-made American Psycho version routine: brushing teeth until they were clean as white mint, adjusting hair at micro level to mirror the latest pop star trending that month, selecting clothes according to the latest fashion from the top three magazines he skimmed through, applying perfume at the perfect concentration so the scent was pleasant rather than overpowering. Then the same workout — ten pullups, three minute planks, twenty minutes of jogging, fifteen minutes of stretching — after which his day began.
He was young, a discounted version of Tom Cruise and Leonardo DiCaprio combined, running on the basic mammalian programme of eating, sleeping, doing his job and most importantly enjoying his life. This was his definition of life. No goals, no ambitions, no targets, no five year plans. No thanks.
Then the cosmic destiny nonsense he had once read about on a blog — the kind that operates by tearing other people's lives apart — started its operation on him.
There was a storm coming. A storm that would change his life and tear it into shreds. It arrived when he met her. Jessica Walters.
She was just too pretty. Serving margherita pizza on a Sunday at Saint Jose Pizza Station — his regular go-to place — like some Italian fiesta you see in telenovelas. Her eyes and smile kept coming back into his mind even when he tried to distract himself. Her face, her hair arranged in a bun, her pleasant smile had lodged somewhere in him and refused to leave. That smile was an inexplicable phenomenon that deserved to be captured and photo framed.
He had a rule when it came to relationships, one he had adhered to his entire adult life: enjoy it, end it, find another girl. Never — and he meant never — commit. No feelings, no emotions, no entanglements.
Damn. There went the commitment. His earlier conviction collapsed into dirt without any fight.
Falling in love was a one way street for him, and he wanted a great start. The investigation — as he privately called it — involved charming her colleagues and friends at the workplace, gathering information about her, whether she was seeing someone, her likes and dislikes, what made her laugh, what she hated and believed in. It was his first real attempt to genuinely know someone he wanted to be with, something that seemed more worthwhile than anything else he had attempted in his life.
She was from NYC, working as a waitress at Saint Jose Pizza Station. The waitress job was a part time gig — in the words of her colleagues: "Aspiring writer looking forward to become the next J.K. Rowling." Just another dreamer in the city, they figured, and quietly pitied her.
Richard didn't think like them. He admired her dreams.
Then she came toward him with that star-studded smile, her hair puffed back into a bun with curls gently framing her face.
"May I get a slice of margherita," he requested in a polite tone. She nodded professionally and brought the order.
He continued the interaction — how was the day, the weather, a new film. Then slowly it grew warmer: "There's a horror movie I've been wanting to see — want to come?" Then the next visit: "There's a new restaurant opening nearby, want to try it together?" He was building moments with her, getting closer, creating the conditions for something real.
The horror movie was genuinely terrifying in the way Hollywood rarely manages — proper jump scares, perfect pacing, the kind of scary that makes you grab the nearest arm. She grabbed his at the ghost scene. He held it. She didn't let go. After the movie came the move, the proposal. She accepted it with a beaming smile.
Then came the first date — dinner at a new Italian restaurant that spoke "elite" and "posh" in a language neither of them could quite afford. The second date was Central Park, by mutual agreement: cheap pizzas, sitting in the garden, chatting about random trivia, the latest gossip, world events. She would now and then reveal a plot line from her story, a possible twist she was wondering about, watching his face to see if it landed.
Jessica laughed at his jokes and made jokes that ambushed him completely. He had never met someone genuinely funnier than himself. He hadn't known that was possible.
At the back of his mind, quietly, the thought formed: I want to spend the rest of my life with her.
They were just right together. The romantic story had no pauses — the great dinners, the trips to nearby states that became their tradition, the life that felt like one long film that nobody wanted to end. The relationship progressed: the meeting with his parents, who treated Jessica's existence as something close to a holy miracle; the meeting with her parents, who accepted him with the cautious warmth of people who had heard about him in advance and decided to give him a chance.
Then months passed, and years, and then it was their fifth anniversary. He had lived differently in those five years than in everything before them. The laughs, the smiles, the awkward moments were the defining memories of his life. Then came the move — he offered, she agreed, and she moved in, a step that should have terrified a commitment-phobic like him but felt, in practice, like a breeze. There were adjustments, accommodations, the small negotiations of two lives becoming one. She fit into his life like a missing piece of a jigsaw puzzle he hadn't known was incomplete.
He would watch her sometimes — twirling her hair, chewing her pen, randomly scribbling in her manuscript — and read over her shoulder when she'd let him, following the plot changes and character decisions in the novel that would, he was certain, be published one day. He knew it from the way she wrote. He knew it from the way she was.
I will spend the rest of my life with her, he thought, watching her one evening. No asterisk. No conditions.
But now…
Turns out good things don't last forever. She was fine one moment and on the floor the next, collapsed in front of him.
He rushed forward and grabbed her in his arms, his heartbeat racing, blood rushing, screaming her name. "Jessica! Are you okay!" Seeing her unresponsive he carried her to the Uber he'd already called, and got her to the hospital.
He watched the doctor's lips moving. No words were reaching him. He was in shock. The only terms that broke through were: rare. Untreatable. Pain management. Cost.
Jessica was dying. A rare, untreatable disease. What remained was pain management, drugs to sustain her life a little longer. That was all the doctor was offering.
She looked at him from the hospital bed. "Leave me to my own."
"Never." He rushed forward and hugged her tightly, as if she would disappear the moment he let go.
"It's easier," she said, trying to hold back her tears.
Her parents blacked out on hearing the news. As days passed, the smile that had been his regular dose of sunshine was replaced with sadness and gloom, a shadow where her face used to be. Her body grew weaker each day.
Then came the hospital bills. The insurance didn't cover the disease. He sold the house — with Jessica's knowledge — to pay for the medicines.
He had never felt the importance of money before. Now he understood it with the particular cruelty of a lesson learned too late. If he'd been a billionaire, she could live longer. That thought sat in him like a stone.
The money from the house didn't last. Jessica's parents staked their own savings. He took loans that would take a lifetime to repay, but knowing each one bought a few more moments with her, he borrowed gladly — from friends, teachers, ex-girlfriends who gave out of pity and residual affection. He launched a support campaign, and the money kept coming in, a drizzle against the ever-rising hospital bills. He knew it would end.
Despite her tantrums and denials, he kept visiting with flowers, story books and plot ideas for her novel. She took them solemnly. She smiled sometimes, reminiscent of something, and he held onto each smile like it was melting ice cream.
She will die. The idea haunted him. The dreams of marriage and children had faded. He was collapsing from inside. He could not move on, as his friends, colleagues and even his parents advised. Jessica was the one thing that mattered. His love.
The bank balance reached zero on a Thursday morning in November. His earnings barely covered his loan repayments. He increased his shifts, worked himself to exhaustion, stopped receiving loans from the bank. His friends gradually stopped answering and blocked his calls.
He watched her getting ready to die. His prayers, his effort — all futile. He collapsed on his knees in the hospital corridor, nothing left to hold himself upright with, as if begging whatever entity existed to give him more time with her.
He felt a hand on his shoulder.
He looked up and saw a cold-faced man with a stoic expression, dressed in a black suit that looked like it had been tailored in a different century. The man offered his hand to help him up.
"I overheard some rambling about more time," the man said. He looked at Richard with a devilish grin stretching across his face. Around them, Richard felt time stop. People froze mid-step.
"I have a proposition," the man continued, the faintest smile crossing his face, "that I think you'll find very interesting."
Richard stared at him. "What kind of proposition?"
The man's grin widened.
"The deal of a lifetime, kid."