"I thought about it this morning," she said, her voice drifting as if she were tracing the contours of a memory. "After the test..."
"While the world was still quiet and the realization was just... sitting there."
"I thought about all the years I spent waiting for the 'right' circumstances... waiting for a season that felt safe."
"And then, just as the circumstances started moving in a direction I didn't choose, in a direction that felt chaotic and heavy... this happened."
She turned her gaze to him, her eyes searching his for a reaction she couldn't quite name. "That's strange, isn't it?"
"To have the most beautiful thing arrive right when everything else feels like it's shifting under your feet."
"Life has notoriously poor timing," Mike said, his voice a low, smooth anchor in the emotional swell of the room.
"Very poor," she agreed with a bittersweet smile. "But here it is anyway..."
"It doesn't care about the timing."
