The hospital waiting room was cold in a way that no sweater could fix.
Yuna sat quietly, hands folded over her lap, the familiar fluorescent buzz overhead humming like a dull migraine. She knew the nurses by name now. Knew which days the old elevator got stuck. Knew the scent of antiseptic and old coffee better than she ever wanted to.
Mark didn't know about this place.
She had never brought him here. Not in the early days when things were vague, nor in the later ones when things had names clinical, sterile names that made it hard to breathe.
He thought she was working late today.
Technically, she was working to keep the illusion together. To keep him from worrying. To keep the challenge from becoming something heavy, something final.
But the truth weighed on her every day.
She closed her eyes and let herself drift for just a moment back to the river park, to Mark's laugh as he pointed at the magician dog, to the way his eyes softened when she picked up her pencil again. He still loved her. She could feel it in the way he looked at her when he thought she wasn't watching.
But love had never been the problem.
Time was.
The doctor called her name.
She stood, her legs steady, though her heart wasn't. Each appointment was like holding her breath. Hoping. Preparing. Pretending.
Later That Night
Mark was already home when she walked in. The TV was playing some random sci-fi movie, and he looked half-asleep with a blanket around his shoulders and his head tilted back.
"You're home late," he murmured, glancing at the clock.
Yuna set her bag down carefully, toeing off her shoes with practiced ease. "Yeah. Sorry. Traffic was awful."
He didn't press, just nodded and patted the spot next to him on the couch. She hesitated for half a beat, then joined him.
They sat in silence for a while. His arm was warm against hers, the glow from the screen painting shadows on their faces.
"You okay?" he asked eventually.
Yuna forced a smile. "Yeah. Just tired."
Mark studied her for a moment. She knew he could sense the shift. He was intuitive like that. But he wouldn't ask. Not tonight.
She leaned her head on his shoulder. "What's happening in the movie?"
"Aliens," he said simply.
"Are they the good guys or the bad guys?"
He tilted his head. "I think they're just... trying to get home."
She smiled. "Aren't we all?"
He turned to look at her then really look and for a second, Yuna thought he might say something. Might ask. Might press just a little harder.
But he didn't.
Instead, he reached for her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.
And she held on tighter than she meant to.
Unspoken Thoughts
88 days left.
That was the number circling in her head like a clock winding down.
Eighty-eight days to let him remember the best of them.
Eighty-eight days to unbreak a bond she had once thought would last forever.
Eighty-eight days to prepare him for what she hadn't yet found the strength to say aloud.
Yuna sat on the edge of her bed, the apartment quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator down the hall. Mark was asleep in the other room or pretending to be. Either way, the weight between them had grown heavier these past few nights.
She reached for the small drawer in the nightstand.
It creaked when it opened, just slightly, and for a second she paused, as if afraid even the noise would betray her.
Inside were a few folded papers, a worn notebook, and three envelopes. Each addressed, but blank inside.
She hadn't written a word yet. Not one.
And yet, the act of sealing them of naming them felt like an admission.
One she wasn't ready to make.
Her fingers hovered over the third envelope: Mark.
She pulled her hand back like it burned.
Outside, the city was falling asleep. The night blinked quietly through the blinds. Yuna got up, walked over to the window, and opened it just enough to feel the chill.
The breeze caught the edge of a curtain. It fluttered softly, like a breath.
She closed her eyes.
Her body ached not in any specific way, but in that deep, slow kind of tired that doesn't quite go away. The kind she didn't mention. The kind she kept smiling through.
Mark had noticed, she knew. He wasn't blind. He'd asked once just once if everything was okay. She'd smiled. Lied. Said she was just stressed. Work. Sleep. Hormones.
He hadn't pushed.
She both loved and hated him for that.
Across the hall, she heard movement.
Soft footsteps. A glass placed on the counter. The sound of Mark living just a few feet away, completely unaware of the storm she was keeping at bay.
She wondered if he ever stayed up at night thinking about it.
The distance. The quiet. The rules.
If he ever regretted saying yes to this challenge.
Because she didn't.
Not even for a second.
It was a selfish ask she knew that.
But if these were the last days she could spend with him real days, not ones filled with pity, or worry, or hospital visits then she wanted them.
She needed them.
Even if she never found the courage to say why.
Mark had always believed there were two types of silence.
The kind that wrapped around you like a blanket soft, safe, necessary.
And the kind that crept in between words, between glances. The kind that scratched at your chest when no one was looking.
Lately, Yuna's silence felt like the second kind.
It started small.
She'd fall asleep in odd places. On the couch. At the table. Once, in the bathtub with the water long gone cold. Her appetite had changed. Her moods, too not sharp or angry, just... hollowed out.
She smiled, but it never quite reached her eyes.
Mark noticed. He noticed everything. He always had.
But he didn't ask right away.
Part of him was scared to know the answer.
They were folding laundry when he tried again.
"Hey," he said, carefully. "You've been kind of... quiet lately."
Yuna glanced at him, then back at the towel she was folding. "Just tired."
"You're always tired."
She offered a half-smile. "You're always worried."
He didn't smile back.
"I mean it," he said. "Are you okay?"
Yuna's hands paused, just briefly. Then she reached for another shirt and said, "We have, what, 70-something days left? Can we just... not overthink things?"
Mark nodded slowly. "Sure."
But something cold settled in his stomach.
It wasn't just about tiredness.
It wasn't about work. Or stress.
It felt like she was keeping something from him. Something big.
That night, he lay awake long after she'd fallen asleep. The room was quiet except for the ticking clock on the wall and the sound of her breathing soft, steady, distant.
He watched her, trying to memorize everything: the shape of her lips, the small scar on her cheekbone, the way her hand curled beneath her chin like a child's.
There was something in the way she slept now.
Like someone running out of time.
He reached for his phone, opened his Notes app, and typed a single line:
Ask her again. Don't let her lie next time.
He saved it, then turned off the screen and slipped it under his pillow like a secret promise.
Elsewhere, in a drawer she thinks he never checks, he notices something he wasn't meant to see the next morning.
A folded envelope with his name on it.
Unsealed. Empty.
For now.
He doesn't open it. Doesn't ask.
But the feeling doesn't leave him.
Something was coming.
And this time, it might not be something they could talk their way through.