“Katie! For heaven’s sake, what’s going on?” Alex pressed her against the wall. Hed been waiting by the hospital entrance for over an hour.
“Alex, leave it,” she said quietly, finally meeting his eyes. “We shouldnt be together. Theres no future here. Dont look for meIve made up my mind.”
He was so stunned he couldnt speak. This wasnt the Katie he knew. She was cold, distant, untouchable. Her gaze belonged to a stranger. Before he could react, she slipped away without a backward glance.
Just a week earlier, hed been ready to propose. Hed been certain she was the onehis partner for life. Theyd spent two happy years together, the envy of their friends: a successful software architect and a sharp-witted surgical registrar. Everyone had pegged them for a solid marriage and bright future.
Then, without warning, it all collapsed.
Days before he planned to pop the question, Katie vanished. Her social media went dark, her messages unread. Alex called her friends, her father, anyone who might know where she was. The replies were vague: “She cant talk right now,” “Give her space.”
A week later, half-mad with confusion, he camped outside her hospital. And all he got was a cold, brutal dismissalno explanation, no closure. The worst part was the silence, the cruelty of someone hed once called his soulmate.
This wasnt like her.
***
Alex had grown up in a modest London terrace, the son of a literature teacher and an engineer. His childhood was built on books and logichis mother read him Asimov by the fire, while his father taught him to solve problems methodically. After university, he became a sought-after software architect, a man who believed even chaos could be untangled with the right algorithm.
His life was orderly: morning runs along the Thames, work in a sleek Shoreditch office, evenings cycling or climbing. He collected first-edition sci-fi novels and knew his Darjeeling from his Earl Grey. His loft was minimalistexposed brick, a high-end projector, stacks of books everywhere.
Katies arrival had been the one beautifully unpredictable thing in his structured world. Theyd met when his best mate was under her care after a biking accident.
Shed been raised under military disciplineher father, a retired colonel turned civil servant, had drilled resilience into her. At fifteen, shed lost her mother, an art historian, to cancer. Medicine became her rebellion against death. In the OR, she was ice-cool under pressure; outside it, she played Chopin on an old piano in her fathers crumbling countryside cottage, the only place she let herself unravel.
Their first date lasted hours. They started at a tech-art exhibition (where Alex showed off) and ended in a jazz bar (where Katie schooled him on its history). They bickered over Hitchcock vs. Kubrick, shared a love of black-and-white films, and spent Sundays sipping Colombian coffee on his windowsill, watching London wake up.
It was on one such morning that Alex knew he wanted forever. He commissioned a ringplatinum, with an emerald the colour of her eyes. The day before he was due to collect it, his perfect world cracked.
***
Katie hadnt seen it coming either.
After a gruelling surgery, two men in plain clothes intercepted her. “Dr. Harper, we need you to answer some questions.”
Her father was under investigation for procurement fraud. The detective knew about Alex. “Your boyfriends a public figure. If hes tied to this, his reputations toast. Ill bury him if I have to. Understand?”
Her choice was instant. To protect him, she had to vanishclean cut, no explanations. She shut down her emotions, the way she did in surgery. When Alex cornered her outside the hospital, she spoke like she would to a grieving relative: detached, final.
***
It took Alex two years to breathe again. He travelled, dated half-heartedly, pretended hed moved on. Then, at a work event, a text lit up his phone:
*”Alex, its Katie. I know Ive no right to reach out. But if youve a moment, may I call?”*
His pulse spiked. He stepped into the hotel conservatory and dialled.
She spilled everythingthe threats, her choice, her fear for him. Her voice, once so cold, now shook with tears. “I thought I was protecting you. I was wrong. I just needed you to know the truth.”
“You shouldve trusted me!” he burst out. “Wed have fought it together!”
“I couldnt risk you,” she whispered.
They met at their old café. Two years of hurt hung between them, but beneath it, he saw *her*not the ice queen whod left him, but the woman whod sacrificed everything for his sake.
They talked for hours. Not about *them*, but work, medicine, books. When they parted, he handed her a small packagea rare Asimov first edition shed once hunted for her father.
“Thank you,” she managed, clutching it.
He nodded. “How is he?”
“Cleared. Retired now. Coping.”
A pause. Then, tentatively: “Fancy a coffee sometime?”
She nodded, throat too tight to speak.
They walked awaybut this time, both glanced back. Their story wasnt over. It had just paused for two long years. Now, with wounds still tender but hope flickering, they had a chance to turn the page.
