The air in the little corner café smelled like cinnamon and burnt espresso. Talia liked it that way—warm, imperfect, real. The kind of place where mismatched mugs lived on wooden shelves and indie playlists hummed softly beneath the chatter of strangers.
She was sitting at their usual table, legs tucked beneath her, scribbling in her battered notebook. Not for school. Not this time.
Ezra arrived late, slightly breathless, his curls damp from the rain. He had two coffees in hand and a muffin squished from being carried in his coat pocket.
"You're a disaster," she grinned, accepting the coffee.
"You love it."
"I do."
He sat down across from her and peered at the notebook. "What's that?"
She hesitated, then turned the page toward him.
"Things We Should Do Before We're Doctors"
Ezra's brows rose as he read the messy bullet points:
Watch the sunrise after a 24-hour shift.
Take a spontaneous road trip with no GPS.
Dance in the middle of the street at 2 a.m.
Say "I love you" in front of people.
Fight and not go to bed angry.
Get lost in a foreign city.
Adopt a cat. Or a plant. Something living.
Learn each other's worst fears—and love them anyway.
Sleep in on a weekday.
Be stupidly happy. Just because.
He looked up slowly.
"You wrote this for us?"
She nodded. "I've spent so much of my life being independent. Always controlling things. Always afraid of needing someone too much. But... I need you, Ezra. I need this. So I made a list. Not of big things. Just... moments I don't want to miss because I was too busy being scared."
Ezra didn't speak right away. He just took the notebook, flipped to a blank page at the back, and began writing.
"My Additions"
Kiss her in every hospital elevator.
Tell her she's beautiful when she's exhausted.
Leave love notes in her lab coat.
Laugh even when the day is unbearable.
Say "yes" before I feel ready.
Let her see me cry.
Apologize first.
Never let her forget that she changed my life.
Talia's heart cracked open a little more with each line.
"You're such a sap," she whispered, eyes burning.
"I know."
They spent the rest of the afternoon there—scribbling, talking, sharing pieces of themselves they'd hidden away in the chaos of ambition. Ezra told her about the first time he saw her, how he thought she was so out of his league he almost dropped out of anatomy lab. She told him about her childhood, about the walls she built because nobody ever stayed.
Later that night, after too many fries and a walk in the cold, they lay tangled in blankets on the floor of their apartment. The bed was too far. The moment too perfect.
Ezra rested his head on her stomach, and Talia toyed with his curls, quiet for a long time.
Then she said, "You know... if you asked me now, I think I'd say yes."
His breath caught.
"Ask you what?"
Talia smiled down at him. "Don't play dumb. You know."
Ezra sat up slowly, heart thudding. "Are you serious?"
"I think I am."
He scrambled up, reached for the drawer where he kept the box, then paused. His hand hovered, hesitant.
"No," she said, standing. "Not like this."
Ezra blinked. "What?"
"I don't want a rushed almost-proposal in our socks-and-pizza apartment," she teased. "You get one chance, Ezra. And when you ask me, I want to remember every second. I want to cry for real, not because I'm overtired and hormonal. I want it to feel like the moment you deserve."
He laughed, pulling her into his arms. "You're impossible."
"But you love me anyway."
"So much it's stupid."
They kissed there, in the middle of their living room, surrounded by textbooks and mismatched mugs, laundry half-folded and hearts wholly open.
And though there was no ring on her finger yet, it didn't matter.
They were already building the kind of forever that didn't need a ceremony to be real.