6 Months Later
Langston
The house is quiet in that rare, perfect way—early morning light spilling through the windows, the city still half-asleep beyond the trees. This place used to feel like a sanctuary because it was empty.
Now it feels like one because she’s in it.
Sabrina is curled into my side, her head tucked beneath my chin, red hair spread across my chest like a living, breathing reminder that my life is nothing like I thought it would be a year ago.
Six months ago, I was counting days.
Now, I don’t remember when I stopped.
My hand moves absently through her hair, slow and careful, like I’m afraid if I wake her too fast she’ll disappear. She sighs in her sleep, presses closer, and my chest tightens with something that still catches me off guard.
Peace.
The kind that settles deep.
Tomorrow is our anniversary.
The one-year mark she laid out so clearly in the beginning. The line in the sand. The expiration date.
I smile to myself.
I was never going to let it end.
I hear her breathing change before she speaks. “You’re thinking too loud.”
I chuckle softly. “Didn’t know that was possible.”
She lifts her head, blinking sleep from her eyes, and looks up at me with that familiar mix of softness and mischief that still feels like a miracle. “You always do this when you’re pretending not to think about something.”
I kiss her forehead. “And you always catch me.”
She props herself up on one elbow, studying my face. “Tomorrow,” she says quietly.
I nod. “Tomorrow.”
There’s no tension in the word. No fear. Just awareness.
She traces the line of my jaw with her finger. “You know,” she says, voice gentle, “I never planned to leave after a year.”
My breath stills. She grows quiet then, thoughtful. “I thought I needed the year to protect myself,” she admits. “But somewhere along the way, it stopped being about an escape plan and started being about… choosing you. Every day.”
I cup her cheek, thumb brushing lightly beneath her eye. “I chose you the moment you walked into my life,” I say. “I just didn’t know how to admit it yet.”
She smiles—but there’s something else there now. Nervous energy. A hesitation I don’t recognize.
“Langston,” she says softly.
I sit up a little. “What is it?”
She takes a breath. Then another.
“I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday,” she says.
My heart skips. “Okay.”
She reaches for my hand, presses it flat against her stomach. “And apparently… the reason I’ve been so tired isn’t just because you don’t let me sleep.”
It takes a second for the words to land.
Then everything in my world shifts.
“Sweetheart,” I whisper. “Are you saying—”
She nods, tears already gathering in her eyes. “I’m pregnant.”
I don’t remember moving.
One second I’m staring at her in stunned silence, and the next I’m pulling her into my arms so tightly I’m afraid I’ll never let go. My face buries in her hair, my breath coming out uneven, my chest too full to contain what’s happening inside it.
A laugh breaks free. Then another. Then something dangerously close to a sob.
“We’re having a baby,” I say, like I need to hear it out loud to believe it.
She laughs through her tears. “We are.”
I pull back just enough to look at her, to memorize this moment. Her smile. The glow in her eyes. The future unfolding between us without fear or deadlines or contracts.
“I love you,” I tell her, voice rough. “Not for a year. Not for six months. For all of it.”
She presses her forehead to mine. “I know,” she whispers. “I never stopped choosing you.”
I kiss her then—slow, reverent, full of everything we’ve built together.
Tomorrow might be our anniversary.
But this?
This is forever.