Chapter 19: From Moments to Forever

It's funny how life can change without you even realizing it. One minute, you're trying to piece together your own feelings, not even sure where to begin, and the next, you're sitting next to someone, their hand in yours, and you're not worried about anything. Not about the past, not about the future. Just about this moment, right now.

I guess that's how I felt with Amir now. It had been a few months since we first started really seeing each other, and I couldn't believe how much we'd been through. How much I had been through. I used to think about love like it was supposed to come with all this dramatic, perfect stuff—like we were supposed to ride off into the sunset. But now, with Amir, love was more like those quiet moments together, the small things we did for each other without thinking about it. Love was in the way his voice softened when he said my name. It was in the way we could be silent together without it feeling awkward.

It felt easy now, being with him. It didn't mean we were perfect, though. Amir still had his moments, times when he would retreat inside himself and I knew he was struggling. He'd never completely opened up about his past—not the way I hoped he would—but it wasn't something I forced him to do. He'd talk when he was ready. I just had to be patient.

And sometimes, when the world got too loud, we didn't even need to talk. We'd just be together. That was more than enough.

A Saturday morning in early autumn found us in a small coffee shop downtown. The place had a cozy vibe, the kind of place where you could lose track of time, and that's exactly what happened. We were sitting at the corner booth, sipping on our drinks, but our attention wasn't on the crowd of people coming in and out. It was on each other.

Amir had a tired look in his eyes, but I wasn't worried about it. We'd been staying up late the past few nights, talking and just being. It was the kind of thing I'd never gotten to experience before—not so freely, not without hesitation—but with Amir, it felt like I could finally breathe. I could be myself. And, weirdly enough, he was becoming the person I leaned on the most.

"You good?" I asked, leaning across the table to touch his hand. He looked up from his phone, his brow furrowing slightly as if I'd caught him off guard.

"Yeah, just a little tired," he said with a smile, though it didn't reach his eyes. "School's been a lot lately."

I nodded. "I feel that. The stress is real."

We both fell silent for a moment, the clink of mugs and soft chatter around us filling the space. The tension I used to feel between us—those small cracks in our connection—was gone now. We weren't perfect, but we didn't need to be. And we were solid. Together.

"So... we're really doing this, huh?" Amir said suddenly, his voice a little more playful than usual. He raised an eyebrow at me, leaning back in his chair like he was teasing me. "This whole... you and me thing?"

I grinned, feeling a rush of warmth in my chest. "Hell yeah, we're doing this. What do you think we've been doing the past few months?"

He shrugged, his smirk softening into something more genuine. "I don't know. Sometimes it still feels kinda unreal."

I chuckled, taking a sip of my coffee. "Unreal how? Like you're not sure I'm for real?" I teased.

He met my gaze, and there was a flicker of something deeper in his eyes, something I didn't see all the time but could feel when it was there. "I guess I just didn't think I'd find someone like you."

My heart did this stupid little flip, and I didn't know how to respond. It wasn't a big gesture, nothing that was overly dramatic, but that simple sentence meant everything. Amir had been through a lot, and hearing him say that felt like he was letting me in more than usual.

"Well, I'm not going anywhere," I said, my voice a little softer than I intended. "You don't have to worry about that."

He leaned forward then, placing his hand on top of mine. His fingers brushed against my skin, warm and steady. "I don't worry anymore," he said quietly. "I used to. I used to wonder if I was just gonna wake up one day and realize this was all just a dream. But... now, I'm starting to believe it's real."

We stayed like that for a while, his hand in mine, the weight of everything we'd been through settling between us. The time we'd spent together had changed us both, and I could tell that Amir was starting to see me, really see me, in a way he hadn't before. There was a trust there, something he'd been hesitant to offer, but now, it was real.

Later that day, we went for a walk through the park, taking the long way back to his place, like we used to. Everything felt familiar, like we had both fallen into this easy rhythm that neither of us wanted to break. Amir was still quiet sometimes, but he wasn't as closed off anymore. He smiled more, laughed more, and we'd even started doing things like going to movies together or hanging out at each other's houses, just enjoying the space we shared.

And honestly? I loved it. Every single second of it.

"I've been thinking," Amir said, breaking the comfortable silence between us. We were walking side by side, but our shoulders brushed together every now and then. "I don't know what it's gonna look like in the future. You know? I don't know what's coming next. But right now? I know I want you here. With me. For however long that is."

I stopped walking for a second, turning to face him fully. There was something in his voice, in the way he said it, that hit me deep in my chest. I wasn't expecting him to say it so openly, without hesitation.

"You don't have to have it all figured out," I said softly, my voice steady. "We don't have to have all the answers. We just have to take it one day at a time."

Amir nodded, and for the first time in a while, I saw him truly relax. He wasn't worried. He wasn't scared. Not like before.

"I can do that," he said with a smile. "I can do that with you."

And in that moment, I realized something. I wasn't the only one who had changed. Amir had changed too. He'd learned to trust again, learned that not everyone who came into his life would leave. He wasn't just surviving anymore—he was living. And he was living with me.