Love wasn't just a feeling anymore.
It was a process. A pulse. A soft, steady rhythm that beat under the surface of shared routines and unspoken understanding.
Ezra had once studied the anatomy of a heart as part of his med school coursework—labels, functions, blood flow, and electrical signals. It had been sterile then, clinical.
But now, when he watched Talia stretch sleepily in their bed, one leg tangled in the sheets, her hair spilling like ink across the pillow, he finally understood it.
Hearts weren't just organs.
They were promises made and kept in the dark.
It had been three months since they moved in together.
The honeymoon glow had softened into something quieter—morning breath, laundry piles, late-night deadlines. But it was real. And more importantly, it was theirs.
Talia had never stayed in one place this long before—not emotionally. She'd always had one foot halfway out the door, ready to bolt when things got too heavy or too close.
But she hadn't left.
She didn't want to.
Still, the restlessness buzzed under her skin sometimes, like muscle memory. And when it did, she'd find herself standing by the balcony at 3 a.m., staring into the city night, wondering if she could really do forever.
Ezra found her like that one night—barefoot, arms crossed, wearing his sweatshirt like armor.
"You okay?" he asked gently, rubbing the sleep from his eyes.
She didn't answer right away.
Instead, she turned slightly, her voice barely audible. "Do you ever feel like… we're too good right now? Like something's going to ruin it?"
Ezra stepped beside her, his presence a calming gravity.
"Sometimes," he admitted. "But I'd rather have something real and risk breaking than never try at all."
She looked at him then. The boy who once ghosted her because he was afraid. The man who now stood beside her, steady and sure.
"I love you," she said.
He smiled, brushing her cheek. "I love you too."
There was no urgency in it. No desperate clutching. Just truth, shared in the quiet.
The next morning, Ezra did something he never thought he would.
He brought out the little box he'd kept hidden in the drawer beside his desk—not a ring, not yet, but a folded piece of paper with two tickets to Paris.
They'd talked about it in passing—"someday we should go"—but it had always felt like a fantasy. A someday kind of dream.
Until now.
He handed the envelope to her while she was making coffee, her hair in a bun, wearing one sock and humming badly off-key to a 2000s throwback playlist.
She opened it. Blinked.
"You're joking."
"I'm not," Ezra said, nervous but hopeful. "Two weeks. After finals. Just you and me. Cafés, bookstores, weird food. All of it."
Talia stared at him.
"You want to take me to Paris?"
"I want to take you anywhere," he replied. "But this felt like the kind of thing we should do while we're still young and reckless."
She threw her arms around him, nearly knocking the coffee mug off the counter.
"You nerd," she whispered against his neck. "You absolute romantic nerd."
He laughed, holding her tighter. "Guilty as charged."
Later that night, as they lay on the couch, legs tangled, a thunderstorm humming outside, Talia whispered something she hadn't said before.
"Promise me we'll never stop doing this."
Ezra glanced over, brushing her knuckles with his thumb. "Doing what?"
"Showing up. Saying what we mean. Choosing each other. Even when it's hard."
He didn't hesitate.
"I promise."
She smiled into his chest. "Okay. Then I promise too."
And there it was.
No diamond. No candlelight.
Just the anatomy of a promise:
Two hearts.
One home.
And the kind of love that writes its own vows, night after night, in the silence between words.