The Anniversary Question

Cora and Emil have been together for two years, and Cora has started to notice a pattern. Every time she brings up the future, even casually, Emil changes the subject.

Tonight, over dinner, she decides not to let it happen again. "Can I ask you something," she says, "and can you actually answer it this time?"

Emil sets down his fork. "That sounds serious."

"It's not meant to be scary," Cora says. "I just want to know where you see this going. Us, I mean. Not tomorrow. In a year, maybe two."

Emil is quiet for a moment. "Honestly? I've been avoiding that question because I don't have a clean answer for it."

"That's not the same as not caring," Cora says carefully. "But I've been assuming things I probably shouldn't have."

"Like what?"

"Like maybe you're not sure about us at all. Like maybe I'm more invested in this than you are."

Emil shakes his head quickly. "That's not it. If I'm honest, I think about our future all the time. I just haven't figured out how to say any of it out loud. I don't want to sound like I'm making promises I can't keep."

"You don't have to have it all figured out," Cora says. "I'm not asking for a plan. I just need to know I'm not the only one thinking about this."

Emil reaches across the table and takes her hand. "You're not. I've wanted to bring this up for weeks. I kept putting it off because I was worried I'd say the wrong thing."

"You could have just said that," Cora says, half laughing, half relieved.

"I know. I should have." He pauses. "For what it's worth, when I picture five years from now, you're in it. I just hadn't said that part out loud before."

Cora feels something in her chest loosen, a tension she hadn't fully noticed until it was gone. She doesn't need a ring or a date. She just needed to know they were imagining the same thing.

They finish dinner slower than usual, talking more openly than they have in months.