The Third Love

Chapter Twenty-One: What Forever Feels Like

Forever didn't come with fireworks. It came in soft Sunday mornings. In grocery runs. In choosing what color to paint the walls. In sleepy kisses and shared blankets.

Forever felt like walking hand-in-hand through the small town market, laughing at how Zeon couldn't resist buying another cap. Like dancing barefoot on the tiles while waiting for food to warm in the microwave. Like watching him fix the curtain rod for the third time, and still teasing him when it falls.

We weren't perfect. But we were real.

We celebrated two years together with no fancy dinner—just pizza, old love songs, and a quiet moment of reflection. He looked at me across the table and said, "You know, I've never stayed this long. But with you... it doesn't feel long. It feels right."

That night, he handed me a notebook. Inside were plans—business ideas, savings charts, sketches of future home designs. On the first page, he'd written: For us.

It broke something open inside me. The kind of love that sees a future—and actively builds it.

We were making something no one could take away.

He even started calling me "wifey" more often—sometimes joking, sometimes serious. I laughed it off at first, but the truth was… I didn't just see a boyfriend in him anymore.

I saw a partner. A future husband. The father of children we'd one day name together.

We started hosting small dinners with friends. My cousins visited more often. He introduced me as "the one I'm building my life with." That phrase stuck with me—because that's what love should feel like.

A place to build.

One night, during a load shedding blackout, we sat outside with our feet in a bucket of warm water. Just us, the stars, and the stillness.

"I used to think forever was a wedding or a ring," I whispered.

"And now?" he asked.

"Now I know it's consistency. It's choosing someone in the silence. It's what we're doing now."

He didn't respond with words. Just reached out, held my face, and kissed me like nothing else in the world mattered.

Because at that moment, nothing else did.

Forever didn't scare me anymore.

It felt like home.