I had rejected his proposal once. That was true.

But I couldn’t exactly go to him now and say, “I was wrong.”

My life was slipping away in uncertainty.

The doctor was the sensible choice.

You are grown up now. There is no room left for mistakes.

For once, for your parents’ sake, make a decision that will put their minds at ease.

When I got home, I saw Sina standing on his balcony as I was parking.

The moment I saw him, every sensible thought vanished from my mind.

I couldn’t believe it.

Apparently, I really did love him.

If someone had told me seven years earlier that one day I would ache for him to love me just as much as he once had, I never would have believed it.

But now?

Was he taking revenge on me?

Or did he even think about me anymore?

And what about that girl?

Did he love her as much as he had once loved me?

As I got out of the car and walked into the courtyard, I looked up at him on the balcony.

We greeted each other with a nod.

When I reached my door, he was standing there.

I was dressed appropriately for the meeting I had just attended: a pale pink blouse, a black skirt below the knee, and tights. My coat was shorter than the skirt, and I was wearing a colorful chiffon scarf.

It was already night, and it was a little late.

He looked me up and down.

I had applied a little makeup, more than usual, and some of it had smudged beneath my eyes.

After a long time, I was wearing shoes with about a two-inch heel.

I almost always wore sneakers and casual shoes. Whenever I wore heels, my father used to laugh and say that one of the funniest sights in the world was Mahta wearing high heels.

Now Sina was seeing that sight, and I had no idea whether he found it ridiculous too.

When I looked at him, I became slightly flustered because of an outfit I wasn’t used to wearing and the height it gave me.

After greeting me, he said, “Give me your car keys. I’ll switch the parking spots. Starting tomorrow, you park inside and I’ll park outside.”

He didn’t wait for my answer.

As he announced his decision, he took the keys from my hand.

I was about to say there was no need, but he had already entered the elevator and gone down.

I hurried inside.

While he was doing whatever he needed to do, I had to change my clothes.

When he came back to return my keys and the remote, I had already returned to normal.

As I opened the door, he held out my phone toward me. It was ringing.

The doctor’s name was on the screen.

I was always leaving that cursed phone somewhere, but this was the one time it absolutely should not have happened. For a while I could think of nothing except eating dinner together. Caring for Ezi had occupied me so completely that I had pushed the question “What am I going to become?” into the background.