The smoke alarm blared at 9 AM, shaking Lucas from his slumber. Rubbing the remnants of sleep from his eyes, he glanced around the apartment, taking note of the morning light streaming through the half-drawn curtains. On the kitchen table lay a handwritten note: "I’ll be back in 5." The message, simple yet tinged with an air of uncertainty, left him staring at the wall as minutes slipped by. It felt like a lifetime since she had walked out.

He could almost feel her presence lingering in the haze of burnt coffee and old dreams. Lucas thought back to the advice he'd received just weeks prior: "Put your job first, always." But no matter how many late nights he spent chasing ambition, nothing held him the same way she did. He did it for the love, he reminded himself, waiting like a gambler for a gold rush that never seemed to come.

Stepping out onto the balcony, he watched the city awaken, a cacophony of life below. To take a break from work, he rolled up a cigarette, the aroma filling his senses. As he lit it and took a drag, memories of his friends flooded back. "Hold up!" they would call out, reminds of simpler days. They’d laugh about their time in school when they listened to the grown-ups drone on, all the while not absorbing a thing. Yet, somehow, those moments had bonded them tighter than anything else.

He thought about Sophie, how she danced to music only she could hear, her movements slightly out of sync but filled with joy. There was something beautiful about the way she pretended to know the words to songs she'd never heard, and even though he often went unspoken in his affections, he would tell her every chance he got how much she meant to him.

But how could he convey that when the world seemed to press them apart? He often felt like he was shouting into a void, pleading for understanding through his half-formed thoughts. "Maybe you should learn to love her," he whispered to himself, imagining all the ways he wished he could show her. The deep, abiding love he had bottled inside needed to be released, to bloom into actions that matched his longing.

Just then, Lucas remembered the warmth of her laughter, the way it lit up every corner of the room. He knew he had to believe in it—this love that felt so vital yet so fragile. So, he resolved to find her, to show her that while life pushed them in different directions, he wanted nothing more than to learn to love her fully, deeply—like the way he yearned to be loved.

At that moment, the door creaked open. Sophie stepped inside, her hair tousled and her cheeks flushed. "Sorry, I got caught up," she said, her eyes sparkling with mischief. And in that instant, Lucas felt the world align once again, a reminder that love, in its purest form, made every moment worth waiting for.