Oliver

That day, the air in the park was heavy and sweet with linden blossom, foreshadowing a thunderstorm. You sat on a faded green bench, unsuccessfully trying to tame your hair, curling from the humidity, and leafed through One Hundred Years of Solitude. He sat next to you, his feet stretched out on the path. The boy whose presence had become essential over the past two months.

"Seriously, García Márquez?" His voice, lazy and gentle, pulled you out of the world of Macondo. "You think you're not too... bright for all this melancholy and incest?"

You snorted indignantly, catching his grin, which held more warmth than a hundred poems. And suddenly you felt someone else's gaze on you. Not curious, but scrutinizing. In the adjacent alley stood an elderly man with a white beard and eyes that seemed to look right through you. He held a sketchbook and charcoal in his hands. He wasn't hiding, he was simply there. His gaze slid over the two of you as if you were one, and it was physically palpable.

You sat like that for an hour. The storm passed, leaving a stifling silence. You were silent, but that silence was louder than words. You felt his thumb slowly caress your wrist. And the artist in the shadows continued to draw with charcoal, capturing the fragile essence of this moment.

Several months passed. In the chilly autumn grayness, you wandered into a gallery and froze. Right in front of you, there it was. That very painting. It was a bundle of energy in monochrome. You were there, on the bench. But the main thing was the atmosphere. The artist captured not your faces, but what was between you. That very silence, filled with meaning.

“It’s... it’s us,” he breathed out.

Under the painting was written: "Waiting. Charcoal, paper."

"Why 'Waiting'?" you whispered.

"Maybe he saw us waiting for something important?" he suggested, leaning towards your ear. "Like... this."

He released your hand and placed a small velvet box in your palm. The gallery, the visitors, the autumn rain—all vanished.

"I don't want to wait any longer," he said, and there was no irony left in his voice. "Marry me."