The clock above the café counter ticks softly, but my eyes are fixed on the way Lina’s thumb brushes the face of her watch—a vintage silver piece with a cracked glass, its hands moving slow, like it’s savoring every moment. It’s the first thing I noticed about her, three years ago, when she stumbled into this same café, late for a meeting, the watch glinting under the warm lights as she fumbled with her notebook. “It was my grandma’s,” she’d told me later, when we’d lingered over our lattes long after her meeting ended. “She said it’s not just for telling time—it’s for remembering the moments that matter.” Now, as she sits across from me, her hair falling over one shoulder, that watch feels like a secret between us—a silent witness to every “hello,” every “I miss you,” every “I love you.”
Lina looks up, catching me staring, and grins. “What are you thinking about?” she asks, tapping the watch lightly. “You,” I say, and she blushes, the color rising to her cheeks like the first light of dawn. I reach across the table, taking her hand, and my fingers brush the cool metal of the watch band. “Remember the day you forgot it?” I say. She laughs, shaking her head. “How could I forget? I spent an hour panicking, thinking I’d lost it forever. You drove me all the way back to the park, even though you had a work deadline.” I smile, remembering the way she’d cried when we found it under the oak tree, her grandma’s initials engraved on the back glinting in the sun. “You said it felt like losing a part of her,” I say. Lina nods, her thumb tracing the initials. “And then you said… it’s not just her. It’s us. Every moment we spend together, this watch is there.”
She’s right. That watch has been with us through everything: the day I got my promotion, and she hugged me so tight the watch pressed into my chest; the night we stayed up late talking about our dreams, the watch’s ticking a quiet backdrop to our voices; the weekend we went to the beach, and she forgot to take it off, the saltwater leaving a faint mark on the band. “I should get it fixed,” she says sometimes, but I always shake my head. Those marks— the cracked glass, the saltwater stain, the faint scratch on the band—they’re part of our story. They’re proof that we’ve lived, and loved, and held onto each other through every moment.
Tonight, as we walk home, the streetlights casting long shadows, Lina takes my hand, her watch warm against my skin. “I have something for you,” she says, stopping in front of our door. She pulls a small box from her bag and hands it to me. Inside, there’s a watch—simple, black, with a face that glows in the dark. “It’s not vintage, like mine,” she says, her voice soft. “But I wanted you to have something that reminds you of… us. Every time you look at it, I want you to remember that I’m here. That no matter how busy life gets, no matter how much time passes, I’m choosing you.”
I take the watch out of the box, and she helps me fasten it around my wrist. It fits perfectly, like it was made just for me. “Thank you,” I say, pulling her close. She rests her head on my chest, and I can feel her watch pressing against me, and mine pressing against her. For a moment, we stand there, listening to the ticking of both watches—two hearts, two stories, woven together by time. “You know what my grandma used to say?” Lina whispers. “She said that love isn’t about how much time you have. It’s about how you spend it. And I want to spend every second of mine with you.”
I kiss the top of her head, my fingers brushing the back of her watch, where her grandma’s initials are. “Me too,” I say. As we walk inside, turning on the lights, I glance at my new watch. The hands are moving, slow and steady, just like our love. And I know, with every part of me, that this is what matters: not the grand gestures, not the perfect moments, but the quiet ones—the ones where we hold hands, and talk, and laugh, and let time slip by, knowing that we have each other. That watch on my wrist isn’t just a timepiece. It’s a promise—a promise to love her, to cherish her, to hold onto every moment we have. And as long as I have it, I’ll never forget that.
