The bus stopped beside a wooden lodge buried beneath snow.

Everyone hurried inside.

I waited until the aisle was empty.

Standing had become difficult.

I pressed one hand against my abdomen and counted breaths.

One.

Two.

Three.

Just reach the room.

That was all.

Then someone grabbed my backpack.

I turned.

Ethan.

—Give it back.

He ignored me.

His eyes had changed.

—What tests?

My heart stopped.

—What?

—The message from your doctor.

So he had seen it.

I reached for the backpack.

—None of your business.

He held it away.

—Luna.

—You have a fiancée waiting inside.

—Answer me.

For three years, I had imagined Ethan asking me questions.

Where did you go?

Why did you leave?

Did you ever miss me?

Now that he finally wanted answers, I was too tired to give them.

—I’m sick.

His face tightened.

—How sick?

I looked toward the lodge.

—Enough.

I walked away.

He followed.

—What does “enough” mean?

—It means you should go back to Amelia.

He caught my wrist.

Then immediately released it when he felt how thin it was beneath my sleeve.

His eyes dropped to my hand.

—You lost weight.

I almost smiled.

—Three years is a long time.

—Don’t do that.

—Do what?

—Talk like we’re strangers.

I looked directly at him.

—We are.

That silenced him.

Inside, Amelia was waiting near the fireplace.

When she saw us, her smile faded.

—What happened?

—Nothing —I said.

Ethan answered at the same time.

—She’s sick.

Amelia looked at me.

I hated the concern in her face.

Not because she had done anything wrong.

Because kindness made lying harder.

—Is it serious?

I removed my wet coat.

—I’ll be fine tonight.

Ethan went completely still.

Tonight.

He heard the word I should not have used.

Later, while everyone ate dinner, I stayed in my room.

I wanted to conserve enough strength for the lake.

Three more days.

At eleven, someone knocked.

I assumed it was Amelia.

It was Ethan.

—Go away.

He entered anyway.

—Still terrible at respecting boundaries.

He closed the door.

In his hand was my medicine.

I had left the bottle beside the bathroom sink.

My diagnosis was printed on the label.

His face looked bloodless.

—Terminal gastric cancer.

There was no point denying it.

—Yes.

—Since when?

—Eight months.

He sat down without asking.

For once, Ethan Hawthorne looked like a man whose body had forgotten how to remain cold.

—Why didn’t you tell me?

I stared at him.

—Three years after we separated?

—Before that.

His voice cracked.

—I mean three years ago. Why did you leave without explaining anything?

So we had finally reached it.

The wound beneath every other wound.

I looked toward the snow-covered window.

—Because your father came to see me.

Ethan froze.

I continued.

—Your company was negotiating the North Sea acquisition. He said marrying me would give your rivals something to attack.

My family had been drowning in debt then.

My father had disappeared after guaranteeing a failed business.

My mother needed treatment.

And Ethan’s family had made everything very simple.

Leave.

Disappear.

Don’t explain.

In exchange, they would settle my mother’s medical debt and stop pursuing my father’s guarantee.

Ethan stood abruptly.

—You’re lying.

—I wish I were.

—My father told me you took money because you were tired of waiting for me.

—Technically, money changed hands.

I looked at him.

—It simply wasn’t for me.

His breathing became uneven.

—Why didn’t you trust me?

That finally made me angry.

—Because you were twenty-six and fighting your father for control of the company.

—I had watched you destroy yourself for two years trying to prove you could lead without him.

My voice shook.

—If I had told you, you would have chosen me.

—Yes!

—Exactly.

He stopped.

I continued quietly:

—And you would have lost everything you had worked for.

Ethan stared at me as if he hated the answer because part of him understood it.

—You had no right to decide that for me.

—You’re right.

That surprised him.

I smiled sadly.

—I know that now.

Silence stretched between us.

Then Ethan asked:

—And the cancer?

—Unrelated.

—Are you receiving treatment?

—Treatment stopped working.

His eyes closed.

—How long?

I did not answer.

He asked again.

—Luna.

—The doctors said maybe three months.

Ethan sat down.

He covered his face.

I had never seen him cry.

Not when his grandfather died.

Not when his company nearly collapsed.

Not even when I left.

But that night, his shoulders shook.

I looked away.

—I didn’t come here for you.

His hands slowly dropped.

—I know.

—I came because I promised myself I’d still see the aurora.

—At the lake.

I looked at him.

He remembered.

Of course he remembered.

—Three days from now —he whispered.

I nodded.

The next morning, Amelia knocked on my door.

She entered alone.

No ring.

I noticed immediately.

—Where is it?

She looked at her bare hand.

Then smiled faintly.

—It wasn’t an engagement ring.

I frowned.

She explained.

Amelia was Ethan’s cousin by marriage.

The “wedding photographs” were for her design company.

Ethan had agreed to model because the original groom had canceled.

The matching ring was part of the shoot.

I stared at her.

—You called him your husband.

Her cheeks reddened.

—The guide misunderstood my English, and Ethan was being rude, so I let him suffer.

Despite everything, I laughed.

Then stopped because it hurt.

Amelia became serious.

—He never got married.

My chest tightened.

—That’s not my problem.

—No.

She nodded.

—But I think you should know.

That evening, the storm worsened.

The guide announced that roads might close for several days.

I panicked.

The lake was still hours away.

I had not traveled across the world to fail this close.

So before sunrise, I left alone.

Stupid.

I knew it was stupid.

But terminal illness makes time feel different.

Every delay becomes theft.

I reached the road before Ethan found me.

He stopped the rental vehicle beside me and got out furious.

—Get in.

—No.

—The road is dangerous.

—I have to reach the lake.

—Then I’ll take you.

We drove for almost four hours.

No Amelia.

No guide.

Just us.

Like another life.

When we finally reached the frozen lake, the sky was still gray.

I walked to the place marked on the map.

My legs shook.

Ethan followed silently.

I took the letter from my backpack.

—This was supposed to stay here.

—For me?

—For nobody.

I placed it beneath a stone.

Ethan looked at it.

—What does it say?

I smiled.

—That I kept my promise.

Night came slowly.

For hours there was nothing.

Then, just after eleven, Ethan suddenly pointed upward.

—Luna.

Green light spread across the sky.

Thin at first.

Then brighter.

Moving like silk across the darkness.

I forgot the pain.

Forgot the hospital.

Forgot those lost three years.

I simply looked up.

—I finally made it.

Beside me, Ethan whispered:

—We did.

I shook my head.

—No.

Then I smiled.

—We both did.

He cried again.

Quietly this time.

He reached for my hand but stopped before touching it.

I closed the distance myself.

Not because we had become lovers again.

Not because the past could be repaired.

Because some endings deserve gentleness.

Three weeks later, I returned home.

Ethan came too.

He confronted his father.

Left the company board for six months.

And spent those months helping my mother, organizing my care, and—most importantly—never asking me to promise him anything.

I lived longer than the doctor predicted.

Seven months.

Enough to see spring.

Enough to watch Ethan stop smoking.

Enough to print the photograph Amelia had taken beneath the aurora.

Before my final hospitalization, I gave Ethan the letter from the lake.

He read it beside my bed.

There was only one paragraph:

“Ethan, if we ever lose each other, don’t spend your life looking backward. We were real even if we didn’t last forever. Iceland was never the place where we were supposed to find each other again. It was the place where I needed to find the version of myself who could finally let go.”

Years later, Ethan returned to that lake alone.

He brought no wedding ring.

No flowers.

Only the photograph of two people standing beneath a green sky.

He placed it beneath the same stone.

Then he looked upward.

Three years earlier, I had thought I was traveling to Iceland to fulfill one last promise to the man I once loved.

I was wrong.

The final promise had never been to Ethan.

It was to myself: that before my story ended, I would see something beautiful enough to remind me that losing love had never meant losing my whole life.