I thought I had misheard him.

“What?”

Adrián remained on the couch, one arm covering his eyes.

“The wedding.”

His voice was quiet.

“Do you really not want one with me?”

For a man who could announce a patient’s worst diagnosis without changing expression, he sounded strangely vulnerable.

I swallowed.

“Our marriage wasn’t exactly romantic.”

“I know.”

“You were the one who suggested we just register.”

“I know.”

“Then why do you care?”

Silence.

Finally, he lowered his arm.

“Because I thought you didn’t want one.”

I stared at him.

“You said weddings were troublesome.”

“You said you hated complicated ceremonies.”

“I meant my cousin’s six-hundred-person wedding!”

Adrián sat up.

For several seconds, we simply looked at each other.

Something felt terribly wrong.

Not bad wrong.

More like I’d spent months reading a sentence backward.

“Why did you marry me?” I asked.

His expression closed immediately.

“Our families thought it was suitable.”

There.

That answer again.

Cold.

Practical.

Safe.

I turned away.

“Exactly.”

The next morning, Adrián was back to normal.

He checked my incision.

Adjusted my medication.

Criticized the way I tried to get out of bed.

Then disappeared into surgery.

At noon, the same nurse returned.

She was carrying flowers.

“For you.”

I frowned.

“From whom?”

She checked the card.

“No name.”

White tulips.

My favorite.

I touched one carefully.

The nurse suddenly said:

“Dr. Keller buys those every February.”

I looked up.

“What?”

“White tulips. The flower shop downstairs knows his order.”

My heart skipped.

“Since when?”

She shrugged.

“I’ve worked here five years. Since before that.”

Impossible.

Adrián and I had only married months ago.

That evening, my best friend Mia visited.

I told her.

She stared at me.

Then she started laughing.

“What?”

“You really don’t know?”

“Know what?”

Her laughter stopped.

“Wait. Seriously?”

I grabbed her wrist.

“Mia.”

She looked toward the door.

“Adrián attended our university.”

“I know. Medical school.”

“No.”

She lowered her voice.

“He attended your graduation exhibition.”

My mind went blank.

I had studied illustration before changing direction and eventually working in medical administration.

My graduation exhibition had been eight years earlier.

“What does that have to do with anything?”

Mia pulled out her phone.

Ten minutes later, she found an old photograph.

There I was.

Twenty-two.

Standing beside my terrible watercolor series.

Behind me, half obscured by another student, stood a tall man in glasses.

Adrián.

My husband.

Looking directly at me.

I zoomed in.

My heart began pounding.

“No.”

Mia looked almost offended on his behalf.

“He used to come to the café where we studied.”

“No.”

“He volunteered at that stupid charity race because you signed up.”

“No.”

“He donated blood twice because you were organizing the blood drive.”

I stared at her.

“Mia, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought you knew!”

“I didn’t even know him then!”

“Yes, you did.”

She frowned.

“Don’t you remember the guy who lent you his umbrella?”

I froze.

Rain.

University gate.

A quiet medical student who had handed me a black umbrella and walked away in the rain before I could return it.

I still had that umbrella.

“Oh my God.”

Mia nodded.

“Exactly.”

That night, I waited.

Adrián entered my room after eleven.

He immediately noticed my expression.

“What happened?”

“How long?”

He stopped.

“How long what?”

“Have you known me?”

His face became unreadable.

“Adrián.”

Nothing.

I held up Mia’s photograph.

For the first time since I’d met him, Dr. Adrián Keller looked genuinely panicked.

“Where did you get that?”

“Answer me.”

He took off his glasses.

“Eight years.”

I almost screamed.

“Eight years?”

“Approximately.”

“Approximately?”

“Eight years and four months.”

I stared at him.

Of course he knew the months.

“You liked me?”

He said nothing.

“Adrián.”

“Yes.”

The word was barely audible.

I fell back against the pillow.

“Then why did you behave like marrying me was a business merger?”

His jaw tightened.

“Because when our families suggested it, you said you didn’t care who you married as long as he didn’t interfere with your life.”

I remembered.

I’d just ended a terrible relationship.

Marriage seemed ridiculous.

“So?”

“So I assumed telling you I’d wanted you for years would make you refuse.”

I couldn’t believe him.

“You’ve been secretly in love with me for eight years and your strategy was to act like you could barely tolerate me?”

“It seemed reasonable.”

“You’re a doctor.”

“Yes.”

“A supposedly intelligent doctor.”

His mouth tightened.

“I didn’t say it was a successful strategy.”

I laughed.

My incision immediately hurt.

“Ow!”

Adrián was beside me instantly.

“I told you not to laugh.”

“This is your fault!”

He checked the wound while I stared at his bent head.

Then another thought came.

“The porridge.”

He stopped.

“What about it?”

“That recipe was exactly how my grandmother made it.”

Silence.

“Adrián.”

He straightened.

“I asked your mother.”

“When?”

“Before we married.”

“Why?”

He looked genuinely confused.

“So I’d know what to make when you were sick.”

My eyes burned.

“The tulips?”

“You mentioned them at university.”

“The umbrella?”

“I knew rain was forecast.”

“The apple?”

He blinked.

“What apple?”

“You ate it in front of me after surgery!”

“That was mine.”

I threw a pillow at him.

He caught it.

For the first time, I saw him smile.

Not the tiny professional curve he gave patients.

A real smile.

Warm.

Young.

Almost shy.

And suddenly I understood.

Adrián had never been cold.

He was terrified.

Terrified of wanting too much from a woman he believed had accepted him only because their families arranged it.

I had spent months protecting myself from rejection.

So had he.

Two idiots.

Legally married.

Emotionally standing on opposite sides of a locked door.

I was discharged three days later.

When we arrived home, I noticed something strange.

My old black umbrella stood by the entrance.

“You kept this?”

“You left it at your parents’ house after we married.”

“You recognized it?”

Adrián gave me a look.

“It was mine.”

I started laughing again.

“Don’t.”

“Eight years, Adrián.”

“Please stop saying that.”

“Eight years!”

His ears turned red.

That became my favorite discovery.

The terrifying Dr. Keller blushed.

Six months later, we had a wedding.

A real one.

Small.

White tulips everywhere.

Mia organized it, unfortunately, which meant she included a table displaying “historical evidence of the groom’s pathetic secret devotion.”

The university photograph.

The charity race registration.

A copy of the blood-donation certificate.

And the black umbrella.

Adrián threatened to leave.

I reminded him divorce would require paperwork.

He stayed.

Before the ceremony, I found him alone.

Nervous.

I slipped my hand into his.

“Dr. Keller?”

“Yes?”

“Do you regret finally having a wedding?”

He looked at me.

“No.”

“Do you regret waiting eight years?”

A pause.

“Yes.”

I smiled.

“Why?”

“Because apparently I could have just told you.”

“You could have.”

“I didn’t know you liked me.”

“I didn’t.”

He frowned.

I pulled him closer.

“Not then.”

His expression softened.

“And now?”

I kissed his cheek.

“Now you’re tolerable.”

“That’s reassuring.”

Years later, whenever hospital staff told new residents that Dr. Keller was terrifying, I never corrected them.

They could keep believing it.

They didn’t know the man who woke at 2 a.m. because I coughed.

The man who still made terrible porridge whenever I was sick.

The man who peeled apples for me—and still ate half himself.

And they certainly didn’t know that the coldest doctor in the hospital had once spent eight years loving a woman from a distance because he was too afraid to ask whether she might love him back.

I used to think our marriage began the day we signed a certificate.

Adrián disagreed.

According to him, it began eight years earlier, on a rainy afternoon, when he gave me his umbrella.

But I think it began much later.

In a hospital room.

Under silver moonlight.

When the man I thought didn’t care about our marriage quietly asked:

“Do you really not even want to give me a wedding?”

That was the night I finally understood.

I hadn’t married a cold man.

I’d married a patient one.

And after waiting eight years for me to notice him, he had apparently decided that waiting a lifetime wouldn’t be too difficult either.