Almost

There are moments in life that feel so close, yet so far away. They’re the ones that slip through your fingers just as you’re about to grasp them. Almost—the space between now and never, between yes and no. Those fleeting moments are often the ones that haunt us, as if the universe itself is toying with the fragile balance of fate and choice.

Lena had always lived in the "almost" moments.

She’d almost kissed Mark during that rainy afternoon at the café, her heart racing as his eyes met hers. She almost told him how she felt, almost let the words tumble out like the storm outside. But just as her lips parted, the door swung open, and in walked an old friend—an interruption that scattered the magic into a thousand shards.

"Maybe next time," she had told herself, pretending the almost wasn’t a wound she carried.

The years went on, and Lena moved from city to city, never quite landing anywhere long enough to call it home. She almost stayed in Paris, almost bought that little apartment near the Seine, where the world felt like poetry in motion. But the fear of being tied down pushed her to pack her bags again. Almost was her comfort zone.

Her career in design took off, but even success couldn’t fill the space left by the things she almost had. The love she almost found, the friendships she almost built, the life she almost lived. There was always a reason to leave, to move on before things could truly begin.

Then one winter, Lena found herself back in her hometown. The same town where she’d grown up, where her family still lived. She took a walk to clear her head, winding through the streets that held echoes of her youth. It was there, at the old bridge by the lake, that she saw him again—Mark.

It was as if time had folded back on itself, pulling them together like magnets after all these years. His face had aged, but those familiar eyes, the same warmth, the same spark—they hadn’t changed. He was standing at the railing, looking at the lake, and for a moment, Lena wondered if the almost had finally arrived.

"Mark?" Her voice was tentative, but it carried through the silence between them.

He turned, his eyes widening. "Lena? It’s... it’s been so long."

They stood there, suspended in the middle of their past, and Lena realized something she hadn’t before: It wasn’t that they had missed their chance—it was that they had never truly given it a chance to begin with. The almost had kept them apart, like two ships passing in the night, but now, here they were, and the space between them no longer felt insurmountable.

"What if we stopped letting 'almost' define us?" Lena said, her voice shaky but determined.

Mark smiled, that knowing smile she had missed so much. "Then maybe we'd finally stop living in the shadows of what could have been and start creating what will be."

The next few months were a whirlwind of rediscovery. Mark and Lena started to build something they had once been too afraid to try. They laughed at the idea of how many almosts had brought them to this point, how life had almost shaped them into strangers, but instead, they chose to be something else entirely.

They chose to be together.

And in that choice, the almosts faded away. Because sometimes, it’s not about the moments you miss; it’s about the ones you create when you stop holding back.