Red

The pedestrian light is red.

He has been staring at it for twelve seconds.

The number matters only because he’s counting. He has always counted when things feel out of control. Breaths. Steps. Ceiling tiles.

Twelve.

The road in front of him is not busy. It is late afternoon. A thin drizzle has begun, just enough to slick the tarmac and blur reflections. Cars pass at lazy intervals. Nothing urgent. Nothing dramatic.

Six more seconds until the green man appears.

He shifts his weight.

Across the road stands the courthouse.

Grey stone. Heavy doors. Windows that swallow faces.

She is inside.

He presses his thumb against the inside of his wrist and feels his pulse.

Thirteen.

He could still leave.

No one would stop him. No one would chase him down the pavement and demand courage. He could turn left, walk toward the station, disappear into a train carriage and never look back.

Fourteen.

A bus thunders past, spraying a fine mist against his jeans.

He barely notices.

He replays her last words.

“If you don’t show up, that’s your answer.”

Not angry.

Not pleading.

Just tired.

Fifteen.

The red man glows steadily.

His reflection trembles in a shallow puddle at his feet. He looks thinner than he remembers. Smaller.

The drizzle strengthens.

He thinks about the envelope sitting unopened in his jacket inside pocket.

DNA test results.

He didn’t need to open it to know.

He had known the moment she said she was pregnant and didn’t smile.

Sixteen.

A car slows as if to turn, then accelerates through amber.

He flinches.

His brain is louder than the traffic.

If he crosses, everything changes.

If he crosses, he becomes a father.

If he crosses, he admits the last six months were not a misunderstanding.

Seventeen.

The courthouse doors opened briefly. Two strangers emerge, laughing. The doors close again.

He imagines her sitting on a hard bench inside. Hands clasped. Not looking at her phone.

Waiting.

The light doesn’t care.

It remains red.

Eighteen.

His throat feels tight.

He could stay on this side of the road forever. The world would allow it. Cars would keep passing. Rain would keep falling. The light would cycle endlessly between red and green and red again.

He could choose inertia.

Nineteen.

The amber light flickered.

His heart lurches.

Twenty.

The green man appears.

He doesn't move.

The first car slows, then stops. The driver gestures politely.

Go on then.

He steps forward with a wave to the driver.

The road is only twelve paces wide.

He counts them.

One.

His shoes splashed softly.

Two.

A horn blares somewhere distant, not at him.

Three.

The rain gathers in his eyelashes.

Four.

He thinks about tiny fingers curled around one of his.

Five.

He thinks about leaving.

Six.

He thinks about staying.

Seven.

Halfway.

He could still turn back. Pretend he forgot something. Pretend this crossing was accidental.

Eight.

The green man begins to flash.

Nine.

The countdown beeps, sharp and insistent.

Ten.

He sees her through the glass now.

She is exactly where he imagined her to be.

Hands clasped.

Head bowed.

Eleven.

She looks up.

Their eyes meet through rain and reflection.

Twelve.

The light turns red again.

He is already on her side.

Cars begin to move behind him.

The world resumes its flow as if nothing monumental has occurred.

He stands on the pavement, drenched and shaking, the courthouse looming to his right.

She pushes through the doors.

They face each other.

Up close, she looks exhausted.

“So?” she asks

The word contains months.

He swallows.

“I’m here.”

It is not poetic.

It is not a speech.

It is not an apology or a promise.

It is a crossing.

In the space of twenty seconds, a man who could have left chose not to.

The rain is falling harder now.

The pedestrian light across the road glows red once more.

She studies his face as if looking for cracks.

“You’re here,” she repeated, softer this time. Not in disbelief, just confirmation.

Rain threads between them. The courthouse doors swung shut behind her with a heavy thud that sounded too final.

“I almost wasn’t,” he says.

The honesty surprises them both.

Her mouth tightens, not unkindly. “I know.”

A car splashes through a puddle at the curb. The pedestrian signal across the road begins its impatient beeping for someone else now. Life continues its orderly rotation.

He feels suddenly exposed, as if everyone around them knew he counted to twenty before stepping off the pavement.

“Did you bring it?” she asked.

He nods.

The envelope is in his coat pocket, edges already soft from being handled too many times. He hasn’t taken it out yet. It feels ceremonial. Dangerous.

“You didn’t open it,” she says.

It isn’t a question.

“No.”

Another beat.

“Why?”

He could say fear. He could say doubt. He could say he wanted plausible deniability for just a little longer. Instead, he says, “Because if I walked in knowing, I’d have decided before I saw you.”

Rainwater runs down the back of his neck. He doesn’t move.

Her shoulders dropped a fraction. No relief, not yet. Just the release of something tightly held.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she admitted.

“I know.”

The word tastes different now. Less defensive. More earned.

Inside the courthouse, someone calls a name. A clerk’s voice, flat and procedural. A door opens somewhere deeper within. The building hums with other endings, other beginnings.

He reaches into his pocket at last.

The envelope is creased at one corner. Official. Unremarkable. A thin thing to carry so much weight.

He holds it between them.

She doesn’t take it.

“You don’t need to,” she says quietly.

He looks at her.

At the steadiness in her eyes. The exhaustion. The hope she’s trying very hard not to show.

Traffic surges behind him. The light must have changed again.

He thinks about the twelve paces across the road. How simple they felt compared to this.

“If it says I am,” he says carefully, “I’m not crossing back.”

Her breath catches.

He sees it. The flicker.

“And if it says you’re not?”

He doesn’t look at the envelope.

“I’m still here.”

The words settled between them, fragile and enormous.

The drizzle becomes proper rain, flattening the surface of the pavement, blurring the reflection of the traffic lights. The red and green bleed into one another.

She laughs once. It isn’t joyful. It isn’t bitter. It’s the sound of someone who has been holding tension for months and can’t quite believe the shape it’s taken.

“You’re ridiculous,” she says.

“Probably.”

He tore the envelope open.

Paper slides free, stark and clinical. He doesn’t read it immediately. Instead, he looks at her.

Whatever the result says exists on ink.

What he decided happened on the crossing.

He glances down.

Scans.

Finds the line.

Probability: 99.98%.

His heart doesn’t leap. It settled.

He hands the paper to her.

She exhales, long and shaking.

Behind them, the pedestrian signal begins another cycle.

Red.

Amber.

Green.

The world keeps offering crossings.

This one, he knows, will take longer than twelve steps.

But he has already stepped off the curb.