One day after Lin's first birthday.

"Are you almost there?" Lorena asked.

The line on the other end crackled.

"H... huh? Almo... almost where?"

"The district office." Lorena narrowed her eyes.

"Oh! I... I forgot. I'm not in the c... city right now..." Natsha said, her words breaking apart.

"So what now?" Lorena calmly tossed the problem back at her.

"Let's deal with it later, when I'm free!" Natsha replied, strangely clear this time.

And for the next five years, everything unfolded like a script long since written. If she wasn't in X****, then she was in Z***. Without exception, one day after Lin's birthday, she would vanish for several months.

A marriage that should have ended long ago continued dragging on to the present.

But by the seventh year, things no longer seemed to go so smoothly.

Natsha lifted her small suitcase as gently as she could, tiptoeing inch by inch.

"Mommy!"

A soft, childish whisper sounded in the dark, followed by a light pat against her thigh. Natsha nearly jumped out of her skin.

She raised a hand to her chest. Why did both mother and daughter always manage to scare her like this?

"Lin, why aren't you asleep?" She asked her daughter.

"And what about you, mommy?" The little girl tilted her head. "Why aren't you asleep either?"

"Oh, Mommy has something to take care of, so I have to leave early!" Natsha said, glancing around as though searching for a proper excuse. "Go back to sleep, okay?"

Just as she was about to open the door and make her escape, the desk lamp in the living room flicked on.

"In such a hurry?" Lorena sat on the sofa, one hand propping up her head.

Natsha's back slammed against the glass door behind her. This time, the one clutching their heart wasn't just Natsha, Lin did too. The child wasn't startled by Lorena's presence, but by Natsha's reaction.

"Wait a few more hours. Once the divorce paperwork is done, you can leave then."

"Ah... um... I'm a bit pressed for time!" Natsha wiped the sweat from her palms onto her pants.

"Let's do it another time."

"If you're worried about being late, I'll lend you my private jet." Lorena stepped closer and lightly patted her cheek. "Go upstairs and sleep. We're going to the district office tomorrow."

Just as Lorena turned to leave, her wrist was caught.

"Why do you keep wanting a divorce?" Natsha asked, one hand braced on her hip as she exhaled.

"And who's the one who wants it?" Lorena shot back.

Natsha hesitated, her gaze drifting aimlessly.

She cleared her throat.

"I don't want it anymore..." She said, not daring to look Lorena in the eye.

"Is marriage a joke to you? You don't want a divorce anymore, so it just doesn't happen?" Lorena said coldly. 

Natsha lowered her head, like a child who had done something wrong.

"It's because it isn't a joke... that I don't want it anymore..." She murmured.

"I thought I didn't love you anymore."

Natsha wasn't someone who knew how to say things like this. But if she didn't speak now, she would truly lose the woman standing in front of her.

"I thought everything I did for you was just habit, something formed over the years. And that letting go of it wouldn't make me feel any loss..."

She gently rubbed Lorena's wrist.

"But ever since Lin came into our lives, I started to feel... that my conclusion was no longer right."

The words Natsha had buried deep inside for years finally found their way out.

"You know me. If something weren't truly important... would I ever bother putting my heart into it?"

"I shouldn't have felt this kind of ache... I shouldn't have cared this much."

Familiar scenes drifted through her mind.

Lorena's face, growing thinner because she could barely keep any food down. Tears brought on by hormonal changes, layered with the pressure of being the one in charge, leaving her unable to truly relax.

Natsha had seen everything Lorena went through. She had witnessed hundreds of lives on film sets. She thought she understood life well enough.

But in truth, she hadn't understood it nearly as well as she believed.

Natsha began to realize that her definition of love, something that must always burn fiercely, no longer fit her.

Even waves have moments when they only ripple, and moments when they surge. But have waves ever truly disappeared?

Love is the same.

Just because it no longer burns with the same heat as it once did doesn't mean it no longer exists.

It has always been there. Only shifting from one form to another.

People don't stop loving. They simply learn to love in a different way.

The corner of Lorena's lips curved slightly upward. Some lessons take many years to finally be learned.

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Author's note: People often confuse habit with love. Most mistake habit for love, convincing themselves that they still love the other person. When in truth, they do not.

Natsha is different. She believed she no longer loved Lorena, that her acts of care were nothing more than habit. Because in Natsha's definition, love had to be vivid and blazing, not calm and subdued.

But Lin's arrival became the turning point. Natsha realized just how deeply she cared for Lorena. Throughout the entire story, Natsha never once says that her care exists because of Lin.

That does not mean Natsha does not love Lin. Rather, it was through the hardships of bringing Lin into this world that Natsha suddenly realized how strongly she wanted to walk alongside Lorena.