“Can she do that?” Pauli asked after ordering another round of drinks Viktor hoped would be their last.

They were thirty now, and Viktor had stopped calling him Pauli aloud when they were eleven or twelve, but he still did in his head. Something felt right about that childish nickname, something to go with the playground-era possessiveness their friendship sometimes had. Paul was Viktor’s Very Best Friend and everyone better know it, including Viktor.

“Of course she can say no,” Viktor sighed. “That’s why you ask if someone wants to marry you – you’re asking.” Pauli didn’t do long-term relationships, and it sometimes felt tiring to ask him for advice because you had to provide so much context. But he’d be hurt if Viktor didn’t ask. Besides, there was so much else Viktor didn’t have to explain to him. They had some twenty-five years of history. When you looked at it like that, they had more than Viktor and Isabel did, but Viktor didn’t usually look at it like that. No matter how good a friend someone was, the partner you lived with was something else. Besides, he was with Isabel because they had so much in common, not because they’d been thrown together in elementary school.

“No, no.” Pauli shooed away the misunderstanding with one hand like a cloud of gnats. “I mean, can she say no and not break up with you?”

“Well, she did.” Which left him spending his Friday night in this sad dive bar Pauli always claimed was authentic and where the real Berliners hung out. By that definition, it looked like you could only be a real Berliner if you were an old chain-smoking drunk who enjoyed muted televised sports, bad music and sticky surfaces, but Viktor had let Pauli pick the bar because he was meeting him at such short notice.

The drinks arrived, and Pauli drained half his beer at a swallow. He seemed to think Viktor’s failed proposal was grounds for them to get drunk the way they used to, the way Viktor was too old to drink anymore. Too old and too content with his life to want to black it out. He hadn’t told Pauli that Isabel was out of town. It would’ve made Pauli feel like a back-up plan. Mostly Viktor had wanted someone to talk to, someone who’d ask whether he was okay. But Pauli had thoughts about the situation. Pauli always had a lot of thoughts.

Taking advantage of the interruption, Viktor added, “The worst is knowing she does want to marry me. It’s only the proposal I got wrong.”

“Remind me of why?”

“Well… we were watching TV, and I’d had it in the back of my mind for a while, so I blurted it out.”

“And she said no?”

“No, first she asked if I was serious.”

“Were you?”

They were going in circles. “Of course.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“You know, that I didn’t put any thought into it. Because I didn’t have a ring or a speech or whatever.”

“Fuck that, man.”

“I mean, I did think about it. I’ve thought about it a lot of times.”

“Sure you have, because like, who’d say that otherwise. What’s she being such a spoiled princess about?”

“That’s not fair,” Viktor was quick to say, but Pauli’s words had a sickly sweet savor like something you’d eat too fast and get an upset stomach from later. A part of him was pleased to hear Pauli go on.

“Like, you’ve been together how long now and a great partner, right? The whole time.”

“Seven years,” Viktor supplied.

“So just you and your sincere feelings aren’t good enough?”

“Well, we have talked a lot about how a nice proposal is important to her.”

“Define ‘nice’! You were home together. What could be nicer?”

“You know, something with a surprise and so on.”

“But she was surprised, am I right?”

Viktor shook his head as Pauli ordered shots, but still drank one, and then another, something to pass the time while Pauli spiraled on about Isabel until he finally concluded that she was “an ungrateful bitch, if you think about it.”

“Hey! That’s my fiancée you’re talking about.”

“Actually, she’s not. That’s the whole point.”

“No, it isn’t.” But Viktor was tired and unhappy, and maybe that was the point. So he hadn’t done this one thing. But didn’t he do a lot in general? Didn’t it count for something that they were happy together, so happy – all things being equal – that he’d much rather be doing the most boring thing on Earth with Isabel than the most fun one with his best friend? And this night was far from the most fun thing. Still, he kept sipping and nodding as Pauli talked, because his apartment was empty now, and he hated that blaring quiet.

“So she moved out?” Pauli had once crashed on their couch for almost a month, leaving his apartment in Leipzig after some difficulty between him and a roommate he had ambiguous feelings for, or maybe he’d been seeing her and messed it up somehow; Viktor couldn’t remember. Isabel had been so tolerant, making an effort not to wake Pauli when she left for work, and nodding along with his philosophical ramblings all through dinner without ever complaining that she and Viktor hadn’t had a meal alone in weeks. He himself had felt on the brink of paying someone to kidnap Pauli and take him away. While Pauli eventually left their couch for a rented room, he stayed in Berlin, saying it was nice to live near good friends. Pauli talked a lot about how it was only a twenty-minute U-Bahn ride from Kreuzberg to his place in Friedrichshain, which forced Viktor to talk a lot about how busy they were. Their life wasn’t stressful or anything; it was just full. And Pauli could take up so much space.

“No, she just needs some time.”

“So she moved out.”

He shrugged, too tired to correct Pauli again, and not as sure as he’d been a moment before. It had been a week. She’d said she needed to think things over, took her suitcase and work laptop and the train to her parents’ house. When was she coming back? What would happen when she did? Should he have asked? But why should he have to? His head was spinning with drinks, questions and the background hum of Pauli’s words he tuned in and out of.

“If she’s like this now,” Pauli continued, “and you go along with it, what next? She’ll never stop. Nothing will ever be good enough.”

“I feel like nothing’s ever good enough.” Viktor hadn’t known that he did, but saying it now seemed to capture a certain vague discomfort he sometimes felt: that Isabel was too good for him and knew it, that she had moments of discontent or disappointment that were surprising and took effort to understand. That she might one day surprise him by turning and leaving for reasons he didn’t understand. That – maybe she already had.

“Yeah, exactly, and who is she to make you feel like that? What’s she do for you that’s so great?”

A rush of answers came all at once: She cares about how I feel. I enjoy life more with her in it. She makes me feel whole. She’s there for me when I need her. Except that she was patently not here when he needed her now, so instead he said, “Same stuff I do for her, I guess.”

“Probably less, even!”

Another round. Viktor’s stomach felt like the grating of rusty machinery, and he reached for a handful of salted peanuts from the unsanitary bowl on the bar. They were so stale they were a little soft, like he could’ve swallowed them without chewing. He wished there was a button he could press and be home in bed. The bar was more crowded now, and everything tasted like cigarette smoke. Were it not for the effort involved in moving, he might’ve gotten up in the middle of Pauli’s latest monologue and left.

“Oh! Oh, I know!” Pauli’s outburst woke him from his queasy daze and caught the attention of the bleary customers around them, even over the slurry of Schlager music and other conversations.

Viktor didn’t hear what Pauli said after, something about how he should propose.

“I know, I know I have to try again.” But he was tired, a tiredness so leaden it seemed to extend in both directions past this long and stuffy night to tell him that he’d always been and would always be tired. And wasn’t some of that –a big part, even – the effort of trying to hit a moving target? Maybe it wasn’t that he hadn’t thought enough or tried hard enough; maybe nothing would ever be good enough. While he couldn’t make logical sense of that thought, there was a suggestion of ease in it: If nothing was good enough, he might as well not try at all.

“So listen,” Pauli bleated in his ear. “Here’s what you do.”

He didn’t usually listen to Pauli’s ideas, but no one else was giving him any. His older married siblings had said he really messed up. His parents assured him it would all blow over. The two coworkers he’d confided in wanted to know why he hadn’t asked Isabel’s friends for advice. That reminded him of a conversation years before when they were transitioning to a serious relationship – his first – and Isabel said something about getting advice from his friends, “but not Pauli.”

Well, she wasn’t here to tell him not Pauli now. Besides, maybe she’d underestimated his best friend, because what Pauli was saying would never have occurred to Viktor.

Once when Viktor was little, he stumbled and fell on the wooden deck of his family’s rental at the Baltic Sea. He didn’t think it was more than a scrape until he washed the blood off and saw the long, dark splinter under the skin on the ball of his left hand. He knew he should tell his parents, but everyone was already waiting for him to go to the beach. Later, he’d promised himself. As soon as we get back. All day, he could feel the hostile splinter working its way into his flesh. He thought of it poisoning him and making him sick, of it coming out the other side of his hand, leaving a gaping hole, or the whole hand having to be chopped off.

But, on the way home, Viktor kept quiet for fear of the stinging pain when his dad sterilized the wound and poked at it with clumsy tweezers. What a relief it would’ve been to get caught, for his parents, brother or sister to see the splinter and demand to attend to it.

Lying awake half the night with a cold sweat despite the heat, he was sure he was already feeling the beginnings of splinter poisoning. Maybe they’d have to cut off his whole arm. Maybe he’d die. And still, in the morning, he couldn’t bring himself to say anything. Once, in the bright sterile light of the bathroom, he ran the fingers of his other hand over the splinter, hoping that would push it out like the lead of a mechanical pencil. But it only sank in deeper, and he felt too sick to go on.

Pauli’s stupid, immature idea was a splinter working its way deeper and deeper into his brain. The next morning, it sharpened the pulsating pain of his hangover, and he wished he’d rejected it in no uncertain terms the night before, extracted it before the wound closed over it and the splinter became a part of him forever.

He opened his message thread with Isabel like she might have written after all and the app just forgot to tell him. Nothing new, not for a while now. So there was no one to notice the dangerous new thing in him, to help him get it out in time. He closed the thread and opened the string of messages Pauli had sent on his way home, one after the other like he was brimming over with inspiration. How good it would be to feel that way.

Viktor wasn’t not contacting Isabel; he just wasn’t initiating contact like he had been before. That was also Pauli’s advice, and what was the harm in it? After all, Isabel was free to contact him at any time. It wasn’t like he was ignoring her. In fact, he’d never thought about her more. Only – in a different way than before.

How good and right it felt to have Isabel at his side again as they walked along the bank of the canal, the sun sinking and the wrought-iron lanterns coming on one after the other, the air balmy with the scent of linden blossoms, laced with charcoal, weed and bug spray. After a few words about how good it was to see each other again, she was talking about neutral things outside their relationship. Though how could any of it be neutral, talking about what was going on in her hometown, when they both knew why she’d been there?

She glanced at the button-up shirt and slacks he’d ironed that morning and said, “You look good,” like she had when they first met up. This time she added, “I feel so underdressed.” She was wearing a white sundress, frayed from years as a summer staple, and dusty flipflops.

“No, you look perfect.” He’d meant to say great, but the other word slipped out in its place, maybe because there was something bridal about her tonight.

He heard the high eerie judder of swans’ wings cutting through the air and looked up at the flock like the rest of the evening might be written in the sky going blue-grey behind them.

“I just wanted us to be on the same page about the future so we could look forward to it… without bitterness or wondering whether the other person cares about our needs,” Isabel said into his silence. “I never wanted to hurt you.”

He wanted to say me, neither, but that wasn’t quite true. “I know,” he said instead. He knew he could still call this off. But what then?

She rested her head on his shoulder, pleased that he’d wanted to meet where they took a walk on their first date, and probably assuming that was all he had in mind. Because, under normal circumstances, that was as much or more thought than he would’ve given it. He saw now that he could’ve done more than before yet much less than he now had planned, and everything could’ve been easy and good, without this queasy knot of dread tightening around his stomach.

“Isabel – ” he said, but she wasn’t paying attention.

“Look! How beautiful.” She pointed to the boat approaching, all decked out in fairy lights and candles.

Because she thought it was someone else’s fairytale she’d watch from a distance as it passed her by. And it would’ve been, if not for his conversation with Pauli.

“Come on, let’s go look.” He led her closer to the water, where they could already hear the first strains of music coming from the boat. Seeing its lights reflected in her glowing eyes, he understood that, at least for the moment, he’d stumbled into doing the exact right thing. He could still stop now. He could let this be only a passing moment, go home with Isabel and think about what he’d learned tonight, what he might do with that knowledge. He could do the right thing outside of this wrong moment. But time kept passing, step by step towards the water, and the boat wouldn’t stop coming closer.

He felt himself carried by a current far stronger and faster than the dark water of the canal. Everything would be easier if he went along with it – but at what price? Doing what felt easy had already cost him enough, and he wasn’t thinking of the actual price tag on tonight.

“All aboard,” he said as the boat pulled up to the shore and the captain waved them on, the acoustic guitarist nodding in greeting as he started playing their song.

“This is crazy.” He could feel Isabel’s hand trembling in his as she spoke. “Is this really happening?”

“I thought we could use some magic.” He was saying the lines he’d rehearsed in his head, but he hadn’t expected to mean them. There was a buoyant feeling in him as he stepped onto the boat that had nothing to do with the faint waves below. It was, he realized, the sense – maybe for the first time in his life – of everything in him recognizing the rightness of something. That something was Isabel, had long been Isabel, but it was also this moment he’d created with an hour or two of googling and a couple bank transfers. And a bit of thought, of course, but that hadn’t taken long.

Isabel was gushing now, thanking him, telling him how happy she was, not only to be here, but to be here with him. He kept smiling, putting his arm around her shoulders and telling her that she deserved it, that they did… Then the reality of the situation hit him with the nightmare suddenness of finding yourself naked in public. He was sure she could feel the cold sweat slice across the lines of his palm. They couldn’t be much more than ten minutes away.

“Excuse me, I have to run in here quick.” He hurried towards the bathroom. Nerves, she’d think. Upsetting his stomach or making him need a minute to get himself together. What now? He had to stop this. What if he asked the captain to turn the boat around? Isabel would hear and wonder why they weren’t continuing on to the bridge where he’d confessed, towards the end of that first evening years ago, that he didn’t want to meet anyone else, but wanted her to be his girlfriend. It might cause a glitch in this otherwise perfect evening, a scratch after which the record couldn’t keep playing like before. No, the boat had to keep going.

But he could still stop Pauli. Whatever Pauli’s opinions might be, as a true friend, he’d have to help, even if that meant doing the opposite of what he’d suggested. If only Viktor could reach him in time. He wrote him in panic, feeling the seconds yanked from him one after another like hairs. First he told Pauli to stop everything. Then, an instant later, it occurred to him that it could still work if Pauli made a minor change. He wrote him several messages, all in caps, and then missed-called him twice. On a night like tonight, Pauli should be doing nothing if not waiting for his cue.

Viktor splashed some water on his face, trying to think where the boat would be now. He felt like his heart was beating all at once in a single continuous pulse, but also not at all. Maybe if he fainted. Maybe that was the way out. A rescue boat pulling up alongside, Isabel’s attention on him and not the bridge. But then he looked down at his phone and saw the checkmarks next to all his messages, now read by Pauli, even now being attended to. If there was time to make the adjustment, Pauli would, and if there wasn’t, he’d do nothing at all, which was also fine, because Viktor could tell by Isabel’s reactions that everything he’d done so far – other than hiding in the cramped bathroom – was already enough.

He took a deep breath and went back out. Yes, Pauli could be an idiot sometimes, could be annoying in large or even medium doses, but when push came to shove, Viktor could count on him.

“Sorry,” he said to Isabel as the guitarist continued strumming through a playlist of their special songs and the captain gave them privacy by staring grimly at the water. “Where was I?”

Where he was was telling her how their relationship was the most important thing in his life, and he never wanted to let her down again because she was so special and deserving, and so were they, together, of all the best in a wonderful shared life. But where he was was also watching the bridge get closer and wondering how fast Pauli could work, whether he might be too clumsy to get it done. He thought of Pauli getting bored, drinking, playing on his phone, wasting time. But Pauli doing nothing was still better than what they’d agreed on that sloppy drunk night and in the bitter, lonely days that followed until Isabel reemerged in his life like the first crocuses after the long frigid grey of a Berlin winter.

The bridge was close now, shadowy under the streetlights, and then distinct in the sudden glare of the spotlight on their side. It was so bright he had to blink his dazzled eyes, but Isabel was facing towards him. He knelt down and took her hands, waiting not for a sign, but for the sign.

With the music drowning out outside noise, the enormous banner letters seemed to drop over the side of the bridge with the stealth of a grappling hook.

“Isabel, there’s something I want to ask you,” he was saying as the string of words unfurled behind her in a single jaunty scrawl of horror.

The sign read, “Let’s NOT Get Married!”, the NOT larger than life, everything in Viktor’s line of sight closing in on the word he’d asked Pauli to remove so this moment could be what it was now – perfect, or close enough for Isabel.

“What is it?” She started to turn, confused by his sudden pause.

“Wait!” he cried out. “Close your eyes.”

The boat came to a stop near one bank but far enough out for a prime view of the bridge. Viktor’s heart was jackhammering so hard his eyes twitched. He tried to signal to the captain to keep going, but the man only nodded and pointed at a marker on the shore to indicate that this was the right spot. The guitarist, like Isabel and the captain, was facing away from the bridge and played on and on. Viktor’s head was spinning, and he could no longer recognize the once-familiar melody. He got the box out of his pocket and shoved it into Isabel’s hands.

She opened her eyes, and he saw that she was crying as she opened it.

“Isabel,” he said, feeling safe now, because her eyes were glued to some warm point in the air between the ring and him, and the bridge might as well not have existed. “I want us to share our lives and – ”

The nearby explosion of fireworks was so loud he dropped the box and yanked Isabel halfway to the floor as he scrambled to his feet. That must’ve been Pauli’s special touch.

“What the hell… ” She was looking up at the sign before he could even try to stop her. And, now, so were the others. The guitarist stopped mid-song. The captain put one hand over his mouth and stared.

“Isabel – ”

“No.” She shook her head and backed away from him. “No, no, no…”

“Wait! It wasn’t supposed to be like this!” But it was, and even if it wasn’t, what did it matter now? He’d destroyed the moment. He’d destroyed everything. “Pauli – ”

“Of course fucking Pauli.” The more he tried to explain, the louder she yelled, “No, no!” and he realized it was not to the situation, not to his proposal, but to anything to do with him.

“Isabel, wait – ” He reached for her, but she wriggled away, kicked off her sandals and plunged over the side of the boat with a splash that soaked him up to the waist and extinguished the candles around him. He wasn’t sure whether she was still saying no as she swam for shore, the ghostly white of her dress billowing on top of the dark waves, or the word was only echoing in his head.

Viktor stood watching until she reached the ladder at the concrete embankment and pulled herself up without a look back. When he turned to the others, the captain was holding the life preserver Isabel didn’t need, and the guitarist was shaking his head.

“Dude.” He spat out the word like he couldn’t contain his disgust. “I thought this was a proposal. I don’t do shit like this.”

I don’t, either, Viktor wanted to say, but he just had.

“Get out,” the captain said.

“What?”

“Get out of my boat.”

Viktor hesitated. The canal was dark and filthy, and he wasn’t a strong swimmer. But they were close to shore and it seemed preferable to getting thrown overboard. He crammed the ring onto his pinky finger for safekeeping and climbed over the side of the boat. There was a moment, before instinct jogged him into dogpaddling, where he almost let himself sink.

After he pulled himself up the ladder, he turned and saw the boat moving away at a steady clip, the lights still twinkling as if they’d never been meant for him at all but were even now headed for someone more worthy. And yet. Sitting on the concrete ledge, he looked down at his pruny, grubby hands and saw the ring. Wasn’t that proof of his good intentions, deep down? He needn’t have brought it if he really planned to go through with this heartless prank. An empty box would’ve done, or nothing at all. But there was no one to submit this evidence to. The boat’s light was distant and fading fast like a shooting star, and Isabel was nowhere in sight.

Even if she were, there was nothing he could say. In planning this inane cruelty, he’d given so little thought to afterwards. Now, he knew he was nothing more to Isabel than something bad that had happened to her. He was the nightmare ex she’d confide about to the man she married instead of him. And he’d be utterly alone, not only now as passersby tittered at his sopping clothes and gave him a wide berth, but always. The realization he’d had that evening about Isabel was so big, had taken up so much of him, he didn’t think he could fit another one in this lifetime.

A group stopped to snicker and point, and then he saw that they weren’t looking at him at all, but at the bridge, still bright with hostile words.

Pauli! Yes, Viktor was an idiot and he’d ruined the best thing he’d ever had, but Pauli had led him to it, and Pauli had stopped him from turning back before it was too late.

The rage inside him was so hot he felt it steaming the dank water out of his clothing and off of his grimy skin. His sleeves and the legs of his pants chafed as he walked up towards the bridge. Already, he could see shadowy forms gathered around the railing where the spotlight must be, dumb Pauli attracting dumb interest and no doubt reveling in it. They’d think it was Pauli’s thing, Pauli’s viral stunt or performance art or breakup.

“What the actual fuck.” He wasn’t shouting, but there must’ve been something so violent in his tone that Pauli’s newfound hangers-on backed away. Maybe they thought he was the recipient of the unproposal. Or maybe Pauli had already told them his own stupid version of the story. All Viktor knew was that, just a little while ago, he’d still had the love of his life, hope for the future and a best friend he trusted. Now he had nothing but rage and wet clothing.

Pauli’s mouth was still caught in the laughter he’d shared with the others. “So she didn’t take it well?” He plucked at Viktor’s wet sleeve. Viktor slapped his hand away.

“I know it’s been a crazy night,” Pauli blathered on, “but we did it! You were floundering, but we got it done! Come on, man, give me a high five!”

Pauli’s raised hand hung in the air, uncertain like a dog’s tail paused mid-wag. “Let’s go get a drink and talk.” His voice was softer now, the boastful euphoria gone. “It’ll be like the good old days.”

“Good old days?” Viktor stared. “You ruined my life.”

“What, don’t be like that! I did exactly what you asked me to.”

“But I wrote to you. I sent you all those messages.”

“Oh yeah, sure, but then I figured… Um, I mean, what messages? When?”

“Right before you did this.” Viktor grabbed the sign and yanked it loose, one end trailing down and disappearing into the water. Two spectral swans glided over, thinking it was something to eat. “I know you saw them.”

“Oh, um, I…” For the first time, Pauli’s face registered fear. “I must’ve accidentally hit Mark as Read.”

By now, Pauli’s audience had faded away into the darkness, probably watching from a safe distance just in case.

“Mark as Read.” Viktor laughed as he repeated the meaningless words, which seemed to reassure Pauli.

“Look, Vik, she could’ve had all that magical shit if she’d said yes in the first place. She turned you down, and you taught her a lesson. End of story.”

“I’ll teach you a lesson!” It was only later that the logical fallacy of Pauli’s words occurred to him: Isabel couldn’t have had any of it by saying yes the first time, because he never would’ve bothered if she had. In the moment, all he could think of was knocking Pauli into the water with his stupid sign. Backed up against the railing, Pauli grabbed at Viktor’s hands to stop him, and something hard slipped off of Viktor’s pinky finger and dropped over the ledge, casting a brief round shadow in the spotlight and then vanishing from view, too small to make an audible splash, but heavy enough to sink right away.

All at once, Pauli wasn’t even worth hurting, and Viktor walked away. He couldn’t give Isabel any magic anymore, not even whatever faint satisfaction she might’ve had from hearing, through whatever mutual friends remained, that he’d pushed Pauli off a bridge on her behalf. And now he saw that even that attempt had been a mistake, because he should’ve been looking for Isabel, trying to show that he cared and was there for her on the off chance she wanted him. He hadn’t even asked the captain to catch up with her or at least take her purse to shore. Instead of going home to wait for her or seeing whether her friends knew where she was, he’d done exactly what he would’ve if he had intended to go through with this: headed straight for his laughing accomplice.

How right her litany of no, no, no had been, how right she was to say what the whole world seemed to be saying to him tonight. Would she even have gone home, or been too afraid of seeing him there?

In the distance, down the dark length of the canal where it blurred with the ever-darker sky, he thought he saw the merry light of the boat he’d boarded not long before. But his eyes couldn’t follow it for long, and maybe it was only a shooting star, vanished from sight before he could think what he might still wish for.

April 26, 2025