Part 1The Moon Never Returns

I was stressed about my AI hackathon entry. My husband Toby, usually just beside me, set down his book, removed his gold-rimmed glasses, and took my laptop—something he’d never shown interest in before. He rolled up his sleeves, and in the glow of the screen, his fingers flew across the keyboard. In under a minute, he solved a problem that had stumped me for a month.

“Did you learn that recently?” I asked, my heart swelling, thinking he’d done it for me. He only smiled.

A man focused on his work is irresistible. I snapped a photo of his handsome profile and posted it online. My usually quiet account blew up overnight.

Comments flooded in:

“It’s 2026 and I’m seeing those hands code again! The ultimate intellectual crush!”

“‘Learned that recently?’ LOL, OP, you really don’t know your husband, do you?”

“MY SHIP IS BACK FROM THE DEAD! I watched Isabelle teach Toby to code a hundred times. They were perfect.”

“Wait… is OP Toby’s wife? My Toby-and-Isabelle ship is officially ancient history…”

* * *

The comments kept pouring in.

"Props to you, though. Back in the day, Toby stayed up for nights on end optimizing the parameters for Isabelle’s AI competition. He collapsed in the lab from exhaustion right after it was over. That kind of devotion still hits hard!"

"You think that’s something? What about the fact that after Isabelle left, Toby never touched a competitive AI project again? Is that not the ultimate tragic romance?"

...

Everyone was lamenting their unfinished love story.

Over three thousand comments, all piecing together an Toby I had never known.

This wasn't the calm, dependable man I had fallen in love with, the man so steady that I was the one who had to propose marriage.

This was a raw, impulsive young man who, when rumors spread that he was backing out of Isabelle’s project, ran through a torrential downpour to her apartment just to explain.

The night before Isabelle left the country was Christmas Eve. That same day, Toby officially quit the AI lab, vowing never to work on core algorithms again. He locked himself in a server room all night and emerged with a hauntingly beautiful piece of AI-generated music—a melody whose title was a coded way of saying "I love you."

She was his muse, his inspiration.

I scrolled through their entire story, comment by comment.

The bright white screen stung my eyes until they started to water.

The melody Toby had just generated for me… it was the same one.

Was it because Christmas was approaching? Was he thinking of her again?

“Hey, don’t cry over a bit of code.”

Toby chuckled, his thumb, slightly calloused, brushing away a tear from the corner of my eye.

I flinched away from his touch, forcing a weak smile. I tried to keep my voice even. “Have you competed in AI events before? You have a really deep understanding of these models.”

“The lead algorithm engineer on my team is out sick. Honey, could you step in and help me out?”

Everyone has a past.

But his kindness to me over the years was real. More importantly, I had just found out I was pregnant. The family of three we had always dreamed of was finally within reach.

If he agreed to help me, it would prove he had moved on. And if he had, I could pretend I never saw any of this.

But Toby just froze. A long moment passed before he finally said, “I’ve never competed officially.”

His words made my desperate hope feel pathetic.

Official records of him and Isabelle winning AI competitions together were still online.

Toby was the most meticulous, careful person I knew. And yet, he was telling me a lie so clumsy, so easily disproven.

I lowered my gaze, my voice barely a whisper. “Really?”

“Then what are all these comments about?”