She read the message on the bus, returning from the award ceremony he had missed. Marko wrote that he had been wrong, that her work deserved the same attention as his, and that he would stop putting other people's small requests ahead of their agreements. Tamara cried with relief. For three years she had tried to explain exactly that, without any success lasting longer than a weekend.
That evening she told him how much the passage about no longer wanting to be the person who always understood meant to her. Marko paused. He asked which passage she meant. Tamara showed him the screen. He began speaking generally about love, time, and obligations. He did not sound like the man who had written such precise sentences only a few hours earlier. She simply asked whether he had composed the message himself.
He had asked a friend to help. The friend wrote speeches for other people and knew how to strike the right tone. Marko had sent a short explanation of their argument and received a finished text. There had been no first version written in Marko's own words. He had simply copied the reply and added her name at the beginning. He thought what mattered was that the apology should be well written.
Tamara was not angry that he had sought help with words. Sometimes she struggled to find them herself. But she asked what he intended to do differently the following Friday, when she had a public presentation of her project. He said he would try to come. Everything had returned to the same promise the message was supposed to replace with a concrete action. Tamara put her telephone facedown on the table.
They did not separate immediately. She asked him not to send any further apologies for a few days. On Friday she arrived at the presentation alone. Marko appeared before it began, with his telephone silenced. He stayed until the end and helped stack chairs, without announcing that he had done something remarkable. She thanked him as she thanked the other people who had helped.
Afterward they walked to the bus stop. He said he had been ashamed of not having an excuse that sounded good, so he had looked for a beautiful way to hide it. Tamara said that ugly answer meant more to her than the earlier message. She did not know whether it would be enough for them to stay together. When the bus arrived, she let the first one go. The conversation they were finally having did not fit into a prepared text.