All Chapters of How I Met My Wife.: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

70 Chapters

Chapter 11: Five Days

Day one was a Monday.I am telling you this because I need you to understand the kind of woman I have become. The kind of woman who counts days. The kind of woman who puts a number on a Monday and then puts a different number on a Tuesday and then watches both numbers tick by like a person who is fine, completely fine, who has iced her knee four times today just because.Four times. I did it. Not because my knee hurt. Not because any responsible medical professional had told me to. I did it because a tired man on the other end of a phone had said, in a voice that I would now describe as the only voice in the world, four times a day, and I have been doing it because the alternative is thinking about him, which is worse.I texted Sophie at eleven a.m.He called me.Her reply was nine exclamation points, two question marks, and a single period:YOU WHAT.EMMA PARK YOU WHATYOU CALLED HIM???TELL ME EVERYTHINGI AM SOBBING IN MY OFFICE EMMAI did not tell her everything. I told her the ve

Last Updated : 2026-07-11

Chapter 12: A Really Bad Idea

He took off his shoes.I want you to know that. Of all the things that happened in the next forty-five minutes, that is the one I have not stopped thinking about. He took off his shoes without being asked. He set them next to the small mat I have by the door, where the cello neighbour's deliveries sometimes get left. He did it like a man who had been in this apartment before, or who had at least thought about being in this apartment before, and who had a small mental file of the kind of person he was going to be when he got here.He put the takeout on the counter. The ice on the table. He stood in the middle of my studio with his hands at his sides, and he did not look at me, and the apartment was suddenly way too small for the kind of man who was standing in it.He was too big for the room. Not physically. Although, yes, physically. He was six-two, six-three in the right light, and my studio was four hundred square feet on a generous day, and he was a tall, tired, dressed-down versio

Last Updated : 2026-07-11

Chapter 13: Tuesday

I did not wear mascara on Tuesday.I want to be very clear about this. I did not wear mascara. I did not put on a clean shirt. I did not, in any way, signal to the universe that I was a woman with feelings. I wore a hoodie. I wore sneakers. I had a coffee in my hand that I had bought at the place on Beverly, and I drank it in the Lyft on the way over, and I did not look at the umbrella in the corner of the studio, and I did not smell the candle that I had finally lit on Monday night, the one I had lit because I had been feeling, briefly, like a person who was allowed to have nice things.The Lyft dropped me off at nine forty-five. The clinic was already open. The fountain was doing its fountain thing. The front desk woman waved at me. I signed in. I sat. I picked up a magazine. I did not read it. I did not read the same sentence fourteen times. I did not look at the door.I was a normal person. I was a normal person who had a normal follow-up appointment at a normal clinic on a normal

Last Updated : 2026-07-12

Chapter 14: Send

Three oh seven a.m.I am going to tell you exactly how this happened because I do not want anyone to think I am a person who has her life together.Three oh seven a.m. on a Tuesday night. Koreatown. The building is quiet. The cello neighbour has been silent for hours. There is a single car on the street outside. A dog, somewhere, is doing the small late-night bark that dogs do. The fridge is humming. The candle on the counter is out. The umbrella is in the closet. The sunscreen is in the bathroom. I am in bed. I have not slept. I have been staring at a piece of text on my phone for over an hour.Why are you doing this to meI had typed it. I had deleted it. I had typed it again. I had deleted it again. I had typed it a fourth time. I had deleted it a fourth time. I had typed it a fifth time. I had not deleted it a fifth time. I had let it sit there, the cursor blinking, the words I was not brave enough to send living on the screen like a small confession I could not take back.I was l

Last Updated : 2026-07-12

Chapter 15: The Silence

Wednesday, 6:14 a.m.He left at 4:47 a.m.I know this because I did not sleep. I lay on my side of the bed. I did not sleep. I heard him walk down the hallway. I heard him pick up the candle. I heard him put the candle down. I heard him open the door. I heard him close the door. I heard the door close. I heard the door close the way doors close at 4:47 a.m. in Koreatown when the man in the doorway is the man who was in the doorway an hour and a half ago because the woman in the bed had sent a text at 3:07 a.m. that the woman should not have sent.He did not answer the question. He did not say why he was here. He said my name twice. He stepped into the apartment. He did not touch me. I did not touch him. We stood two feet apart for an hour. We were the kind of two people who stand two feet apart in small Koreatown studios for an hour at 3:30 in the morning when the two people are the kind of two people who are not ready to be the two people the two people are going to be.I whispered i

Last Updated : 2026-07-30

Chapter 16: The Week

Monday, 11:47 a.m.It has been six days.I have been a normal person for six days. I have been a normal person who is going to work. I have been a normal person who is eating lunch. I have been a normal person who is smiling at the cello neighbor. I have been a normal person who is not looking at the phone. I have been a normal person for six days. I have been the kind of normal person Sophie would be proud of. I have been the kind of normal person the cellos in Koreatown would be proud of. I have been the kind of normal person the SPF 50 on my face would be proud of.The phone has not buzzed. The phone has been the kind of phone that does not buzz for six days, in the way that phones do not buzz for six days when the men the phones are waiting for are the kind of men who are not texting the women the phones belong to.I have not texted. I have been the kind of woman who does not text first. I have been the kind of woman who does not text first for six days. I have been the kind of wo

Last Updated : 2026-07-30

Chapter 17: The Follow-Up

Wednesday, 2:47 p.m.It has been two weeks.I have been a normal person for two weeks. I have been the kind of normal person that women are when the women have been normal for two weeks. I have iced my knee four times a day. I have used the SPF 50. I have not looked at the umbrella. I have not smelled the candle. I have watered the plant every week. The plant is doing okay. The plant is the kind of plant that is doing okay when the plant is being watered every week by the kind of woman who is watering the plant every week because the woman is the kind of woman who needs a small thing to take care of.I have not heard from Aiden. I have not heard from Aiden in fourteen days. I have not heard from Aiden in fourteen days in the way that women do not hear from men for fourteen days when the men are the kind of men who are not texting the women the men stood in the hallways of at 3:15 a.m.I have been disciplined. I have been the kind of disciplined that Sophie would be proud of. Sophie ha

Last Updated : 2026-07-30

Chapter 18: The Line

Two weeks.I have been a person for two weeks. I have eaten meals. I have done laundry. I have gone to the grocery store. I have texted Sophie, who has stopped asking questions and has started sending me small encouraging things, like photos of dogs, and one very pointed photo of a single man holding a single baby, captioned in case you were wondering if single men in Los Angeles are still available. they are.I have iced my knee four times a day. I have used the SPF 50. I have not looked at the umbrella. I have not smelled the candle. I have not opened the folder with the sticky notes.I have not looked at the photo of Lena.I have, however, been a complete disaster about none of this. I have smiled at the cello neighbour. I have made small talk with the cashier at the plant store. I have said the words, "I'm fine so many times that they have started to feel like a person I am introducing people to."I am, in short, a normal human being. I have gotten over a small, complicated, profe

Last Updated : 2026-07-12

Chapter 19: Something

He didn't move.His hand was still there. By my face. By the small place just below my ear. Not on it. By it. The air between his fingers and my skin was the size of a single breath, and I have been thinking about that breath for fourteen days."Aiden," I said. My voice was a whisper. "Pick something."He closed his eyes.He closed his eyes the way a man does when he has been awake for two weeks and is finally, finally, being given permission to stop. He closed them slowly, like a man letting go of a thing he had been holding in both hands for a very long time. His jaw worked. His breathing was loud in the small room. The small window made a soft sound against the parking lot outside. The clock on the wall did the tick it had been doing the entire time we had been in this room, the entire time I had been in this room, the entire time I had been a person who was sitting on a mat in a PT room with a man's hand hovering near her face.He opened his eyes.The professional mask was gone.I

Last Updated : 2026-07-13

Chapter 20: After

Ten minutes.I have been counting because counting is what I do now. Ten minutes since he pressed his forehead to mine. Ten minutes since his hand was on my jaw. Ten minutes since I thought the single syllable oh and meant it with my entire chest.Neither of us has moved.His forehead is still against mine. His hand is still on my jaw. His thumb is still on my cheekbone, and I have been breathing the same air as him for ten minutes, and the air in the small room is warm, and the small room is very small, and the small room has become, in the last ten minutes, the entire world.I am aware, in a way, I have not been aware of a thing in a long time, of the exact placement of his hand. The pad of his thumb on the bone is just below my eye. The way his fingers sit along the line of my jaw, not pressing, just there, just held. The way his palm is warm against the side of my face. The way his wrist is steady. The way his hand does not shake. The way his hand, which is a surgeon's hand, which

Last Updated : 2026-07-13

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