The Sixteen-Year Horizon

How do you plan for a perfect ending in a world that refuses to be controlled?** At forty-four, Julian has achieved the ultimate clarity. A man of meticulous order and radical conviction, he has mapped out his final departure: he will leave this life at age sixty. This is not an act of despair, but his masterpiece—a "Sixteen-Year Horizon" designed to ensure a life of maximum intention and a dignified exit before the world's perceived decline can touch him. But Julian's architecture of the end has one missing piece: **The One.** He seeks a soulmate not just to live with, but to share in his final, orchestrated breath. Then comes Elena. A gardener who thrives in the wild unpredictability of growth and decay, Elena is the antithesis of Julian's rigid blueprint. As their connection deepens, Julian's secret timeline—once his source of freedom—becomes a suffocating cage. When the truth is finally revealed, the romantic dream shatters, leaving Elena to face an impossible choice: can you truly love a man who has already scheduled his abandonment of you? As Julian's "Transition Consultant" strips away the poetic veneer to reveal the cold, selfish machinery of a planned death, a sudden, brutal reality strikes. A health crisis forces Elena into a desperate fight for a future Julian has already renounced. **In the collision between a man obsessed with his exit and a woman fighting for her entrance, Julian must decide: will he cling to the dignity of his plan, or find a deeper dignity in the beautiful, messy, and unscripted uncertainty of staying?**