I don't know why I noticed the shoes first.
They weren't anything special — plain canvas, a little scuffed at the toes. But they were hers. I knew it instinctively. The way they pointed slightly inward when she stood still, like she never quite settled into a place fully. Like she was always halfway out the door, even when she wanted to stay.
She didn't come in.
Just passed by the café.
I pretended I didn't see her.
Pretended I was too busy lining up cups or wiping down a spot on the counter that hadn't been dirty since yesterday.
But I saw her.
And she didn't look in.
I'm not sure what that meant.
⸻
The day moved slowly after that.
Customers came and went in a blur of small talk and foam hearts. I smiled when I had to. Laughed once or twice. Gave someone an extra espresso shot for free because they looked like they'd had the kind of morning that needed one.
But my mind was somewhere else.
Still at the edge of the window.
Still watching those shoes disappear around the corner.
⸻
I don't know what I expected after she told me Elian wasn't her boyfriend.
Relief, maybe.
A clearer path.
But it hadn't cleared anything.
It just changed the shape of the fog.
⸻
I've been thinking about this thing she said once — about how some people hide better in silence than in noise.
At the time, I thought she meant books. Or herself.
Now I think she meant both.
⸻
After my shift, I stayed back to close up. No one asked me to. I just didn't want to go home yet.
The espresso machine made this low, mechanical sigh when it powered down. I liked that sound. It felt final. Honest. Like something letting go.
I stood by the window with the lights off, just watching the street.
The same street she walked past earlier.
The same one I didn't call out to her on.
Not because I didn't want to.
But because I didn't know what I'd say if she stopped.
⸻
On the walk home, the wind picked up. A slow, bone-deep kind of cold that made everything feel sharper.
The bookstore was already closed, but I lingered outside for a minute.
Her world, not mine.
But it was starting to feel familiar.
Isn't that strange?
How someone else's spaces start to feel like memories when they're in them?
⸻
Back home, I didn't bother with the lights. Just the small lamp by the desk. The apartment hummed with the kind of quiet that fills up slowly — like water in a glass.
I sat on the edge of the bed with her book — Nymphaea's — still unopened. Still waiting.
It felt heavier tonight.
Like it knew something I didn't.
⸻
I don't know why I'm hesitating.
It's just a book.
But it's not.
It's hers.
Or at least… it feels like hers.
Even if she hasn't said it.
Even if I don't know for sure.
There's something in the way she talks about the characters — like they're not fiction. Like they're people she's left pieces of herself inside.
Maybe that's what writers do.
Leave breadcrumbs in other people's stories, hoping someone will follow them back.
⸻
I opened to the first page again.
That same line.
"We don't meet people by accident…"
I read it slower this time.
Felt it settle somewhere just beneath the surface.
Then I turned the page.
And kept going.
⸻
I don't remember falling asleep.
Just the book still open beside me, the lamp still on, and the quiet still breathing like a second presence in the room.
Somewhere between page seven and ten, I stopped seeing the words.
Started seeing her.
The way her hair curls behind one ear when she tucks it back.
The way her eyes search mine when she's trying not to say something.
The way she makes silence feel like a language I haven't learned yet but desperately want to.
⸻
I didn't dream of her.
But I woke up thinking about her voice.
Like it had stayed behind when the rest of her left.
And I didn't know what to do with that.
So I made coffee.
And watched the sun rise into another day I wasn't ready for.