The three dots blinked.
Then vanished.
Raka stared at his phone, thumb hovering over the screen. Nayla had been online for hours, but her replies, if they came, were often a single word. Two, if he was lucky. They weren't cold, exactly. Just… uninterested. Or maybe uninterested in him.
He tossed the phone aside and leaned back in his seat at the café. It was their third time meeting up well, if he could call them "meetings." Each had been his idea. She had never once suggested it first.
But she always came.
That was what kept him coming back: the contradiction.
He glanced at the door, and there she was. Right on time. Her steps were quiet, precise. She wore a navy blue jacket zipped up to her neck despite the warm weather, and a canvas tote with frayed edges. No makeup. Hair pulled into a low ponytail. And that same unreadable expression.
She spotted him, nodded slightly, and walked over. No smile. No wave. Just presence.
"Hey," Raka greeted, standing up slightly. "You came."
"You asked."
Simple. Just like her texts.
They sat. Raka had already ordered her drink Americano, no sugar. She never changed her order. He liked that about her. Predictable, in a world full of noise.
He tried to make conversation. Something light about a movie trailer, something about his office being chaotic.
She listened. Always listened.
When she spoke, it was brief but exact. "You don't like silence, do you?"
He blinked. "Why do you say that?"
"You talk to fill it."
She wasn't being mean. Just… stating facts.
And somehow, that made his chest tighten.
He smiled, almost laughing. "Maybe I do."
She sipped her coffee. "Silence isn't empty. You just haven't learned how to sit in it yet."
And just like that, she left him speechless.