Emma couldn’t recall how many times she’d smiled during that first conversation - only that every story they shared felt like a thread picked up mid-sentence, as if from a life half-lived somewhere else.

  After the shock of the attempted bag-snatching had passed, she turned to Harrison. With a trace of shyness, she smiled at her “hero.”

  “Let me buy you a coffee? A proper, old-fashioned thank-you.”

  “Old-fashioned is just my type,” he grinned.

  “Then it’s settled.”

  They walked together beneath the late San Francisco sun, tree shadows sliding across their shoulders, wrapped in a silence that felt oddly peaceful.

  “What kind of place do you usually go to?” he asked as they paused at a crossroads.

  Emma tilted her head, fingers twirling the strap of her tote. “I like spots with vintage charm—weathered wood, amber light, a bit of old jazz. But right now... I just need somewhere close. Somewhere I can breathe.”

  Harrison chuckled. “I know a place. Not far. Just enough of the right kind of old. I think you’ll like it.”

  The place was called Juniper & Ivy, nestled behind an aging bookshop on Fillmore Street. Stained-glass windows looked out onto a quiet back garden. Worn wooden tables. Pale linen-cushioned chairs. The scent of espresso, dried orange peel, and a trumpet solo by Chet Baker softened the city noise outside.

  They chose a window seat. Emma unwrapped her light scarf and rested her arms on the table. Sunlight danced through her curls.

  “So what do you do?” she asked after her first sip of cappuccino.

  “Data analyst,” Harrison said, eyes on his cup. “Nothing fancy. A normal job. Numbers that don’t feel anything.”

  “And after hours, you decode humans and save women from alleyway disasters?”

  He laughed softly. “No, mostly I just try to understand myself. Street hero, though… tempting. If the pay’s in coffee, I might sign up.”

  Emma blinked at him, then burst out laughing. This man was...unexpected.

  “Do you like books?” Harrison asked, his gaze drawn again to the sunlight in her hair.

  Emma stirred her drink slowly. “I love them. Books are the only things I can carry anywhere. They don’t take up much space, and they always make me feel at home.”

  He nodded. “What are you reading now?”

  “A book by Kazuo Ishiguro—Never Let Me Go,” she replied, eyes turning inward. “It’s like a dream that stretches on. Soft. Beautiful. But impossible to hold.”

  “You’ve read it?” she added, surprised.

  “I have. I had to pause for a week before I could read anything else,” he said, smiling. “It was like finishing a perfect meal—you just sit there, staring at the empty plate, letting the taste linger.”

  Emma smiled. “Emotional recovery time. I get it.”

  “And music?” he asked. “Do you listen often?”

  “All the time. Sigur Rós. Sometimes Agnes Obel. Especially on rainy mornings. You?”

  “Chopin. But only after 9 a.m.,” he said, eyebrow raised.

  “Why after nine?”

  “Because before that, I like to hear the city wake up.”

  Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

  They laughed together. And in the hush that followed, something warm and unspoken settled between them.

  Their conversation flowed like a melody, gliding from one theme to the next without effort. The air between them turned delicate, resonant. Like two loners brushing against the same frequency in a world built for noise.

  Harrison spoke of fading murals in the Mission District, where graffiti told tales of native women and navy boys. Emma shared the memory of a cracked stone statue in Tibet, where the wind sounded like the sigh of someone long gone.

  Neither of them remembered all the details. But every image carried the weight of something unfinished—a meeting not quite named, a familiarity that drifted in like scent on wind.

  Emma didn’t know why it felt so easy. Only that, across from Harrison, something inside her stilled. A hollow she’d grown used to - like breath itself - quieted.

  Harrison, by contrast, felt disoriented.

  He wasn’t used to wanting to look at someone longer than needed. He especially wasn’t used to letting anyone past the well-guarded doors of his inner world - that fortress of logic and control he’d built for himself.

  He was the middle child of three, always the “stable” one. The silent kid who stayed out of the way so his parents could focus on the others.

  His father, a soldier returned from war, had hollowed eyes and stories he never told. Present, but distant - as if always behind fogged glass. His mother, once tender, had run out of warmth, surviving on worn-out patience too thin to wrap around anyone.

  He couldn’t remember the last time he cried in front of someone. Maybe before he even learned that crying was an option.

  He was raised in logic. In structure. In unspoken emotional rules he learned without being taught. Maybe that’s why he always felt like a cracked jar. Everything poured in eventually leaked out. He’d never truly been in love. A few moments that seemed promising, but he always pulled back first.

  Emma wasn’t like anyone he’d met.

  She didn’t try to be special. Yet she left behind a quiet aftertaste. Every word she spoke seemed to carry an undertone—as if she lived on a slightly different wavelength. Slower. Softer. More real.

  She made him cautious. And, somehow, safe.

  “Once, I danced in a monastery in Tibet,” she said, her voice like wind. “And I thought... the wind carried the voices of the dead.”

  He nodded. Asked nothing. But inside him, something fine and dry began to crack, like earth waiting for rain.

  Their friendship began in small things: a thank-you email, a shared playlist, a photo Harrison sent one Tuesday afternoon—blue skies above a glass office tower.

  “Clouds looked just like the day you talked about Iceland,” read the simple message.

  Emma saw it while stretching after rehearsal, her skin still damp with sweat.

  Strange, she thought. There was someone, quiet and steady, who always arrived just when she needed to breathe.

  A month in San Francisco passed faster than expected.

  They met more often. Morning coffee. Afternoon walks. Harrison started dropping by her rehearsals, sometimes with her favorite smoothie. Emma sent him little recordings—her footsteps across the dance floor, the swish of fabric, the kind of sigh you couldn’t tell if from muscle fatigue or longing.

  Their bond wasn’t hurried. It touched the edges of their lives in quiet, deliberate notes.

  That weekend, Harrison arrived at The Velvet Stage - a small theater above an old building on Hayes Street. Just over a hundred red velvet seats. Warm amber lights. The room felt like it was waiting for something sacred.

  Emma appeared in a pale grey silk dress. Eyes closed. No words. Only light, music, and the slow memory of a body telling a story.

  Harrison sat in the third row. He didn’t know why he couldn’t breathe too deeply. Every turn of her body, every subtle gesture pulled at something invisible in him.

  Light skimmed her shoulder, grazed her cheek, revealing a memory that didn’t belong to this time.

  Somewhere deep inside him, he knew: he’d seen this dance before. Somewhere far away.

  The show ended. The room erupted in applause. Emma emerged from the wings, found him in the crowd. Her cheeks were flushed. Her eyes shimmering.

  “Well, Mr. Analyst,” she teased, voice bright. “Did I give you enough data to knock you out?”

  Harrison laughed. A real laugh—a little embarrassed.

  “Not bad,” he said. “For a moment... I think I might’ve "fallen" for you.”

  And just like that, between two heartbeats, a torrent of images broke loose:

  Blazing sunlight.

  A wildflower field.

  A girl, radiant like a sunflower, twirling and calling his name in a language not English.

  Children laughing. The scent of fresh bread.

  A distant explosion.

  A scream.

  Someone grabbing him, holding him back.

  Then... darkness.

  Emma touched his arm, voice gentle. “Hey... are you okay?”

  Harrison looked at her. Closely.

  And for the first time, he felt afraid.

  Not of her.

  But of what was waking inside him.