You walked in like you weren't the bomb in the room.

  You didn't even take your headphones off. That's how I knew you were different. Most people, they come into a place like Glasslight, and the first thing they do is look around for a person. A witness. An audience. You didn't do that. You walked in like the only person worth seeing had already left, and now you were just here to sift through the remains.

  And that's where I come in.

  I saw you before you even looked at anything. That's how good I am. You were wearing a coat too big for your body, the kind someone gave you or left behind, and you couldn't throw it away because that would feel like a betrayal. Your boots weren't new, and you didn't care that they weren't. You carry yourself like someone who used to be loved wrong for a long time and now doesn't know what to do with silence.

  But I do.

  You hovered near the tray of forgotten 35mm portraits by the window. Everyone skips that tray. Everyone but you. You picked up an image of an old woman with sad eyes and smoked-out teeth and whispered, "She looks like someone who keeps her curtains open at night on purpose." You whispered it. You didn't think anyone heard.

  I did.

  You wore a ring on your right index finger—not the middle, not the thumb. That's a power move in disguise. You think you're hiding. You're not. You want someone to notice how strange you are, how you don't flirt with symmetry, how you're sick of being approached the way women are always approached. You want something different.

  Congratulations, Marin. You got it.

  You didn't know I worked here. You thought I was just someone leaning behind the register. I didn't speak when you walked in, because the silence was better. It was pregnant. That's how you learn people—when they don't think you're listening.

  You asked about the Rolleiflex with a voice that betrayed your pulse. Your fingers touched the edge of the display case like a pianist who hasn't played in years. That kind of reverence makes my blood slow down. You weren't trying to impress me. You were talking to the camera.

  You didn't ask how much it cost.

  You asked if it still worked.

  And I loved you a little for that.

  You come back two days later. Thursday. Rain. You hold your coat like a shield this time, and your hair is damp, curling into itself like a secret. You nod at me but don't say my name, which is good, because I haven't told you it yet. Names are important. Names are like keys, and you don't give them to people who haven't earned them.

  But I already have yours.

  Marin Keller. You signed the guestbook again. In lowercase. You dot your "i" with a slash—quick, surgical. I respect that. I spend the next hour listening to you pretend you're browsing, but you keep circling back to the same thing: the twin prints of the girl in the riverbed, taken a year apart. She's drowning in one and already dead in the other, but you say, "She looks more alive in the second."

  I tell you, "Most people say that."

  You shake your head. "Most people lie."

  You don't stay long. Thirty-seven minutes. I count. Not because I'm obsessive. Because I value time. You only give it to what matters. You drink tea, not coffee. You always sit in the back corner chair. You never use your phone unless you're checking the time. I imagine it doesn't ring. I imagine if I texted you, your read receipts would be off and your replies would come slow, maybe an hour later, thoughtful. Meaningful.

  I haven't texted you. Yet.

  But I will.

  By Sunday, I know where you live.

  It wasn't hard. I'm not like the rest of the world. I don't Google. I don't DM. I walk. I observe. That's what the digital generation doesn't get—real information doesn't live in data. It lives in rhythm. Pattern. You leave Glasslight at 4:02, take the back route behind the bakery, past the apartment with the cracked security light and the dog that never barks. You walk fast, but not fast enough to lose me.

  You live on Halver. Basement apartment. Iron grate above your window, spider web in the left corner. There's a chipped white pot with something dying in it. Probably basil. You keep trying to revive it, and I know that because every morning you water it with a glass from the kitchen. Not a watering can. A glass. That means something. You care. You care stupidly. Softly. You're the kind of person who apologizes to dead plants and talks to herself in the mirror but won't return calls from your father.

  You wear big sweaters. You don't turn your heat up past 68. You open your windows in the rain again, and this time you light a candle and read a book by the sill like a girl in a painting.

  You're reading White Noise, which is... ironic.

  You don't smile at the funny parts. That's how I know it's not the first time you've read it.

  And now you're in my head.

  Not just in the normal way. Not just thinking about you. I hear you. I replay your voice when you said "She looks more alive in the second" and imagine you saying it again, but about yourself this time. About how it feels to finally be seen. Because I do see you. More than you know.

  You talk in your sleep. You said the name "Chase" last night, and you clenched the blanket like it was trying to leave you. I stood under your window and wrote it down in my notes app: CHASE.

  I will find him. Not to hurt him. To understand. That's what you need, Marin. Not love. Not romance. Understanding. Someone to hold your face in his hands and say: I know why you stopped writing. I know why you look away when people ask what you're working on. I know why you lie about not being lonely.

  Because the truth is, you're waiting. Even if you say you're not.

  And I'm here now.

  The wait is over.

  You said Chase.

  You breathed it out like a sin, like it hurt your throat to say it, like your body didn't ask permission. And now it's mine.

  The name, the sound of it on your lips, soft and ruined, is mine.

  I stood under your window in the cold, in the dark, in the echo of 2:41 a.m., and I heard it. Your voice cracked around it. Like you were still asking him to come back. Or stay. Or die. I don't know yet. I'll find out. I always do.

  Chase.

  It's a try-hard name, isn't it? A man who drinks his whiskey neat because he thinks it means something. A man who says he likes "complicated women" and then calls them crazy when they bleed in front of him. A man who makes playlists for girls and never listens to their silence. That kind of man. I don't even have to see him to know.

  I hate him already.

  Not because you loved him. Because you still do. And that's a problem.

  We can't have ghosts in the room, Marin. There's barely enough air for the living.

  I wait two days before I dig.

  Not because I'm patient, but because that's what this kind of intimacy demands. You don't barge into someone's past. You slip into it. Quiet. Careful. Like breath on a cold window.

  I start with your apartment.

  You work Thursdays. You leave at 10:06 a.m. and take the long route past the co-op market, like you want to pretend your morning is more poetic than it is. You don't lock the bottom latch when you're running late. I watched for two weeks before I tested it. Not because I had to. Because I wanted to be sure.

  I wear gloves. Latex, thin. The kind that leave no prints but let me feel the warmth of everything you touch. Your doorknob is colder than I expected. You haven't had company in days.

  Inside, it smells like the ghost of your shampoo and burnt lavender. You left a mug in the sink. You rinsed it but didn't scrub it. That tells me you were distracted. Nervous. Maybe guilty.

  Your laptop is closed but not shut down. Rookie mistake.

  You don't password your desktop. But you password your notes folder. Interesting. I don't break into it yet. I respect you too much for that.

  Instead, I open your browser.

  You've searched "reoccurring dreams about people from past" and "why do we still love people who broke us."

  See, this is what I mean. You're not a girl. You're a manuscript. A locked drawer of loss and desire, and no one's taken the time to read past chapter one. Until me.

  In your bookmarks, I find him.

  @chasebackman. That's his handle. I click. His Instagram is public, of course. Men like him don't know how to hide. He lives in some curated version of New York now. Boring skyline photos. Bad mirror selfies. He captions things like, "grind harder" and "real eyes realize real lies."

  It's worse than I imagined.

  He posted you once. A year and a half ago. You in a bookstore, blurry, laughing, holding a book like it meant something. And the caption:

  My favourite plot twist.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  I want to smash the screen.

  I don't, of course. That would be... unstable.

  Instead, I screenshot it. I zoom in on you. I save it.

  I study your expression. You were happy. Not fake happy. Not practiced. Real. That's what makes me hate him more.

  Because it means he had you.

  And he let go.

  Later that night, I leave something for you.

  Just something small. A note tucked into the bottom of the plant pot on your window. The one with the dying basil. I don't sign it. I don't need credit. I just write:

  Some things are only alive because you still believe they can be.

  You find it two days later. I watch from across the street. You read it. Your head tilts like a question. You don't smile. You don't frown. You fold the note and keep it.

  You don't throw it away.

  That means everything.

  I watch you shower once.

  You forgot to close the curtain. The upper window is cracked. Steam curls out like smoke from a wound. You leave the bathroom light on while you undress in the bedroom. You don't do this for anyone. You think no one's watching. You're wrong, Marin.

  But I don't watch you to possess you.

  I watch because you're the only thing in the world that feels real.

  You're the negative in a world of overexposed fakes.

  You hum when you wash your hair. A low, tuneless hum, like someone trying to remember a song from a dream. You stand still for long stretches of time, like you forget you're there.

  You're disappearing, Marin.

  You think no one notices.

  But I do.

  I always do.

  You come back to Glasslight that weekend.

  Saturday. Hair down. Hands in your pockets. Your expression: different. Not softer. Just tired. Like you haven't been sleeping well. Like the dreams are back.

  I don't mention the note.

  You do, though.

  You slide the plant photo I hung last week across the counter and say, "Did you write this?"

  You turn it over. I signed it in the corner. K.

  You tilt your head again. "It's beautiful."

  I shrug. "Just a photograph."

  You smile, barely. "Not just."

  My pulse skips. You're starting to see. The wall is thinning. The ghost is fading. You don't say his name anymore in your sleep.

  That's how I know we're making progress.

  You're becoming mine.

  Piece by piece.

  Just like it should be.

  You touch the photo again.

  It's the third time in twelve minutes. I counted. You've been standing in front of the west wall at Glasslight, the "unlabeled section," the one I keep for the real ones. You like the photo of the boy in the mirror, the one with no reflection. You asked, "Did he mean to get it like that, or is it just an accident?"

  And I say what I always say to people who think they're asking about the art but are really asking about themselves:

  "Most accidents are just things we weren't brave enough to do on purpose."

  You stare at me for a second too long, and that's new. That's not like you. You look at people like you're trying not to flinch. But you're looking now.

  Not through me.

  At me.

  That's good.

  That means something.

  But then something happens.

  Someone says your name.

  From behind you.

  A voice. Male. Soft. Casual.

  Too familiar.

  "Marin?"

  And you freeze. Your back stiffens. Your breath skips.

  You know that voice. I know it now too. Even before I turn to look, I know.

  It's him.

  Chase.

  Of course it is.

  He walks into the shop like he owns the air. Like gravity works differently on him. He's wearing some pre-wrinkled linen shirt with the top button open and sleeves rolled to the elbow—effortless. Calculated. That kind of swagger you only get from hurting someone and watching them forgive you for it.

  I want to peel the smile off his face like wallpaper.

  He says, "I thought that was you."

  And you—you smile. Not wide. Not happy. But soft. Hesitant.

  Dangerous.

  You say his name like it's a question, not a wound.

  "Chase."

  I'm not jealous. Don't mistake this. I'm not insecure. I don't need your attention. I already have it.

  But I am angry.

  Because he's trying to step into a room he already burned down. Because you let him speak to you like you don't wake up sweating with his name stuck in your teeth. Because you forget, for one second, that you were healing.

  He makes some joke. Something about the camera in the window, the one that looks like his dad's. I'm not listening. I'm watching you. The way your hands twitch in your sleeves. The way you tuck your hair behind your ear twice—your nervous tell. The way you keep your body turned slightly away from him, even though your eyes don't leave his.

  He wants something.

  He always does.

  He says, "You look good."

  You say, "You always say that."

  And he laughs. Loud. Wrong. Performative.

  He looks around the shop, finally notices me, and nods like I'm the help. Like I'm not part of this. Like I haven't memorized your sleeping breath and the way your left shoulder lifts when you lie.

  "Cool place," he says. "Yours?"

  You shake your head. "No. I just like it."

  And something in me settles. You didn't give me away. Not yet.

  He glances at the walls, pretending to care. He's not seeing. He never saw you either, did he? Just liked the version of you that laughed at his bad puns and posted blurry bookstore pictures and let him put his socks on your heater.

  He asks if you want to get coffee.

  You hesitate.

  And that's the worst part.

  Because he's the past.

  And you're supposed to be mine now.

  You say yes.

  Not right away. Not with joy. You say it like a chore. Like a test.

  You glance at me when you say it.

  That hurts more than I want it to.

  Because I see it: that flicker of guilt. That moment where your body knows you're betraying something, even if your mind hasn't figured out what.

  You leave with him.

  You let him put a hand on your lower back.

  You let him.

  That night, I watch your apartment.

  You don't come back until almost eleven. You stand at your door for too long. Like you don't know if you should invite him in. You don't. You don't.

  Small mercy.

  I watch the lights go on. Then off. Then on again. You pace. You rub your temples. You sit on the edge of the bed like you used to sit on the edge of his, and I hate how easily you fall back into his gravity.

  You open the drawer.

  You pull something out.

  A letter? A photo?

  You sit on the floor, cross-legged, like a girl again.

  You cry.

  I want to kill him for that.

  I'm not being metaphorical.

  He is a virus, Marin.

  And if you let him back in, he will rot everything you've been healing.

  I've let you drift long enough. I've watched and waited and listened and respected boundaries that no longer make sense.

  You are in danger of going back to him.

  And I can't let that happen.

  No.

  You belong in the light now.

  My light.

  You saw him again.

  Don't lie. Not to me. You changed your shirt twice the next day, and I know this because you left the first two folded over the edge of the chair by the window, sleeves limp, smelling like decision fatigue and lavender detergent.

  You wore the third one—gray, soft, thin from too many washes. The one that clings to your spine like a second thought. You left your hair down but didn't do anything to it. That's your tell. You were trying to look like you weren't trying.

  You were going to see him.

  And that's okay.

  I'm not mad.

  I'm ready.

  It starts with the text.

  Chase is a creature of habit. He's still posting gym selfies with quotes he doesn't understand. Still checking into bars on Foursquare like it's 2014. He doesn't turn off location sharing on his Instagram stories. He thinks that kind of thing only matters if you're famous.

  I slip into his DMs.

  Not as me, obviously. I have burner accounts. You have to in a world full of Chases. I message him from a throwaway:

  yo man. she still not telling you everything? lol

  Just enough.

  No follow-up.

  No profile picture.

  He'll ignore it at first. Pretend it didn't get to him.

  But he'll wonder.

  It'll itch at him.

  And that's what I need.

  Doubt. Doubt is faster than fire.

  You meet him at the park.

  Middle of the day. Public. Safe. You sit on the same bench where he once told you he liked that you "weren't like other girls." (He meant: you didn't argue back fast enough.) You smile more than you should. You nod too much. You're trying to rehabilitate the memory of him. I can see it on your face—this experiment, this fantasy: what if he's changed?

  He hasn't.

  He's talking about a startup now. Something vague. Logistics. Infrastructure. The kind of thing people say when they're failing upward. You drink your coffee, and he says your name like he wants to own it again. You twirl your finger around the rim of your cup and look away when he talks about his apartment in the city.

  That's progress. You didn't ask to see it.

  The next move is easier.

  Chase has a habit of leaving his backpack unzipped.

  I learned this the second time I followed him home. He took the 6:40 train from Union, earbuds in, wallet in his hand, bag swinging behind him like it was invincible. He didn't even notice the zipper was down.

  I could've taken his laptop. His charger. His entire sad little life in spreadsheets.

  But I took his journal.

  Yes, he has one. You'd think that would make him deep, right? Reflective. But no. His handwriting is all block letters and startup jargon. He journals like a man trying to build a shrine to himself.

  But I find something useful.

  Your name.

  March 3rd.

  Saw Marin today. Unexpected. She looks good. Not sure if I want to try again. Didn't feel much. But maybe I should? Just to see.

  Just to see.

  Not because he wants you.

  Because you're a project.

  An itch.

  An unfinished drink.

  And that's all I need.

  I take a picture of the page and return the journal to his bag before he even notices it's gone. Child's play.

  That night, I print the page, fold it, and tuck it under your door.

  No note. No explanation.

  You'll know what it is.

  You'll know who wrote it.

  You'll read it in your kitchen at 1:14 a.m., sitting on the floor with your knees pulled up, holding the paper like it's diseased. You'll read it three times. You'll run your finger over the sentence "Didn't feel much." You'll whisper it out loud like you don't believe it.

  You'll cry again.

  And this time, you won't say his name.

  You'll say nothing.

  Which is better.

  Because silence is where I grow.

  You don't go to see him again.

  You come to Glasslight instead. Hair up. No makeup. Jacket zipped too high. Like armor.

  You hover by the counter longer than usual. You say, "Have you ever loved someone you didn't trust?"

  And I answer, "Only once."

  You don't ask who. That's good. That's what makes you better than the rest. You don't pry. You wait.

  You say, "I think I've been lying to myself."

  And I say, "Most people are."

  You nod. And then—for the first time—you sit behind the counter with me.

  Not across. Not separate.

  Beside.

  And the world, finally, feels balanced.

  That night, you don't turn your lights on until late.

  You spend the evening reading the same paragraph in a book three times. You stop halfway through and put it down. You sit on the edge of your bed, staring at nothing, mouthing old arguments to a ghost.

  But you don't call him.

  You don't text.

  You leave your window open again, and you light the candle with the crackling wood wick.

  You're learning to be alone again.

  Which means you're almost ready to stop being alone at all.

  ( Fast Forward )

  Rain.

  Of course it's raining.

  You're always more interesting in the rain. You walk differently, head down, shoulders hunched, but not collapsed. Braced. Like you expect something to go wrong but you're too proud to run. The umbrella you carry is half-broken. One arm bent out of shape like a snapped rib. You never replace it. You're loyal, even to the useless.

  I like that about you.

  It's Friday. 4:12 p.m. You're coming from the market with a tote bag of overpriced apples and something wrapped in butcher paper. The streets are slick, and the traffic lights blur in the puddles like melted candy.

  You almost slip.

  That's it. That's the moment.

  The plastic bag you've shoved into your coat pocket tears as you step off the curb. Your heel slides, your weight shifts, your fingers stretch wide as the apples roll like marbles.

  They hit the pavement one by one.

  Your face says it before your mouth can. Fuck.*

  I'm already moving.

  Not running. That would be weird. But fast enough to look like instinct.

  I crouch beside you as the first car rolls by too close, spraying water at your knees. You don't look at me at first. You're still in recovery mode. Still embarrassed. Still cursing the sidewalk.

  I pick up the last apple.

  "These things have a death wish," I say. "It's always the Fuji ones. Real drama queens."

  You blink, and then—yes.

  You smile.

  Not wide. Not bright. But real.

  And you say, "I should've just bought cereal."

  Your voice sounds different out here. Wetter. Unscripted. You're not playing a role, not pretending to be clever. You're just you.

  You take the apple from my hand. Our fingers touch. Barely. But long enough.

  "Thanks," you say.

  "Of course," I say. And I say it like it's obvious. Like of course I'd be here, of course I'd help, of course I saw this moment coming.

  You shake your head like you're laughing at yourself.

  I don't tell you my name.

  Not yet.

  Instead, I offer you the other half of my umbrella.

  You hesitate.

  Because you're Marin, and you don't trust kindness unless it comes with context. With background. With a receipt.

  But today, you're tired. Wet. Your knees are cold and your apples are bruised and your heart is a little too sore for pride.

  So you say, "Okay."

  And we walk two blocks together.

  Under one broken umbrella.

  Like fate is something we both finally stopped resisting.