The days after that night blurred together.
I told myself I didn't care — that I'd gotten what I came for — but every time I reached for the scarf, something in me paused.
It still smelled faintly like him — cedarwood, rain, and something darker I couldn't name. It was ridiculous, how a single piece of cloth could make my heart trip over itself.
I tried to keep busy. Tried not to think of him.
But he lingered like an aftertaste.
In the way people laughed, I could hear the echo of his.
In the mirror, I'd catch myself almost smiling, as if he were standing right behind me.
Maybe I had been wrong. Maybe it wasn't irritation that had settled under my skin that night — maybe it was something else entirely. Something quieter, more dangerous.
He started appearing again, never when I expected.
Once at the grocery store — leaning against the counter, pretending to read a label he clearly wasn't interested in.
Another time, by the old bridge, when I was sure I was alone.
Always that same easy grin, that same steady gaze that made me forget what I was supposed to be angry about.
He never said much. He didn't have to.
It was his silences that did it — the way they felt full, heavy with something unspoken.
One evening, I found him waiting outside my house, hands in his pockets, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips.
"You've been avoiding me," he said.
"Don't flatter yourself."
"I wasn't."
It should have annoyed me — the confidence, the teasing — but instead, it did something strange. It felt like being seen, like he'd caught some secret I hadn't even confessed to myself yet.
We walked for a while, saying nothing. The air was damp, the sky stretched wide and dim.
When our hands brushed by accident, he didn't pull away — and neither did I.
________________________________________
After that, he kind of became part of my evenings.
Sometimes he'd walk me home without asking, sometimes he'd just show up at the café, leaning in the corner seat like he belonged there.
And slowly, I began to let him.
There was something magnetic about the way he existed — calm, composed, but always with that spark in his eyes like he was thinking of something he'd never say aloud.
I found myself wondering what that something was.
He made the world quieter when he was near. The noise in my head — all the self-doubt, the chatter — it all just… stopped.
And in that silence, I started to feel safe.
Too safe.
Sometimes, he'd look at me in a way that made time stretch.
Once, he brushed a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch lingering longer than it should have.
I didn't breathe until he stepped back.
It wasn't love, not yet — but it was something close.
Something that tasted like it.
I hated how much I looked forward to seeing him again, how my heart picked up at the sound of footsteps that might be his.
He'd become a kind of rhythm in my life — steady, predictable in his unpredictability.
And that scarf? It now smells like my new favourite scent. That is him.
And still, in the quiet moments, a voice in the back of my mind whispered that something about him didn't quite add up.
But I ignored it.
Because falling for him felt easier than questioning him.