The air outside Blake's Media always smelled faintly of ink and rain — even when it hadn't rained.
Maybe it was just me.
Seven months, and I still couldn't leave the building without feeling like I was walking out of one version of myself and into another.
Tonight was no different.
The day had stretched long — meetings, deadlines, the same tight circles of conversation that filled my calendar but emptied my head. By the time I stepped outside, the city was already painted in that soft blue of almost-night.
I loosened my tie and exhaled.
For once, I didn't have anywhere I needed to be.
So I walked.
There's a coffee shop three streets away from the office — small, quiet, nothing like the sleek cafés people from our company usually flocked to.
I'd found it by accident a few years ago and kept coming back ever since. They served burnt espresso and used mismatched cups, but it was one of the few places in the city where no one cared about my name.
When I walked in tonight, I half-hoped the emptiness would swallow me whole.
Instead, I saw her.
Sitting by the window, head bent over a notebook, fingers tracing something across the page.
For a moment, I thought I'd imagined it — like my exhaustion was finally starting to play tricks on me. But then she looked up, and the world steadied in the worst and most familiar way.
She didn't see me at first.
Her hair was falling over one side of her face, and her pen was moving across the page like she was trying to catch a thought before it disappeared.
I should have left right then. I knew that.
There were boundaries — the invisible kind that keep people like me from ruining the few good things we find.
But I didn't leave.
I ordered coffee instead and sat two tables away, facing the window but stealing glances I had no right to.
She was writing again.
That shouldn't have surprised me, but it did.
Something in me loosened — a quiet, private relief I couldn't explain.
Because I'd worried, ever since the day I'd bought those stories from her, that she'd stopped. That maybe the world had taken that part of her away.
But here she was, scribbling like nothing could touch her.
I wanted to ask what she was writing. I wanted to ask if she ever finished one.
But I stayed where I was, because asking meant remembering, and remembering meant crossing a line I'd already blurred too many times in my mind.
The barista called my name, and she looked up.
For a heartbeat, our eyes met.
Recognition flickered — small, uncertain, like a candle in wind.
Then she smiled. Not the polite one from the office, but something softer.
"Didn't think I'd see you here," she said as I walked over to get my drink.
"Didn't think I'd see anyone from the office here," I admitted.
She laughed quietly, tucking her hair behind her ear. "Guess we both needed a break."
I hesitated, then nodded toward the empty seat across from her. "May I?"
She gestured for me to sit.
It was strange — how easy silence could feel with her.
We talked, but only a little. About nothing important: the weather, the overworked coffee machine behind the counter, the city traffic.
Yet under every word, there was that same quiet current, that knowing.
She asked if I came here often.
"Sometimes," I said. "When I need to remember I'm human."
She smiled at that — really smiled — and I realized how much I'd missed that expression.
Her laughter didn't sound like it belonged to someone who'd once spent nights counting coins and writing in the dark. It sounded lighter now — freer, even if only slightly.
I wanted to keep it that way.
After a while, she went back to her notebook.
I watched the way her fingers moved, her concentration folding the world inward.
"What are you writing?" I asked quietly.
She paused, glancing at me. "Just thoughts. Maybe a story someday."
"Maybe?"
"I start a lot of things," she said. "I don't always finish them."
The words hit harder than they should have.
I wondered if she remembered the man who once told her her unfinished stories were worth something.
If she remembered how it all began.
I hoped not.
Because if she remembered, everything I'd built — the lies, the walls, the careful balance — would collapse in seconds.
She asked if I'd ever written anything.
I almost laughed. "I used to. A long time ago."
"What stopped you?"
"Reality."
Her eyes softened. "That's a bad excuse."
"Maybe," I said. "But it's the truth."
She studied me for a second, and I looked away, pretending to sip my coffee.
Because the truth was — I'd stopped writing the moment my words started to sound too much like her.
It was getting late when she finally closed her notebook.
"I should go," she said, gathering her things.
I nodded, though part of me wanted to stop her.
Outside, the air was cold enough to bite. She shivered slightly, hugging her coat tighter.
"Do you need a ride?" I asked before I could stop myself.
She shook her head. "No, I'm fine. The bus stop's just around the corner."
I wanted to insist, but something in her tone — that quiet independence I'd always admired — stopped me.
So instead, I walked with her.
We didn't say much, just matched steps down the narrow street, our breaths fogging in the cool air.
When we reached the corner, she turned to me.
"Thank you," she said.
"For what?"
"For not being like everyone else there."
I frowned slightly. "What do you mean?"
She shrugged. "You actually see people. That's rare."
I didn't know what to say to that.
She smiled one last time, soft and fleeting, before stepping onto the bus.
And as the doors closed, I caught a glimpse of her through the window — her head tilted, her expression thoughtful, like she was trying to solve a puzzle she didn't even know she was holding.
Then she was gone.
I stood there for a long time, watching the tail lights fade.
The city felt too big again, too empty.
I ran a hand through my hair, let out a slow breath, and finally turned back toward the office, though I knew I wouldn't make it there.
Instead, I walked aimlessly through the streets until the noise of my thoughts softened.
Every step felt heavier than it should.
Because tonight proved what I'd been avoiding for months —
It wasn't curiosity anymore. It wasn't guilt.
It was longing.
And I couldn't afford to feel that.
Not for her.
Not with everything she didn't know.
But as I walked back toward the city lights, one thought refused to quiet down —
She still wrote.
And maybe that meant there was still a part of her untouched by everything this world had taken.
Maybe that was enough.
For now.