The notebook had started as a practical thing.
A place to track appointments. Medication changes. Symptoms he didn't want to say out loud. His doctor liked specifics. Elias liked control.
But control had a way of eroding.
Dates bled into each other. The future shortened. So he started writing other things down. Small things. Ordinary things. Things that reminded him he was still here.
When he saw her again, it was on the train.
Three weeks later. Morning rush. The air thick with impatience and cheap perfume. Elias was seated, knees drawn in slightly to avoid the man beside him, when the doors slid open and she stepped inside, scanning for a place to stand.
She grabbed the pole across from him.
This time, he had longer.
He noticed the faint crease between her eyebrows when she concentrated. The way she swayed with the train instead of fighting it. The faint shadow beneath her eyes that suggested long hours and short nights.
She was tired in a way he recognized.
Their eyes met.
Not briefly. Not accidentally.
Long enough for something to register.
She frowned slightly, as if trying to place him. He wondered if she remembered the rain, the awning, the almost-apology. He wondered if she noticed his hands trembling faintly as the train lurched.
The doors opened again. People moved. The moment dissolved.
She stepped off at the next stop.
He didn't.
That night, he added another line.
Encounter Two. Train. Morning. She looked at me.
He stared at the page afterward, unsettled by the small thrill that accompanied the words.
This wasn't how he was supposed to be living now. Counting moments. Fixating on strangers. Pretending there was time.
And yet.