Rain whispered against the city windows as dusk slipped in quietly. Eli sat by the glass pane of a nearby café, his notebook open before him, pen poised yet unmoving. It wasn't the bookstore today. No familiar bell jingled, no worn shelves surrounded him. It was something else that pulled his thoughts together—her eyes. The way they lingered in his memory like verses still incomplete.
He sipped slowly from a chipped porcelain mug, letting the coffee warm the silence he carried. The soft hum of passing conversations and clinking cups faded against the storm that brewed inside him. Alina. The name tasted like poetry on his tongue.
He remembered her voice, how it curled around words with a delicate firmness. He remembered the slight frown she gave when searching for a title, the tilt of her head, and how her scarf never quite sat right.
His pen moved again.
"There are storms that rage loud enough to shake cities, And then there's her silence— It breaks only the man who listens."
The pages blurred slightly as he blinked longer than necessary. That moment in the bookstore had been short, a brush of souls maybe, but it stirred something that refused to settle.
Meanwhile, across the city, Alina found herself pausing in front of her mirror. There was a softness to her gaze she didn't recognize. She touched her lips, unsure why they felt remembered by words not spoken. Eli's voice—it had a calm to it. An ease that made even silence feel full.
The next day arrived slower than usual. The sky still carried remnants of grey, and Eli returned to the bookstore, not knowing if she'd be there again, but needing to know all the same. He stepped in, rainwater trailing behind his boots.
And she was there.
Standing by the philosophy section, fingers running down the spine of a book she'd probably read twice already. She looked up—and their eyes met. This time, no distractions. No one else. Just that gaze.
And Eli melted. In her eyes, he found a gravity stronger than anything he knew. They weren't just eyes. They were something else. A universe he wasn't prepared for. A storm of meanings he couldn't translate.
He stepped forward slowly.
"Back to mark your territory on the Nietzsche aisle?" he asked with a soft smile.
Alina chuckled, a sound he'd never heard before but already wanted to memorize. "Maybe I was hoping the book would finally understand me this time."
He mirrored her laugh, subtle and warm. "Or maybe it was hoping you'd give it another chance."
She looked at him—really looked—and for a second, the world folded itself into this quiet aisle.
"You always this poetic with strangers?" she teased.
"Only the ones who talk to books," he replied, his voice gentle.
The conversation lingered there—not as a conclusion, but as the start of something trembling.
And in his diary that night, he wrote:
"Somewhere between her laugh and the way she says nothing, I found a rhythm my heart had never danced to. And it terrifies me— Because I've never been more willing to lose control."