The sky was dry for the first time in days, but Eli still walked beneath the streetlamps with his hands buried in his coat pockets, as if bracing for the cold that lingered more inside him than in the wind. The bookstore lights had long dimmed behind him, yet his thoughts hadn't followed him home. They stayed back there, between shelves and the phantom scent of her shampoo, clinging to a moment that never came. The door hadn't opened. She hadn't come back.
He remembered the promise he made to himself.
Next time she came, he would ask her out.
But she didn't come.
Three days passed. Then four. And Eli found himself growing quiet in ways he hadn't before. It wasn't loneliness—he had known loneliness. This was different. This was absence. This was someone choosing not to be part of your world anymore, and you not knowing why.
Every morning, he made her coffee anyway.
And every night, he poured it down the sink.
His journal pages filled faster. Ink stained more than his fingers—it left marks on his chest, poems etched in quiet desperation.
You were a page I never wrote on, But folded carefully into the center of my book. Now I turn to that crease, And find it empty—still warm.
---
Alina hadn't slept properly since the last time she'd seen him. It was ridiculous, she told herself. It was just a bookstore. Just a boy who made coffee. Just conversations that barely lasted a minute.
But it wasn't that, and she knew it.
She missed how he looked at her like she mattered, even in silence.
She missed how he never asked questions, but still always understood the answers.
She missed the way he stood—not confidently, but solidly, like he would stay no matter what.
She was falling for him.
And that terrified her.
Because falling meant vulnerability. And vulnerability meant giving someone the power to walk away. She had done everything right to avoid this exact feeling her entire life. Walls. Boundaries. Safe distances. But Eli... Eli wasn't someone who barged in.
He just stood there, quietly waiting. And she found herself drifting closer without even realizing it.
That morning, she sat by her window again, hugging her knees, staring at the city moving below her. She wasn't going to go. She told herself that.
But her heart had already laced up her shoes.
---
The bookstore was quiet when she stepped in. The bell chimed, and for a moment she thought maybe he wasn't there.
But then she saw him.
He was at the far end, back turned, arranging the display table.
Her breath caught.
There was something heavy about his shoulders. Like time had rested too long on them these past few days.
She almost turned to leave.
But then he turned.
Their eyes met.
And the quiet between them roared.
"Hey," she said first.
He blinked. "Alina."
He said her name like a lifeline.
She walked closer, pretending to browse. He stood still, watching her the way he always did—like every second she gave him was a gift he wasn't sure he deserved.
"I've been... busy," she offered.
"You don't have to explain," he said softly. "But I missed seeing you."
She looked up. The way he said it—so simply, with no expectation—made something in her chest ache.
"I missed being here," she whispered.
There was a long pause.
"I made you coffee," he said suddenly, almost sheepishly. "Every day. Just in case."
Her lips parted. "You did?"
He nodded. "It was always the first thing I did. Before opening."
Alina blinked quickly. She didn't want to cry. Not here. Not for something so small, and yet so enormous.
"I was scared," she admitted. "That I was starting to like you."
Eli smiled faintly. "You don't have to be scared."
"I know," she said, "but I am."
Another pause.
"I think about you," she added. "More than I want to."
Eli stepped forward. Slowly. Carefully. His voice was barely audible. "I think about you all the time, Alina."
And then she laughed—soft and teary-eyed. "God, you're too good."
"No," he said. "I just like you. And I don't know how to be someone else around you."
She looked down, then back up.
"Will you walk with me?" she asked.
Eli's heart thudded. He nodded.
---
They walked under the awakening sky, shoulders occasionally brushing. They didn't talk much. They didn't need to.
But when they did, it was with a warmth that felt centuries old.
"I used to think love was supposed to be loud," Alina murmured.
"And now?" he asked.
"Now I think it might be the quietest thing of all."
He looked at her. "Sometimes silence says the most."
Alina smiled. "That's why I like you. You don't talk just to talk. You say things that matter."
Eli chuckled. "That's funny. Because I like you for the same reason."
As they reached the street corner, she hesitated.
"I don't want to ruin this," she said.
"You're not," he replied. "You're making it real."
She looked at him like he'd just handed her the one thing she lost in childhood—faith in being seen.
And then she whispered, "Maybe next time, coffee somewhere else?"
Eli's smile grew. "I'd like that."
They didn't hug. They didn't kiss.
They simply parted, both hearts a little fuller.
---
That night, Eli wrote:
She came back. And I didn't have to ask why. Sometimes, the heart knows its way home.
She smiled today like she didn't want to. And I lived a lifetime in that moment.
If this is falling, Let me never land.
---
And in her bed, under soft blankets and a whispering fan, Alina turned her pillow to the cooler side and smiled into it.
She wasn't ready to call it love.
But her heart was no longer hers alone.