Weeks passed. Life resumed. But now it carried a different rhythm. Every crowded room became a search party. Every unfamiliar laugh made me look up. Until, one day, I saw her again.
It was raining — the kind of impatient, dramatic rain that chased everyone indoors. I had ducked under an old bus stop shelter when she came sprinting from across the road, barefoot, her shoes dangling from her fingers. She looked at me, blinking raindrops out of her lashes, and burst into a grin. "You again?"
I nodded, trying not to look too thrilled. "You always show up when the sky gets confused."
She laughed. "Maybe I bring the confusion."
We waited out the rain together. Her phone had died, so we just talked — about little things, this time. She told me about her brother who thought clouds had names, and I told her I once cried at a movie trailer. Time slipped past, unnoticed.
When the rain stopped, she looked reluctant. I didn't want her to leave, but I didn't know what to say to make her stay.
Instead, she said, "You ever notice how moments like this feel like they've happened before? Like you're borrowing a memory?"
I said yes, though I hadn't — until now.
She left me with a second smile that was somehow even softer than the first.