The coffee was, as promised, terrible.
Aria held the chipped mug between her hands, letting the warmth seep into her fingers while
she tried not to grimace at the taste. Burnt and bitter, like someone had forgotten it on the
burner for an hour. But Ethan was right—it was warm, and that counted for something on a
night like this.
They sat in the back room of the bookstore, a cramped space that smelled like dust and old
memories. A single window showed the rain still falling, turning the street outside into a
watercolor blur. The only sound was the occasional drip from a leak somewhere in the ceiling
and the quiet rhythm of their breathing.
"So," Ethan said, breaking the silence. "What brings someone to a closed bookstore at
midnight?"
Aria smiled despite herself. "I could ask you the same thing."
"I asked first."
She looked down at her coffee, watching the steam curl up and disappear. The truth felt too
heavy to share with a stranger, but somehow, sitting here in the dim light with rain drumming
against the window, the truth was the only thing that made sense.
"I couldn't sleep," she said finally. "Haven't been sleeping well for a while now. So I walk.
Usually just around my neighborhood, but tonight I kept going and ended up here." She
paused. "What about you?"
Ethan was quiet for a long moment, his fingers tracing the rim of his mug. When he spoke, his
voice was careful, like he was testing each word before letting it out.
"Insomnia," he said. "The clinical kind. The kind that doesn't care how tired you are or how
many pills you take. Been dealing with it for three years now."
Three years. The same amount of time since Lily died.
"Is that why you come here?" Aria asked. "Because you can't sleep?"
"Partly." He set his mug down, leaned back in his chair. "But mostly because being alone in
my apartment at 2 AM makes me feel like I'm drowning. At least here, surrounded by all these
books, all these other people's stories... I don't know. It helps."
Aria understood that more than she wanted to admit. The weight of empty rooms. The way
silence could be louder than screaming.
"What do you do?" she asked. "For work, I mean."
"I'm a photographer. Freelance. Corporate events, mostly. Weddings sometimes." He said it
without enthusiasm, like he was describing someone else's life. "You?"
"Architect. Well, junior architect. I mostly make revisions to other people's designs and
pretend it's creative."
"Do you like it?"
No one ever asked her that. They asked if the pay was good, if the firm was prestigious, if she
was working on anything interesting. But no one asked if she actually liked it.
"I used to," she said honestly. "Or I thought I did. Now I'm not sure. Everything feels... muted.
Like I'm living life on low volume."
Ethan nodded slowly, like he knew exactly what she meant. "Yeah. I know that feeling."
They fell into silence again, but it wasn't uncomfortable. It was the kind of silence that
happens between people who recognize something in each other, some shared
understanding that doesn't need words.
Outside, the rain began to slow.
"Can I ask you something?" Ethan said suddenly.
"Sure."
"Your sister. The one in the photo. What was her name?"
Aria's chest tightened. Most people didn't ask. They offered condolences and changed the
subject as quickly as possible, uncomfortable with grief, with death, with the reminder that loss
could happen to anyone.
"Lily," she said softly. "Her name was Lily."
"Tell me about her."
It wasn't a question. It was an invitation.
And something in Aria cracked open.
"She was younger than me by two years, but she always seemed older. Wiser. She had this
way of seeing through people's bullshit, you know? She'd call me out when I was being fake
or scared or pretending to be someone I wasn't." Aria smiled at the memory, even as tears
pricked her eyes. "She was studying marine biology. Obsessed with the ocean. She used to
say that humans spent so much time looking up at the stars when the real mystery was below,
in the depths we'd never fully understand."
"What happened to her?"
"Car accident. Drunk driver ran a red light." The words came out flat, clinical. She'd said them
so many times they'd lost their shape. "She died instantly. That's what they told me. Like it
was supposed to make it better."
"I'm sorry," Ethan said again.
Aria wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "Why do you keep saying that? You didn't
know her. You didn't cause it."
"Because I understand what it's like to lose someone. And because 'I'm sorry' is the only thing
that doesn't sound completely useless, even though it is."
She looked at him sharply. "Who did you lose?"
His jaw tightened. For a moment, she thought he wouldn't answer. Then:
"My wife. Ex-wife. Sarah." He stared at his hands. "She didn't die. But sometimes I think that
might have been easier."
"What happened?"
"I destroyed it. The marriage. Everything." His voice was hollow, haunted. "I was working too
much, drinking too much, shutting her out. I thought I had time to fix it. I thought she'd wait
forever. She didn't."
"When did she leave?"
"Three years ago. Filed for divorce on a Tuesday. I remember because I had a shoot that day,
some CEO's retirement party. I was photographing people celebrating while my marriage fell
apart." He laughed, but there was no humor in it. "The insomnia started that night. Haven't
slept right since."
Three years. Three years. Three years.
Their tragedies were different, but they'd happened at the same time, like the universe had
synchronized their suffering.
"Do you still love her?" Aria asked quietly.
Ethan was silent for so long she thought he wouldn't answer. When he finally spoke, his voice
was barely above a whisper.
"I don't know. Sometimes I think I'm mourning who I was when I was with her more than I'm
mourning her. Does that make sense?"
"Yeah," Aria said. "It does."
The rain had stopped. Through the window, the first hints of dawn were starting to lighten the
sky, turning it from black to deep blue.
"It's almost morning," Ethan said, glancing at the window.
"Yeah."
Neither of them moved.
"Can I ask you something else?" he said.
"Okay."
"Would you... want to do this again? Not the terrible coffee necessarily. But this. Talking. Not
being alone."
Aria's heart did something complicated in her chest. She should say no. She should thank him
for the conversation and the coffee and walk out of this bookstore and never come back. She
should protect herself from whatever this was, this fragile connection forming between two
broken people in the small hours of the morning.
But she was so tired of being alone.
"Yes," she heard herself say. "I'd like that."
Ethan smiled then—a real smile, small but genuine—and Aria felt something shift inside her.
Something she hadn't felt in three years.
Hope. Tiny and terrifying and absolutely undeniable.
They exchanged numbers. Made plans to meet again in two days. Same bookstore. Same
impossible hour.
When Aria finally left, stepping out into the quiet morning with the rain-washed streets
gleaming in the early light, she felt different. Lighter, maybe. Or heavier. She couldn't tell.
But as she walked home, she realized she was already counting the hours until she could see
him again.
And that scared her more than anything.