The bridge in Ipilumia was older than memory.
Locals said its timbers had been cut from the first trees felled when the town was born, and that its weathered planks had carried everything from wedding carriages to coffins. Now, it sagged in the middle, a fragile thread between two banks, swaying gently with the river's sighs.
Elara had never crossed it.
Every evening after closing her family's café, she wandered down to the riverbank with a cup of leftover coffee and a pocketful of quiet. The river had become her escape from the endless routine—smiling at customers she didn't know, wiping counters that were never clean enough, listening to her father talk about "someday" as though it were a place they might move to.
That evening, the air smelled of wet leaves and woodsmoke. She reached the bend where the willows leaned over the water and saw him for the first time.
A man stood at the far end of the bridge. Tall, still, hands tucked into the pockets of a dark coat, he stared down at the river as though he were reading something written in its ripples. The last light of day clung to his hair, gilding it in bronze, while shadows guarded the rest of his face.
Something about him made her stop.
He must have sensed her presence, because he looked up. Their eyes met—his dark and unreadable, hers caught somewhere between curiosity and caution.
"Evening," she called, her voice carrying easily over the water.
He nodded once. "Evening."
The bridge groaned in the wind. She'd always thought of it as dangerous, maybe even cursed—one misplaced step and the boards would splinter. But he stood there as if the bridge belonged to him, as if it would never dare betray him.
"You're not from here," she said.
A faint smile touched his lips. "You can tell?"
"Everyone from here crosses the bridge at least once."
He tilted his head, studying her across the distance. "And you? Have you crossed?"
Her fingers tightened around her coffee cup. "No."
"Then I guess we're the same," he said softly. "We're both standing on our own side."
For a moment, the river between them felt wider than it truly was. She thought about asking his name, but the air between them was fragile, like spun glass—too easy to shatter.
The sun