Iris realized something wasn't right halfway through the morning.
Not in a dramatic way.
Nothing obvious.
She just… paused.
She would be in the middle of something—checking an email, pouring coffee, tying her shoes—and suddenly stop, as if she had forgotten what to do next. It happened three times before noon.
The fourth time, she understood it wasn't a coincidence.
It wasn't stress.
It wasn't tiredness.
It was him.
Not his face exactly. More like fragments. His voice saying things that were too direct. The way he had looked at her, without curiosity or obvious interest. Just attention. As if he had read something she never meant to show.
She didn't like that.
She told herself she was exaggerating. People say strange things all the time. People meet and forget each other just as easily. There was no reason for that encounter to be any different.
And yet…
When her phone vibrated, she checked it too quickly.
When it didn't, she felt a small—and ridiculous—sense of relief.
She hated that part.
At lunchtime, she sat alone as always. The same table. The same posture. The same carefully measured distance from everyone else. She watched people without really seeing them, her mind drifting back to the café over and over again.
She wondered if he would be there again.
The thought made her tense.
She didn't want to see him.
She didn't want to not see him either.
That contradiction weighed on her chest.
---
Ethan noticed the silence first.
Not the absence of noise—he liked that—but the kind of silence that follows you, that doesn't stay still, that presses in.
He tried to write.
He opened a blank document and stared at it longer than necessary. As if it were waiting for permission. He typed a sentence. Deleted it. Typed another. Deleted that one too.
Nothing fit.
Every thought led to the same place.
The café.
The way she had said his name carefully, as if she wanted to remember it but didn't want to admit it.
The fact that she hadn't given him her full name.
That detail wouldn't leave his mind.
Not because it was suspicious.
But because it was familiar.
He understood that kind of thing. He had built his life around it.
He closed the laptop and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. He told himself to let it go. Not to look for meaning where there probably wasn't any. Not to project his own things onto someone he barely knew.
But meaning has that annoying habit of forming on its own.
That afternoon, he went out for a walk without really deciding to. His feet carried him through familiar streets, past places he hadn't planned to visit, until he realized where he was headed.
The café.
He stopped half a block away.
He stood there for a few seconds, staring at the sign from a distance, feeling slightly stupid. He had no reason to go in. No excuse.
And still, he crossed the street.
---
Iris was already there.
She didn't notice him right away. She was sitting at her usual table, back straight, phone in her hand, her attention fixed on nothing in particular.
When Ethan walked in, she felt it before she saw him.
It was like the atmosphere adjusted slightly. Like something had tightened without making a sound.
She lifted her gaze.
There he was.
Her first reaction was to freeze.
Her second was to be annoyed with herself for not having left earlier.
He saw her almost at the same time. He didn't smile. He didn't look surprised. He just looked at her, with that calm attention that made her more uncomfortable than she wanted to admit.
He approached slowly.
"Hi," he said.
"Hi," she replied.
Silence.
It was different from the last time. Thicker. More aware.
"I didn't think I'd see you again so soon," he said.
She raised an eyebrow.
"Is that a good thing or a bad one?"
"I don't know yet," he answered honestly.
She looked down for a second, then back up.
"Neither do I."
He sat down without asking, at the table next to hers—close enough to speak without raising his voice, far enough not to invade her space.
"I could've left," she said suddenly.
"But you didn't."
"No."
"Neither did I," he admitted.
That seemed to relax her a little. Or maybe she was just tired of pretending to be indifferent.
They talked very little at first. Short sentences. Weightless comments. Nothing personal.
But every now and then, one of them let slip a line that went a little further than necessary.
"You don't seem like someone who likes to repeat mistakes," he said at one point.
She looked at him.
"And you?" she asked.
"No," he replied. "But sometimes I do it anyway."
She nodded slowly.
"Yeah. I guess that happens."
They fell silent again.
That silence wasn't uncomfortable.
"Why did you come today?" she asked, without easing into it.
Ethan didn't answer right away.
"Because it bothered me not knowing," he said finally.
"Not knowing what?"
"Whether you were going to disappear and never show up again."
Iris pressed her lips together.
"That's a strange answer."
"I know."
"Are you always that honest?"
"Only when I don't have another option."
She let out a brief laugh, almost without humor.
"That explains a lot."
When they stood up to leave, Ethan spoke first.
"This isn't a good idea," he said.
She looked at him.
"No," she agreed. "It isn't."
They stood there for a few more seconds, neither of them moving.
"Then I guess we'll see each other again," he said.
Iris hesitated.
"Maybe," she replied. "Or maybe not."
But she didn't sound convinced.
---
That night, Iris didn't smile at her reflection.
She didn't practice anything.
She sat on her bed and thought about the way he had said *it bothered me not knowing*. She thought about how much that sounded like her.
She didn't like seeing herself reflected in other people.
Ethan, on the other hand, wrote nonstop for an hour. It wasn't about her. Not directly. But something had slipped between the lines.
When he finished, he read what he had written and closed the file without saving it.
"This isn't a good idea," he repeated softly.
And still, he already knew he wasn't going to stop.
Because some things don't start with intention.
They start with silence.
And when that silence lingers, it's hard to ignore.