Chapter: The Encounter

The morning began without haste. For the first time in weeks, I didn't feel like running, nor hiding behind a routine. I got dressed calmly, drank my coffee slowly, and went out for a walk with no particular destination.

I had no plan—just a faint urge to breathe a different kind of air. The park I usually avoided, filled with memories of Tom, was—curiously—where my feet ended up taking me. Children were running around, leaves were falling gracefully from the trees, and a breeze carried the smell of freshly baked bread from a nearby bakery.

I sat on a bench beneath an old oak tree. I closed my eyes. For a moment, I didn't think about anything. And just when I thought I had found a rare sliver of peace, a voice interrupted:

"Excuse me... do we know each other?"

I opened my eyes. In front of me stood a guy with an honest, confused expression. His hair was slightly tousled, a backpack slung across his chest, and in his hands was one of those books that seem lived, not just read.

I stared at him, puzzled.

"I don't think so..." I replied, though something in his voice sounded strangely familiar.

He hesitated, scratching the back of his neck.

"Sorry, really. It's just... I swear I saw you the other day at the university café. You were with three girls. You looked upset. I thought about saying something but... I didn't want to intrude."

I swallowed hard. That day. The one with the cookies.

"Yeah. I was upset," I replied honestly, surprised by my own candor.

He sat down, leaving a respectful space between us.

"I'm Marcos," he said, reaching out his hand.

"Olivia."

His handshake was warm. Real. I looked at him a few seconds longer. He wasn't Tom. He didn't look anything like him. But there was something about the way he spoke, about how he didn't try to force anything, that made me stay.

"Do you read a lot?" I asked, nodding toward the book.

"When life doesn't let me sleep, I do," he answered, smiling with a hint of sadness.

That sentence pierced right through me.

"Then you must have very long sleepless nights."

He nodded. He didn't ask more. He didn't pry. He just sat with me in silence, watching the trees, letting the moment be what it needed to be.

And for the first time since he left, I felt like someone was sitting beside me without trying to save me. Just being there.

And that... that was more than I'd had in a long time.