Chapter: Gray Days and Shared Books

I didn't see Marcos again for a few days. That meeting in the park had felt fleeting, like one of those coincidences the universe throws your way just to give you a brief moment of relief... and nothing more.

But on Friday, as I was leaving my last class, I saw him sitting in the same corner of the campus café, his book open and a steaming mug beside him. I hesitated. I was about to walk past when he looked up and smiled at me, like he'd been waiting for me without knowing it.

"Olivia," he said, saying my name like it belonged there.

I walked over without thinking too much.

"Hi, Marcos."

"Wanna sit down? I promise I won't talk if you don't want me to. I just... have good coffee and an extra cookie."

I couldn't help but smile.

"That sounds like emotional bribery. But I'll take it."

We sat. We didn't talk much, but enough. He told me he studied literature, that he loved worn-out books because "they carry the stories of other readers." He showed me his copy of Hopscotch, full of scribbled notes in the margins. He had inherited the book from his older brother, who had died two years ago.

"The marks he left..." he said. "It's like a secret conversation between him and me."

I looked at him in silence, understanding more than I could say. He had lost someone, too. Maybe that's why his way of being was so different. He wasn't trying to fix me. He didn't ask what was wrong. He simply shared his world, without demanding I open mine.

"What do you read?" he asked.

"Lately, nothing. Everything reminds me of him."

Marcos didn't flinch. He just nodded, like he understood that not everything needs to be explained.

"When you're ready, I'll lend you a book that's not about love or death. Just people learning how to breathe again. I call them 'blanket books.'"

I laughed—for the first time in days—and felt something warm in my chest.

It wasn't happiness. Not yet.
But it felt a little like it.