By Monday, the rain had given up, leaving the streets damp and gray.
Clara walked to work with her headphones in, music low, pretending it was just another normal day.
It wasn’t.
Nothing really felt normal anymore.
At Elyndra Publishing, the lobby smelled like wet paper and coffee.
Mae was already there, juggling a laptop and a croissant.
“You look awake. Terrifying,” Mae said.
“I had actual sleep,” Clara replied.
“Show-off.”
They rode the elevator together.
Mae scrolled through her emails.
“Guess who sent another memo about efficiency?”
Clara sighed. “Mr. Spreadsheet himself?”
“Bingo. Adrian Cole, patron saint of analytics.”
Clara laughed. “Is there a church for that?”
“Probably a cult.”
When they reached their floor, Adrian was already in the conference room, setting up his laptop again.
He looked exactly the same as before—pressed shirt, calm face, no visible sense of humor.
Clara took her seat across from him.
“Morning,” he said.
“Sure,” she answered.
He gave a small nod.
Mae started the meeting, going over deadlines and budgets.
Clara zoned out halfway through, staring at Adrian’s neat handwriting on the notepad in front of him.
Every letter looked like it had been proofread.
When it was her turn to present, she stood, cleared her throat, and clicked to the next slide.
“Okay, so this is the part where I pretend to sound confident,” she said.
A few people laughed. Adrian didn’t.
She explained the new layout for their upcoming release, *The Glass Shore.*
It was about rebuilding after loss—something she knew too well.
Adrian listened, his eyes steady on her like he was scanning for errors.
When she finished, he said, “The design’s strong, but your tagline’s too long.”
She frowned. “You counted the words?”
“Yes.”
“Of course you did.”
He leaned back. “Shorter lines stick. People don’t want to read what feels like homework.”
“I thought we were selling books, not tweets.”
“We’re selling attention. It’s the same currency.”
She rolled her eyes. “You make romance sound like a tax report.”
He didn’t smile. “And yet people still pay both.”
Mae jumped in before they could start round two.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Let’s just call this creative tension.”
Clara muttered, “More like creative homicide.”
After the meeting, Adrian stopped her at the door.
“Your work’s good,” he said.
“That sounded painful for you.”
“I just think we see things differently.”
“Yeah. You see numbers. I see people.”
“That’s why we both have jobs.”
He left before she could think of a comeback.
Mae appeared behind her.
“He’s trying,” Mae said.
“So am I.”
“Try with less sarcasm.”
“No promises.”
Back at her desk, Clara opened her inbox.
A new email from Adrian.
Subject: *Notes.*
She clicked it open.
Bullet points. Suggestions. No greeting. No sign-off.
It was efficient to the point of rudeness.
Still, one line caught her eye.
> *Your writing has a rhythm. Keep that. The rest can be fixed.*
She stared at it longer than she should have.
It wasn’t much, but it felt like something.
By lunch, the rain had returned.
She sat by the window in the office café, watching the drops slide down the glass.
Outside, people moved fast, umbrellas opening like small shields.
Theo texted: *Dinner tonight? I’ll cook. Well, attempt to cook.*
She replied: *If smoke alarms count as seasoning, I’m in.*
He sent a fire emoji.
She smiled to herself, then looked out again.
The city was gray, but not hopeless. Just… between storms.
Adrian passed by the café window on his phone, serious as always.
She watched him walk away and wondered what kind of person measured everything—including how much they let themselves feel.
That night, Clara didn’t go straight home.
She took the long way along the harbor, where the air smelled like salt and old wood.
The water looked calm, but the waves underneath were restless—kind of how she felt.
She found a bench and sat down, watching the lights move across the bay.
Elyndra wasn’t a loud city, but it never slept either.
Somewhere nearby, a guitar was playing from a bar that didn’t care about closing hours.
Her phone buzzed.
Mae: *Still alive?*
Clara smiled and typed back: *Barely. The consultant speaks in math now.*
Mae: *You secretly like him.*
Clara: *Delete this chat immediately.*
Mae: *Called it.*
She laughed quietly, pocketing the phone.
The truth was, she didn’t *like* Adrian.
But she did think about him more than she wanted to admit.
Maybe it was the way he never seemed flustered, or how he looked at her like he was trying to understand the parts she didn’t show anyone.
She didn’t want to be understood. Not yet.
The wind picked up, carrying the sound of the waves closer.
She leaned back, closing her eyes.
“Long day?” a voice said.
Her eyes opened. Adrian stood a few feet away, hands in his coat pockets.
“Do you ever stop appearing out of nowhere?” she asked.
“Coincidence,” he said. “Or bad timing.”
“Both sound accurate.”
He looked out at the water beside her.
“I come here sometimes. It’s quiet.”
“Quiet’s overrated.”
“Not when you’re used to noise.”
For a while, they just sat there, the space between them filled by the sound of the tide.
Then he said, “You argue with me a lot.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Do you ever stop?”
“Do you?”
He smiled faintly. “Touché.”
They both laughed, soft and tired.
“You ever think about why you do this?” she asked.
“Work?”
“Overanalyze everything.”
“It’s easier than feeling things I can’t explain.”
She nodded. “Yeah. I get that.”
He glanced at her. “You write about it?”
“Sometimes.”
“Does it help?”
“Not enough.”
The sound of a ferry horn rolled through the fog.
Lights blinked across the water.
Adrian stood. “You should head home. It’s getting cold.”
“Are you always this bossy after office hours?”
“Only when people pretend they’re fine.”
“Guess you’ll be busy then.”
He looked at her for a second longer, then said quietly,
“You don’t have to pretend with me.”
It wasn’t flirtation. It wasn’t even comfort.
It was just… true.
He left, walking toward the streetlights until the fog swallowed him.
Clara stayed. The sea kept moving.
She could still hear his last words in her head, like a song that didn’t quite end.
When she finally went home, she opened her notebook.
Her handwriting was messy, but steady.
She wrote one line:
*Maybe loneliness isn’t a problem to solve. Maybe it’s just part of the math of being human.*
She closed the notebook and sat there, listening to the city breathe.
For the first time in months, she didn’t feel like she was waiting for something to fix her.
She just wanted to keep moving.
Outside, the rain started again, soft and easy.
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