Part 64
(Alex's POV)
She saw him before he saw her.
He always drew attention, even when he tried not to. The small tilt of his head, the way he adjusted his cap when he felt eyes on him—he carried old habits like ghosts.
From across the street, Alex slowed her pace, folding into the flow of pedestrians. The noise of the city became a kind of camouflage. No one noticed one more person checking a phone, waiting at a crosswalk, watching a reflection in a glass window instead of the street ahead.
Adrian was exactly where she'd expected—same café, same window seat. She'd known he would choose that one.
There were patterns people didn't outgrow; they just forgot how visible they were.
She didn't move closer, not yet. Watching was enough.
Every few minutes, he'd look up, glance toward the window, searching for something he couldn't name. That little flicker of uncertainty softened the space between them.
He feels it, she thought. Not fear—recognition.
When he finally stood to leave, she turned slightly, pretending to read a text.
Her reflection in a shop window caught his silhouette moving behind her, the mirrored image of a past repeating itself.
She didn't follow immediately. Timing mattered.
Instead, she walked a different route parallel to his, tracing him through the reflections of storefront glass and passing cars.
He'd stop, she'd stop.
He'd turn, she'd melt into the flow of strangers.
It wasn't about being unseen—it was about being everywhere he didn't expect.
As he reached the next intersection, sunlight hit his face, and she saw it clearly for the first time since his return.
Sharper. But still him.
You always come back.
And somewhere between the crowd's blur and the sound of the traffic, she smiled—not out of joy, but out of inevitability.
Because the city, like her, remembered how their story went.