Part 66
(Alex's POV)
From the shade beneath the trees, Alex watched him find the bench.
He looked smaller from this distance, framed by the fading light and the slow drift of leaves that caught in his hair. The city noise dimmed here; only the sound of footsteps and the rustle of branches remained.
She didn't move closer. She didn't need to.
Watching was its own kind of presence.
Adrian sat with his shoulders drawn inward, phone idle in his hand, eyes moving as if he were trying to count something invisible in the air.
Alex knew that look — the same look he had when he rehearsed, when he overthought lyrics, when he fought to appear calm even while everything inside him frayed.
He feels it, she thought, her lips barely parting. He always does.
Her gaze dropped to the paper folded in her pocket — the scrap she'd torn from her notebook that morning.
The words she'd written were simple, almost meaningless out of context. But to her, they held the weight of a signal.
"Even sunflowers grow in the dark."
Not yet. She'd wait. He needed time to remember the rhythm of the city before she reminded him how closely it echoed their old one.
Patience, she reminded herself. Patterns work best when they repeat slowly.
Someone called a dog in the distance. A jogger passed. The light shifted from gold to amber to gray.
Alex traced the edge of the folded note with her thumb, the paper soft from handling.
He doesn't see me, she thought, feeling something like relief. But he will.
When Adrian finally stood and walked away, she waited another full minute before moving.
Her reflection passed briefly across a park mirror meant for cyclists — the kind that curved the world around its center.
For a heartbeat, both their silhouettes appeared together in that warped glass: him ahead, her behind.
And even as they faded from it, the image stayed in her mind — the same unbroken line she'd been following since the day he left.