The cafe was a graveyard of half-finished lattes and crumpled napkins when Elara first saw him. Silas was the kind of person who looked like he belonged in a —tweed jacket, a leather-bound notebook, and a look of intense concentration that made Elara feel like she was intruding just by breathing the same air.

The night he told her, they sat on the fire escape, the city lights shimmering like fallen stars. The air was thick with the unsaid.

Over the next few months, their lives became a tapestry of shared silence and sudden bursts of laughter. They navigated the —the first time he saw her messy studio, the first time she realized he hummed when he was nervous.