Chapter 1: I Thought She Was Gentle Before I Even
Mira
I didn’t expect her to talk to me.
She was already there when I turned slightly, standing close enough that I noticed her before I understood it was her I was noticing.
“Hey,” she said.
It wasn’t loud. It wasn’t careful either. Just direct enough that I had to respond or admit I wasn’t paying attention.
I looked at her for a second too long before I answered.
“Hi.”
It came out flatter than I wanted it to.
She didn’t react to that. Not in a visible way. She just kept looking at me like she had time for whatever came next, even if nothing did.
“You’ve been here before, right?” she asked.
I nodded before I thought about it.
“Yeah.”
It wasn’t true in the way she probably meant it. I had been in spaces like this before, but not in this way. Not with her in them.
She shifted her weight slightly, like she was deciding whether to stay or move on, then stayed anyway.
“I thought so,” she said.
There was a pause after that. Not uncomfortable. Just open.
Most people fill those gaps quickly. I was about to, but she spoke again first.
“I’m Celeste.”
Like it wasn’t the start of anything. More like she was confirming something that already existed.
“Mira,” I said.
She nodded once, slow enough that I noticed it.
“Nice to meet you,” she said, but it didn’t sound rehearsed. It sounded like she meant it in the moment she said it, not before or after.
Someone called her name from across the room. She didn’t turn immediately. She waited a second, like she was finishing the sentence she was in with me.
Then she looked slightly past me, not breaking anything between us, just loosening it.
“I’ll see you around,” she said.
It wasn’t a promise.
Just a statement that sounded like it had already decided itself.
And then she left.
Not quickly. Not slowly. Just like she had never been interrupted in the first place.
I stayed where I was for a moment longer than I needed to.
Not because anything had happened.
But because nothing about it felt like nothing.
And then I moved.
Not toward anything in particular. Just away from the exact spot I had been standing in, like leaving it would reset something in me that I couldn’t name yet.
The room went back to being a room again. People talking, shifting, laughing in places that didn’t involve me.
But I kept catching myself looking in the direction she had gone.
Not searching.
Just checking.
Like my body had already decided there was something there worth returning to.
I told myself it was nothing.
That it was just a conversation.
But even as I thought it, I knew I was lying in a very specific way.
Because nothing usually disappears the moment it walks away.
This had.
And I didn’t know why that felt like a problem yet.
