Chapter 3: Beneath the City Lights

The night carried a lingering chill, the kind that settled in the bones but never quite numbed the skin. Clara and Ethan walked side by side, their steps unhurried, their silence filled with a strange kind of understanding. The city stretched out before them—bright, humming with life, yet somehow quieter in this pocket of time they had carved for themselves.

Clara had always found solace in the solitude of nighttime streets, but tonight, she wasn't alone. She wasn't sure what to make of that yet.

She stole a glance at Ethan, his gaze fixed ahead, his hands still buried in his coat pockets. There was something about him—an ease in his silence, a quiet depth in the way he carried himself. He wasn't in a hurry to fill the space between them with meaningless words. That, more than anything, made her want to know him.

"Do you always wander at night?" she asked, her voice soft against the hum of distant traffic.

Ethan smirked slightly, as if she had caught him in a truth he hadn't meant to reveal. "Not always," he admitted. "Just on the nights that feel too big to stay inside."

Clara nodded, understanding exactly what he meant.

She had spent so many nights like that—when the walls of her apartment felt too close, when the weight of her own thoughts pressed too heavily on her chest. There was something freeing about the open air, about walking with no real destination, letting the city breathe around her.

"You?" Ethan asked, his eyes flicking to her.

Clara exhaled a small laugh. "I think I've always been a night person. There's something different about the world after dark. Less expectation, maybe."

Ethan hummed in agreement. "Yeah. It's like the city belongs to a different kind of people at night. The ones who don't fit neatly into the rush of daylight."

She turned her gaze upward, watching the way the streetlights flickered against the misty air. "You don't seem like someone who fits into the rush of anything."

Ethan let out a quiet chuckle, shaking his head. "Is that your way of calling me slow?"

Clara smirked. "Maybe."

They walked past shuttered storefronts and dimly lit alleyways, the occasional neon sign buzzing faintly in the distance. The rain had left the streets slick, reflecting the city lights in scattered puddles like fragments of a broken sky.

Eventually, they found themselves near the riverfront, where the water lapped softly against the docks. The city's skyline stretched before them, a contrast of dark silhouettes and glowing windows. It was beautiful in a way that felt almost unreal—like something out of a painting.

Clara leaned against the railing, letting the cool breeze graze her skin. Ethan stood beside her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of his presence despite the chill in the air.

He broke the silence first. "Tell me something real."

She turned to him, arching an eyebrow. "Something real?"

Ethan nodded, his gaze steady. "Not small talk. Not surface-level stuff. Something real."

Clara hesitated, feeling the weight of his request. She wasn't used to people asking for real things. Most preferred to keep conversations neat and predictable, skimming across the surface without ever diving too deep.

She glanced back at the water, the ripples catching the golden glow of distant streetlights. "I used to be afraid of drowning," she said finally.

Ethan didn't look away, didn't laugh or brush it off. "What changed?"

Clara inhaled slowly. "I realized there are worse ways to drown than in water."

The words hung between them, heavy and unspoken. She hadn't meant to say it like that, hadn't meant to reveal so much in so few words. But Ethan didn't press. He just nodded, as if he understood.

After a long moment, he exhaled. "I think I've been drowning for a while now."

Clara looked at him, at the way his jaw tensed slightly, at the way his hands gripped the railing as if anchoring himself to something unseen.

"Then why aren't you fighting it?" she asked.

Ethan let out a breath that was almost a laugh, though there was no humor in it. "Maybe I don't know how."

Clara studied him, the way his eyes held things unsaid, the way his posture carried a quiet weight.

She had always believed that people carried their stories in the way they moved, in the way they hesitated before speaking, in the way they looked at the world when they thought no one was watching. And Ethan—Ethan carried a story she wanted to read.

Without thinking, she reached into her bag and pulled out the book he had given her. She flipped to the passage she had shown him earlier, then held it out to him.

He took it, his fingers brushing against hers for the briefest moment before he lowered his gaze to the page.

"Some people move through life like whispers, unnoticed but deeply felt. They do not seek the light, but they are the ones who change everything."

Ethan stared at the words, his expression unreadable. Then, slowly, he closed the book and handed it back to her.

"You really think that's us?" he asked, his voice quieter now.

Clara met his gaze. "I don't know. But maybe it could be."

The wind carried their silence, the city stretching wide before them, infinite yet somehow smaller in this moment.

And for the first time in a long time, Clara felt like she wasn't wandering alone.

Maybe neither of them were.