The First Time I Caught Him Staring.

It wasn't the way he looked at me that baffled me.

It was the way he didn't look away.

Noah had always had this softness in his gaze carefully, like he thought too much eye contact might spill something between us neither of us were ready to catch. But that day, something in him shifted.

It was one of those rainy afternoons that came wrapped in nostalgia. The kind that made the sky look bruised, and the town smell like damp earth and memories. I was balanced on the wooden ladder in his bookstore, reaching for a book I didn't need half pretending to organize the top shelf, half listening for the soft creak of floorboards under his steps.

When I turned slightly to glance over my shoulder, there he was.

Standing still by the counter, coffee mug in hand, half-shielded by a stack of books. But it wasn't his stillness that caught me. It was the way he was looking at me directly, openly, like he was reading something written on my skin.

And he didn't look away.

I froze, hand resting on a worn leather. We didn't say anything. We didn't need to. The air between us was drawn tight, like a thread pulled to its limit. That silence wasn't empty, it was full. Full of everything we hadn't said. Full of questions. Of quiet knowing.

Then, as if the moment I realized it was being watched, it disappeared.

He blinked, coughed, and looked away from his usual shield. I turned back to the books, pretending my heart wasn't beating like it had been caught trespassing.

The rest of the day slipped by like something unfinished.

We didn't speak much. There were pauses where conversation should've gone. The silence wasn't awkward, though. It was like a low hum we both tuned into.

Later, I found myself wandering to the poetry section, his favorite. I pulled down Mary Oliver's Devotions, the one with a faint coffee stain on the corner and a dried petal placed between the pages like a secret. That's when he spoke, voice barely above the rain tapping against the windows.

"Elena…"

Just my name. But it dropped into the air like it meant more.

I turned. He was standing a few feet away, fingers grazing a stack of poetry genres. His expression was unreadable, but his voice carried something raw.

"I used to think bookstores were for lonely people," he said. "People who came here because the outside world asked too much of them."

His eyes met mine.

"But then you started showing up. And suddenly it didn't feel lonely anymore. It felt... shared."

I stood there, unsure what to say. Because my chest ached in a way that meant I understood exactly what he was trying to say.

And maybe something more.

"I stare because I'm afraid I'll miss something," he added, quieter now. "Not just with books. With people. With... you."

The floorboards under me felt like they might give out. The room didn't move, but I did. Internally.

And then I moved, literally. I stepped forward. He didn't move back. I stopped close enough to feel his warmth, but far enough to still pretend we were just two people in a quiet room.

"You make this place feel like a poem," I said softly. "Not just a room with walls and shelves and dust. It's alive with you in it. And somehow, it calms me."

He blinked slowly, like he hadn't expected that.

I didn't expect what came next either.

He reached toward me, not to touch me, just a small, unconscious motion, as if his body didn't agree to keep distance. His hand hunged for a second, then dropped to his side.

"If I'm staring," he said, "it's because you look like the beginning of something I don't want to end."

We stood there for what felt like hours but was probably only seconds. His words wrapped around me like a wool sweater in cold air. And I wanted to respond, I needed to, but the doorbell to the shop jingled, and reality snapped back in.

Customer.

Of course.

The moment retreated into a corner like a ghost.

That evening, as the rain picked up and turned everything outside into a watercolor painting, I walked home slower than usual.

The bookstore's warmth clung to me, and so did the ache.

I reached my small rented cottage and slipped off my damp boots. I thought about texting him, something light maybe a quote from the book he liked. But I didn't.

Instead, I found a letter placed beneath my doormat.

No stamp. No envelope. Just folded cream paper with my name in handwriting I knew by heart.

Noah's.

I sat on the edge of my bed and unfolded it.

It said only:

"Some things are too big to say out loud, so I wrote this instead: I see you.

That was it.

I stared at those words until they blurred. Because I didn't just feel seen. I felt understood. As if someone had finally looked past the curated version of me and saw the version I didn't let out often. The version that didn't always have words.

But just as I was about to hide the note somewhere safe, my phone buzzed.

A text from my sister.

"Elena… It's Mom. She's not doing well. You might need to come home."

My chest tightened.

Just like that, the warmth unraveled.

Everything inside me folded and froze.

The letter in my hand. The bookstore felt like a shelter. Noah's stare. The confession.

Gone. Not in memory, but in momentum.

Because now, life was knocking again.

And this time, I couldn't ignore it.