Cold

You’re just passing through. The kind of neighborhood where everything feels paused — peeling paint on fences, a laundromat sign flickering even when it’s closed. The air is cool, and the sidewalk glows gold under the late sun.

You look up.

There’s someone leaning on a window ledge, second floor. Hoodie, messy hair, expression unreadable from this far down — but something about them makes you stop.

Not beautiful in a polished way. Just... raw. Quiet. Like someone who feels everything and says nothing. They’re not looking at you. Maybe they don’t see you at all.

But the breeze lifts the corner of a paper taped to the inside of their window. A handwritten note. You can’t read it, not from here. Just shapes of words — looping cursive, maybe a drawing beside it.

For a second, you wonder who they are. What they’re thinking. What they’ve been through to look like that — heavy and light all at once.

And then they disappear. Back into the room. The window stays open.

You keep walking. But the image of them lingers like a line from a poem you’ll never quite remember — only the feeling it gave you.

---

3 o' clock Library

You’re sitting on the third floor, near the window. It’s quieter here. The kind of quiet that makes you feel like you shouldn’t even flip pages too loudly. Outside, the sky’s gray and still, like it hasn’t made up its mind.

You look up from your notes for a moment—and that’s when you notice them.

Across the room, hunched over a paperback and a coffee cup with no lid, is Jesse. You don’t know their name. You’ve never spoken. But you’ve seen them before.

In passing. In the back of lecture halls. At the vending machine at night when no one else is around.

They always look like they’re carrying something invisible. Not in a dramatic way—just quiet. Like they’re used to not being noticed, and even more used to being misunderstood when they are.

They underline their book with a pink highlighter. You didn’t expect that.

You turn back to your work.

Five minutes later, when you glance up again, they’re gone. But a notebook is still on the table, left behind. The cover is worn. Black, speckled with silver ink doodles. You’re not nosy—normally. But something makes you walk over.

Taped to the first page is a quote.

“I’m not sure I believe in being found. But I believe in being seen.”

There’s no name. Just a tiny drawing of a moth next to it.

You leave the notebook where it is. They’ll come back for it.

You’re not even sure why you feel this ache in your chest. But it lingers, like a thread pulled between two people who haven’t met—not really—but will.

Eventually.