I first noticed her near the office café.
Our office complex was large enough to feel unreal—too many buildings, too many corridors, too many people moving in purposeful lines. Between the glass towers were artificial ponds, cafés, benches, and trees planted with the confidence of someone who believed in permanence.
Every morning, we entered this place and became smaller versions of ourselves.
She was wearing a midi skirt and a t-shirt. Nothing unusual, but it looked out of place among the tucked-in shirts and lanyards. She seemed comfortable in her own body, as if she had woken up late and decided not to apologize to the world.
She sat far from me.
I did not move.
I saw her again weeks later in a shared auto to the metro station.
The auto was overcrowded. Bodies pressed together like misplaced luggage. The air smelled of sweat that had waited all day to be released.
I sat beside her.
There was no space. None of us were touching anyone by choice.
I wanted to stretch my arms but couldn’t. I looked at her, not sure what I was asking.
She nodded.
That was all.
When I raised my arms, our sides touched. Her skin was warm. The contact felt accidental, but it didn’t feel meaningless.
I stared straight ahead.
To my left, a man was scrolling through his phone, his face empty.
The world was continuing.
Something in me was not.
I thought she smiled.
I am still not sure.
Over the next year, I saw her three or four times.
Never when I expected.
Near the elevators. At a tea stall. Once, across the road.
Each time, we nodded.
That was the extent of our relationship.
I found her online. I wrote messages. Deleted them. Wrote again. Deleted again.
Eventually, I sent one.
She replied.
Two days later.
Then not again.
When she did reply, her messages were polite, brief, distant—like replies sent from a room I wasn’t allowed to enter.
I constructed versions of her in my head. All of them were wrong.
We went for coffee once.
It rained that evening. The café was nearly empty. A fan clicked somewhere overhead.
We talked about work, traffic, cities we had lived in, places we might never go.
She stirred her coffee for a long time without drinking it.
I drank mine too quickly.
Nothing important happened.
Which somehow made it important.
When we left, she said, “Let’s do this again.”
I nodded.
We never did.
Eventually, I met someone else.
Not because I stopped thinking about her. But because time is skilled at rearranging things.
This new woman replied to messages. She asked questions. She stayed.
Life became practical.
One evening, we were walking out of the metro station when I saw her.
She was standing near the railing, as if she had been placed there for no particular reason.
She saw me.
Then she saw the woman beside me.
She did not move.
She did not smile.
She did not look away.
She simply stood there.
Watching.
For a moment, I thought of walking toward her.
But I could not imagine the conversation.
So I stayed.
The woman beside me asked if I was okay.
I said yes.
When I looked again, she was still there.
Then she wasn’t.
That night, I lay awake longer than usual.
I did not feel sad.
I did not feel guilty.
I did not feel nostalgic.
I felt something else—something without a clear shape.
Like hearing music from another room and realizing you will never know the song.
Some things don’t end.
They just stop becoming possible.
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