Chapter 2- The connection
253 Words
Luca closed his laptop slowly, as if shutting it too fast would somehow erase the exchange he just had.
He stood and stretched, his back cracking softly. From the narrow window, he could see the familiar sight of rusted rooftops, bustling roadside stalls, and the distant call of a hawker selling puff-puff. Home.
Yet, for the first time in a long time, his mind wasn’t in Milan.
That night, Luca found himself scrolling through Élise’s page again. Her captions were a mix of French and English. Sometimes poetic, sometimes cryptic. One photo caught his eye—a streetlight against a snowy backdrop. The caption read:
"Under this sky, everything feels slower. Colder. Still beautiful."
He paused.
Then he wrote her again.
"Your photos… they feel like silence. The kind that says something."
He hesitated, unsure if that sounded cheesy, but he sent it anyway.
Minutes passed.
Then a ping.
"That’s the most beautiful thing anyone’s said about my work. You see more than most, Luca"
She used his name.
He smiled.
Their messages became more frequent after that—late-night voice notes, long texts about their favorite books, fears they couldn’t tell anyone else, dreams of places they hadn’t yet seen. Élise talked about Montreal winters. Luca described Milan's rainstorms. Different skies, same longing.
One night, as thunder rolled over his rooftop, she asked:
"If we were under the same sky… where would we be?"
Luca stared at the message, heart pacing.
"Somewhere in between. Maybe Paris. Maybe Manchester. Maybe nowhere. Just… together."
- Writer
