Avoidance
337 Words
They didn’t see each other for two days.
Julian busied himself restoring the estate’s greenhouse. Pulling weeds, hammering boards, pretending he didn’t glance toward her house every hour on the hour.
Isadora had guests again—a garden brunch, full of clinking glasses and vintage jazz. He stayed away, but heard her laugh from across the grove.
It went straight through him.
That night, he lay awake with the fan spinning overhead. His sketchbook open, empty. The pencil in his hand unmoving. Everything he thought to draw became her face, her hands, her back in that black dress.
He shut the book, tossed it aside, and exhaled into the dark.
“Get it together,” he muttered.
But he didn’t believe it.
⸻
Scene: The Grocery
On the third day, they met by accident—or fate—at the local market.
Julian was reaching for a bunch of fresh basil when her hand reached for it too. Their fingers brushed. He jerked his hand back.
“Sorry.”
She smiled politely. Cool. Effortless.
“Julian.”
“Isadora.”
They both stood there a beat too long. Strangers around them kept moving. Life, absurdly, carried on.
He grabbed a different herb and nodded, eyes cast down.
“Hope the brunch went well.”
She tilted her head. “It did. But it was missing… surprise.”
He glanced up. Their eyes locked.
“I didn’t want to intrude.”
“Didn’t seem like that was stopping you before,” she said, a teasing lilt in her voice.
He smiled, but it was tight. He couldn’t read her. Was she angry? Coy? Cautious?
And she—she felt her own heart betray her. She had missed him. She wanted to say so. But her dignity, her poise, her decades of survival wouldn’t let her speak.
So instead, she said:
“Well. Good luck with the basil.” And turned to walk away.
He watched her go.
And in that moment, he knew:
He would not survive her.
- Writer
