C6 : Shadow Between the Lines
452 Words
It was a quiet Saturday morning, the kind Mia loved most. The shop was warm, the sun filtering through the window in golden slants, dust motes dancing lazily in the light.
Adrian was already there, tucked into his corner with his journal open. Mia had grown used to the sight — the way he hunched slightly forward when writing, the crease between his brows when he was lost in thought, the absent way his hand brushed through his hair as if to loosen whatever words were stuck inside.
“Do you ever let anyone read that?” She asked suddenly, nodding toward the journal as she passed by with a tray of tea.
Adrian looked up, startled, then quickly closed the cover with one hand.
His smile came a beat too late. “Not unless I want them to think I’m mad.”
“Mad?”
“Messy notes, half-finished sentences… It wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.” He sipped his tea, eyes flickering away. “Besides, some things are easier to keep on paper than to explain out loud.”
There was something in his voice — gentle, but edged. A door that sounded like it wanted to stay closed. Mia let it be, but the curiosity settled deep in her chest.
That afternoon, as she was tidying a shelf near the front, two tourists wandered in. A couple, in their mid-thirties, chatting animatedly as they browsed.
“Doesn’t he look like…?” The woman whispered suddenly, her gaze darting toward Adrian.
The man squinted. “You’re right. He does. But what would he be doing here?”
Mia glanced over, her heart giving a quick inexplicable jolt. Adrian sat in his usual spot, pretending not to hear, though his grip on his pen tightened.
The couple eventually left without saying anything more, but the moment chummered into the air like a secret.
Later, as Mia locked up for the night, she found Adrian standing by the door, waiting.
“Sorry,” he said softly. “Didn’t mean to linger.”
“It’s fine,” she replied, studying him in the fading lite. His jaw was right, his eyes shadowed. She wanted to ask what the couple meant, wanted tổ open the silence — but something in him warned her off.
Instead, she just offered a small smile. “See you tomorrow.”
Adrian’s gaze softened, but there was a flicker in it — something unreadable. “Yeah,” he said at last. “Tomorrow.”
Yet as Mia walked home that evening, the words echoed strangely in her chest. For the first time since he’d appeared in her life, tomorrow didn’t sound like a promise. It sounded like hope.
- Writer
