Episode 2: Conversations Between Strangers
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Episode 2: Conversations Between Strangers
I didn’t like talking to strangers.
Maybe that sounded rude, but I had my reasons. People came and went too easily. They asked questions they didn’t mean, made promises they forgot, and left before you could even decide if they mattered. I learned a long time ago that distance was safer.
So sitting across from a man I had just met, in the middle of a rainy evening, while he casually judged my abandoned coffee, felt strange.
Very strange.
I looked at him, narrowing my eyes slightly.
“You always talk to random people like this?”
He took a slow sip of his hot chocolate like he had all the time in the world.
“Only the ones who look like they’re about to write a sad novel in public.”
I almost rolled my eyes.
“I’m working.”
“Mm,” he said, clearly unconvinced. “And I’m emotionally stable.”
That made me laugh again.
I hated that.
Not the laugh—the fact that he was somehow making me forget the weight sitting on my shoulders tonight.
For the first time in weeks, my mind wasn’t drowning in deadlines, internship applications, and the pressure of pretending I had everything under control.
It was just… lighter.
I leaned back in my chair.
“So,” I said, “is this your thing? Annoying tired women in cafés?”
He placed a hand dramatically over his chest.
“Wow. Starting with violence. I like your style.”
I shook my head, trying not to smile.
He offered his hand across the table.
“Aidan.”
I looked at it for a second before shaking it.
“Lia.”
“Lia,” he repeated, like he was testing how my name sounded. “That fits.”
I frowned.
“What does that even mean?”
“It means you look like someone named Lia.”
“That explains absolutely nothing.”
“Exactly.”
I should’ve found him annoying.
Honestly, maybe I did.
But there was something easy about him. He didn’t force conversation, didn’t ask invasive questions, didn’t pretend to be impressive. He just… existed like sunlight through a window—quietly, naturally, without asking permission.
And for some reason, that made me stay.
Outside, the rain kept falling harder, tapping against the glass like impatient fingers.
Inside, the café grew quieter as people started leaving.
Aidan glanced at my laptop.
“What are you working on?”
“My thesis.”
His face immediately changed into fake horror.
“Oh no. Academic suffering.”
“Exactly.”
“What’s it about?”
I sighed.
“Communication patterns and emotional behavior in young adults.”
He blinked.
“That sounds like a very smart way of saying people are confusing.”
I laughed softly.
“Yes. Basically.”
He nodded seriously.
“Well, as a representative of emotionally confusing people everywhere, I’d like to apologize.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You volunteer as tribute?”
“Bravely.”
There was a pause.
The kind that should’ve felt awkward, but didn’t.
I studied him quietly.
He looked relaxed, but there was something in his eyes that didn’t match his smile. A heaviness. Like he was carrying something he didn’t want anyone to notice.
I knew that look.
Because I wore it too.
“You joke a lot,” I said.
He looked at me.
“Occupational hazard.”
“Occupation?”
“Pretending I’m fine.”
The answer came too quickly. Too honestly.
For a second, neither of us moved.
Then he smiled again, softer this time.
“Sorry. That sounded darker than I meant.”
“No,” I said quietly. “It didn’t.”
Because I understood.
More than I wanted to.
People always thought pain looked dramatic—tears, breakdowns, screaming into the night.
But sometimes pain looked like good grades. Polite smiles. Showing up on time. Laughing at jokes. Saying “I’m okay” so often that eventually, people believed you.
Sometimes pain looked exactly like us.
I looked down at my coffee.
“My father used to say being strong meant never letting people see you struggle.”
Aidan was quiet.
“Do you believe that?”
I thought about it.
The answer should’ve been yes. It had been yes for years.
But sitting here, in the warm light of this little café, while the rain blurred the world outside, I wasn’t so sure.
“I used to,” I admitted.
“And now?”
I looked at him.
“Now I think maybe being strong means surviving anyway.”
He smiled—not the teasing one, not the easy one. Something quieter.
“I like that better.”
The barista announced they were closing soon.
Of course.
Because apparently even unexpected conversations had deadlines.
I started packing my things, sliding my laptop into my bag.
Aidan stood too, finishing the last of his drink.
For a moment, I thought that was it.
A strange rainy-night conversation with a stranger I’d probably never see again.
And maybe that should’ve been enough.
Maybe that would’ve been safer.
But as we walked toward the door together, he stopped beside me.
“Hey.”
I turned.
He scratched the back of his neck, suddenly less smooth than before.
“This might sound ridiculous, considering we met forty minutes ago and I aggressively borrowed your table…”
I crossed my arms.
“Very aggressively.”
“Right. Terrifying behavior, honestly.”
I smiled.
He took a breath.
“But maybe… we could do this again?”
The question hung there between us.
Simple.
Dangerous.
Because saying yes meant opening a door I had spent years keeping locked.
And saying no meant going back to the version of my life where everything was controlled, predictable, and lonely.
I should’ve said no.
I really should have.
But the rain outside had softened.
And somehow, standing there with him, I realized not every storm was meant to be avoided.
Some were meant to be walked through.
So I looked at him and said the one thing I hadn’t planned.
“Maybe.”
His grin was immediate.
“Wow. A maybe. I’m basically being proposed to.”
“Don’t push it.”
He laughed.
We stepped outside together, the city still shining under the rain.
Different directions.
Different lives.
But somehow, it no longer felt like the end of something.
It felt like the beginning.
As I walked home that night, umbrella in one hand and my heart strangely heavier in my chest, I kept replaying the evening in my mind.
His stupid jokes.
His tired smile.
The way he looked at me like I was someone worth noticing.
It scared me.
Because people like him were dangerous.
Not because they meant harm.
But because they made you want things.
Hope.
Softness.
Connection.
And once you let yourself want those things, losing them hurt.
Still, as my phone buzzed with another message from Mara asking if I was still alive, I found myself smiling.
Maybe life had a strange sense of humor.
Maybe fate existed.
Or maybe it was just rain, bad coffee, and a stranger named Aidan.
Either way—
for the first time in a very long time,
I was looking forward to tomorrow.
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