Smoke didn't show up the next day right away.
Nova arrived first this time, a soft nervous buzz tingling under her skin. She stood at the rooftop's edge, the cold railing pressed against her palms as she watched the city glow alive beneath her. Buildings blinked like lighthouses, steady and untouchable. She, on the other hand, felt exposed.
The napkin she'd given Smoke *"Meet me here tomorrow"* felt childish now. She hadn't even signed her name, hadn't dared say more. But what else could she have written?
"I feel like I've been waiting for you forever?"
No. Too much.
"I don't know if this is real, but I want to find out?"
Also too much.
So, she waited.
Fifteen minutes passed. Then thirty.
And just as she was about to leave, the rooftop door creaked open behind her.
Smoke appeared, hood down, shoulders hunched against the wind. She held a paper bag and two cans of something clinking softly together.
"Hey," she said, breathless, like she'd run.
Nova smiled. "Hey."
"You waited."
"I told you to meet me," Nova teased, folding her arms. "I meant it."
Smoke held out the bag. "I brought snacks. Figured I owed you something better than stale ginger tea."
Inside were spicy plantain chips, two bottled drinks, and chocolate-covered raisins Nova's favorite. She blinked, surprised.
"You remembered," she said.
"Of course I did."
They sat together on a blanket Nova had brought, backs to the warm concrete wall, city glowing before them like a promise.
For a while, they just ate in silence, trading bites and side glances, knees brushing once in a while.
"You ever think," Nova asked quietly, "about how hard it is to just… be seen?"
Smoke turned her head, studying her.
"Yeah," she said after a moment. "It's terrifying."
Nova nodded. "Even scarier when someone actually *does* see you. All of you. Not the curated pieces. The unfiltered you."
Smoke looked away, eyes dim.
"Sometimes I think I've spent my whole life hiding in plain sight," she said.
Nova leaned her head against Smoke's shoulder. It wasn't calculated it just felt right.
"I see you," she whispered.
Smoke stiffened slightly, then exhaled. "You scare me," she said, voice barely above the wind.
"I know."
They stayed like that until the cold crept too deep, until the sky turned silver and even the city began to sleep.
Smoke walked Nova to her apartment door that night but didn't come in.
Before she turned away, she paused.
"Tomorrow?" she asked.
Nova smiled. "Always."
******
The next night, Nova didn't bring a blanket.
Smoke showed up with two mismatched mugs and a small thermos. "Hot chocolate," she explained. "Figured it fits the mood."
They sat again under the hush of the rooftop, the city quieter now, a weekday lull making everything feel like a secret.
"Tell me something you've never told anyone," Smoke said after a long stretch of sipping in silence.
Nova raised a brow. "That's bold."
Smoke shrugged, eyes steady. "I won't judge."
Nova hesitated. Then, "When I was younger, I used to think if I kissed a girl, lightning would strike. Like actual, biblical lightning."
Smoke chuckled. "Did it?"
Nova smirked. "No. But my heart nearly gave out. I kissed a girl named Imani behind the school gym. We were twelve. She smelled like bubble gum and rebellion."
Smoke looked at her like she was a poem she hadn't finished reading.
"Your turn," Nova said, nudging her with a shoulder.
Smoke took a deep breath. "I didn't speak for almost a year after my dad left. Not one word. My mom thought something was wrong with me."
Nova blinked. "That's... heavy."
Smoke nodded. "It was. I wasn't sad exactly. Just... disconnected. Words didn't feel like they'd fix anything, so I stopped trying."
"What brought you back?"
"I heard my sister crying. One night I got up, sat beside her, and just said her name. That's all. 'Maya.' She stopped crying."
Nova reached over, fingers barely grazing Smoke's hand.
"You're full of quiet magic," she whispered.
Smoke gave a half-smile. "You bring it out."
They lingered there, in that stillness. Neither pushed forward, but something had shifted.
The next few nights became a rhythm.
They met like clockwork. Sometimes they brought food, sometimes just each other. Smoke sketched while Nova read poetry aloud. They argued about books. They watched planes disappear into the clouds. Sometimes they didn't talk at all.
But their silences were full.
One night, Nova brought music.
She played it low from her phone, soft jazz mingled with moody blues.
Smoke danced.
Nova didn't expect it. One minute she was sipping tea, the next, Smoke stood, head tilted, moving in slow deliberate sways. Nothing performative. Just feeling.
"Join me," Smoke said, hand out.
Nova hesitated.
"I don't dance," she said.
"Yes, you do. Your soul does."
Nova stood.
They danced slowly, bodies close but not clinging, eyes not always meeting but never straying too far.
Nova laughed once, nervously.
"You're making me feel things."
"Good," Smoke said. "Me too."
Later that night, Smoke walked her home again.
They stood at Nova's door longer this time. The tension had changed. It wasn't uncertain. It was *charged*.
But neither moved to kiss.
Smoke touched Nova's chin lightly. "You smell like rain," she murmured, then turned and walked away.
Nova leaned against the door, heart beating like a drum solo.
---
A few days later, Nova's rooftop was empty.
Smoke didn't show.
Not the next night, either.
No message. No note. Just absence.
Nova waited the first night.
She paced the second.
By the third night, she sat alone on the cold ground and cried.
She didn't know where Smoke lived. Didn't know her real name. Didn't know if something had happened or if this was the end of a story barely begun.
On the fourth night, she didn't go up.
On the fifth, there was a knock on her door.
Nova opened it and there she was Smoke. Drenched in rain, hoodie clinging to her skin, eyes wide and wild with apology.
"I'm sorry," she breathed. "I had to disappear. Family emergency. My sister... it was bad. I didn't know how to say it. I didn't want to bring darkness to what we have."
Nova pulled her inside without a word, wrapped a blanket around her, and sat her down.
"I thought you ghosted me," Nova whispered.
"I wanted to call. I just... couldn't."
They sat in silence.
Then Nova, voice steady, said, "Don't disappear without a word. I don't need you to be perfect. I just need you to *show up*."
Smoke looked at her like she wanted to say a hundred things.
She said one.
"I'm falling."
Nova's heart clenched.
"Me too," she whispered.
---
That night, they didn't kiss.
But Smoke curled beside her on the couch, Nova's head on her chest, listening to her heartbeat like it held answers.
And somehow, it did.
The storm outside tapped gently on the windows like it was asking for permission to stay. Inside, Nova rested in Smoke's arms, her cheek pressed against the curve of Smoke's shoulder. There was no music, no voices, just the quiet hum of a home temporarily shared.
"Do you want to talk about it?" Nova asked, her voice barely above the sound of the rain.
Smoke sighed. "Maya had a breakdown. She tried to run again. I spent three days sleeping on the hospital chair, talking her down from silence."
Nova didn't press. She simply reached for Smoke's hand and held it.
"I'm scared of what I can't fix," Smoke added. "And what I'll lose if I try."
"You don't have to fix everything," Nova said. "You just have to let yourself be held too."
Smoke leaned back, eyes on the ceiling. "I don't usually let people in like this."
"I know," Nova said with a soft smile. "Neither do I."
Smoke turned to her, the tension between them swelling again but not from lust this time. It was vulnerability, the deepest kind of intimacy.
"You're different," Smoke whispered.
"So are you," Nova said.
They didn't kiss. But they didn't need to. That moment held more than most lips ever could.
***
In the following weeks, their rooftop meetings resumed only now they were laced with something new: familiarity.
Smoke started bringing her sketchbook more often, filling pages with Nova's profile, her hands, her laugh, her moods. She drew her like she was trying to memorize her.
Nova read aloud less and talked more. About her childhood. About the time she scraped her knee running away from her first heartbreak. About the sound her mother made when she cried like broken piano keys.
They never labeled what they were. They didn't need to.
One night, Nova brought a pack of glow-in-the-dark stars and stuck them to the rooftop wall.
"To make our own sky," she said.
Smoke lit a joint and passed it to her.
"To making new worlds," Smoke replied.
They lay side by side, staring at their plastic constellation. Nova turned her head slightly.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything."
"Have you... ever been in love before?"
Smoke's lips parted, then closed again. She took a long breath.
"Once. I thought it was love. Maybe it was. But it was full of fire and collapse. We destroyed each other."
Nova nodded slowly. "Same."
They looked at each other, and Nova reached out, brushing a curl from Smoke's forehead.
"I don't want to destroy you," she whispered.
Smoke's voice was lower than before. "Then don't leave."
Their faces were closer now.
It would've been easy to close the distance.
But Nova pulled back.
Not yet.
She wanted to be sure.
***
The next night, Smoke wasn't on the rooftop but there was a note taped to the wall of plastic stars:
*"Meet me where the lights don't reach. Midnight."*
Nova smiled.
She knew exactly where that was.
***
At midnight, she walked down to the abandoned underpass near the old train yard a hidden part of the city they'd once talked about exploring. It was quiet, scattered with broken glass and graffiti hearts.
Smoke was there, sitting on the hood of a rusted car, flashlight dangling from one hand.
"I wanted you to see something," she said as Nova approached.
She turned the flashlight on the wall behind her. There, painted in strokes of deep blues and soft pinks, was a mural of two faceless women reaching for each other hands almost touching, stardust between them.
"You painted this?" Nova asked, breath catching.
Smoke nodded. "You inspired it."
Nova walked closer, looking up at the art. "Why are they faceless?"
"Because I wasn't sure how you'd feel. But now—"
She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of chalk.
"I was hoping you'd help me finish it."
Nova looked at her for a long second, then took the chalk and started sketching one half of a smile.
Smoke grinned and did the same.
When they were done, the mural looked alive.
Two women. Reaching. Almost there.
Just like them.
They stood back, arms brushing.
And in that small, quiet space under the city, Nova whispered, "I think I'm falling too."
Smoke turned to her, and this time, neither pulled away.
The kiss was slow. Honest. A promise written on lips instead of paper.
And under the mural of themselves, surrounded by shadows and paint and heartbeats—
—they began.
---