Chapter 1 – The First Time
The first time I saw him, it was raining hard enough to blur the edges of the world.
The kind of rain that turns streetlights into halos and sidewalks into mirrors. I was standing under the rusted awning of a closed bookstore on Maple and Third, hugging my jacket tighter around me even though it was already soaked through. The neon sign above the door flickered weakly—three letters still alive, the rest surrendered to time.
OOKS.
It felt fitting.
I had always loved bookstores. The smell of paper and dust. The quiet promise of stories waiting to be chosen. But that night, the store behind me was dark, and the world felt small and airless, like I had reached the final page of something without realizing I was reading it.
My phone buzzed in my hand.
No new messages.
Just the echo of the one I had read over and over.
We need to talk.
Four words capable of dismantling a life.
Across the street, headlights cut through the rain. A car slowed at the intersection, tires hissing against wet pavement. For a moment, I thought it might be him—that he would roll down the window, call my name, tell me it was all a mistake. That he hadn't meant it. That he didn't want to end us after three years with a conversation that lasted twelve minutes and never once used the word love.
But the car moved on.
Of course it did.
I don't know how long I stood there replaying everything in my head. The fight. The silence. The way he wouldn't look at me when he said, "I don't think this is working anymore, Maya."
Maya.
He had said my name like it was something fragile. Like he was setting it down gently instead of breaking it.
I hadn't cried in front of him. I'd refused to give him that. Instead, I'd nodded like I understood, like I agreed, like I wasn't watching the future I thought I had dissolve in real time.
But under that awning, alone in the rain, the tears finally came.
And that's when he found me.
"Are you okay?"
The voice was close enough to startle me.
I looked up too quickly, brushing at my cheeks with the heel of my hand. A tall figure stood just beyond the reach of the awning, rain streaking down the dark fabric of his coat. He held an umbrella loosely at his side, like he had forgotten it was there.
"I'm fine," I said automatically.
It was a lie so practiced it came out smooth.
He didn't move closer. Didn't try to invade the fragile bubble of space I had around me. He just studied me for a second, his expression unreadable in the dim light.
"You don't look fine."
There was no accusation in his voice. No pity either. Just quiet observation.
I let out a humorless laugh. "Do people ever look fine when they're standing in the rain outside a closed bookstore?"
He glanced up at the broken sign. "Maybe they're waiting for it to open."
"It's nine at night."
"Maybe they're very optimistic."
Something about the way he said it—dry, understated—pulled a reluctant smile from me. It felt strange on my face, like a muscle I hadn't used in years.
The rain intensified, drumming against the metal awning.
He finally stepped forward, opening the umbrella and angling it so it covered both of us. The shift was subtle, careful, as though he were approaching a skittish animal.
"You'll get sick," he said.
"I'm already sick."
His eyebrow lifted slightly. "With?"
"Bad decisions."
That time, he did smile. It was quick, almost hidden, but it changed his whole face. Softened it.
"I'm Liam," he said after a moment.
He offered his hand like this was a normal introduction, like we weren't two strangers meeting in the aftermath of my heartbreak.
I hesitated, then took it.
"Maya."
His hand was warm despite the rain. Steady.
"Well, Maya," he said gently, releasing my hand, "do you want to tell me why you're standing here pretending you're fine?"
I could have walked away.
I should have walked away.
But there was something about him—about the calm in his voice, the absence of urgency—that made me feel like I didn't have to perform. Like I didn't have to be the composed, reasonable, unbothered version of myself.
"My boyfriend broke up with me," I said, surprising myself with the honesty.
"Ah."
"That's it? 'Ah'?"
"It's a very loaded syllable."
I huffed out a breath that might have been another laugh. "Three years. And he just… decided."
"Did you see it coming?"
"No." I paused. "Maybe. I don't know. I think I ignored it coming."
Liam nodded, like that made sense. "That's usually how it works."
The rain softened slightly, settling into a steady rhythm.
"Why are you here?" I asked suddenly. "Don't you have somewhere to be?"
"I was heading home."
"And instead you stopped to interrogate a crying stranger?"
"Concern," he corrected lightly. "Not interrogation."
I studied him properly then. Dark hair plastered slightly to his forehead. Eyes that seemed more gray than blue in the low light. He looked around my age—late twenties, maybe early thirties. There was something self-contained about him, like he carried his thoughts carefully.
"You do this often?" I asked.
"Stop for strangers in the rain?"
"Yes."
"No." A small pause. "But you looked like you might disappear."
The words caught me off guard.
"Disappear?"
He shrugged one shoulder. "Not physically. Just… fade."
Something in my chest tightened.
It was an oddly accurate description of how I felt—like someone had slowly been turning down the brightness of my life for months, and I hadn't noticed until everything was dim.
"I wasn't going to disappear," I said quietly.
"Good."
We stood there for a moment in silence, listening to the rain. Cars passed occasionally, sending up sprays of water from the street.
"You shouldn't let someone else decide your worth," he said after a while.
I stiffened slightly. "You don't even know what happened."
"You're right." He met my gaze steadily. "But I know what you look like right now."
"And what's that?"
"Like someone who thinks she wasn't enough."
The accuracy of it hit like a punch.
I swallowed hard. "You're very perceptive for a stranger."
"I read people for a living."
That piqued my curiosity despite myself. "What does that mean?"
"I'm a photographer."
"That explains it?"
"I spend a lot of time watching. Noticing."
I imagined him behind a camera lens, capturing moments people didn't realize they were revealing.
"Do you always approach your subjects in the rain?" I asked.
"Only the important ones."
My breath hitched faintly.
"That was a terrible line," he added immediately. "Sorry."
I laughed, the sound surprising both of us.
"There it is," he said softly.
"What?"
"You."
The rain seemed to recede into the background.
"You don't know me," I said.
"Not yet."
The words hung between us, charged in a way that felt both dangerous and impossible.
This was ridiculous. I was freshly heartbroken, standing under a broken sign with a stranger whose last name I didn't know.
And yet.
"I should go," I said finally.
"Okay."
He didn't argue. Didn't try to stop me.
But he didn't step away either.
I moved out from under the awning and into the rain. He followed, angling the umbrella above us again without comment.
"You don't have to walk me home," I said.
"I know."
"But you're going to."
"Probably."
I shook my head, but I didn't tell him to leave.
We walked in silence for a block before I spoke again.
"Why did you really stop?"
He took a second to answer.
"Because I remember what it felt like."
I glanced at him. "What what felt like?"
"To be left."
There was no self-pity in his tone. Just fact.
"You?" I said before I could stop myself.
He gave me a sideways look. "Surprising?"
"A little."
He considered that. "She left a year ago."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be. She was right to."
"That doesn't make it easier."
"No." A faint smile. "It doesn't."
We turned onto my street. The buildings here were older, brick facades worn by time. My apartment was halfway down, third floor, perpetually creaky stairs.
"That's me," I said, pointing.
He stopped at the bottom of the steps.
The rain had slowed to a mist now, clinging to the air instead of falling through it.
"Thank you," I said.
"For?"
"Finding me."
The phrase slipped out before I could examine it.
His gaze held mine, steady and searching.
"I didn't find you," he said quietly. "You were already there."
I didn't fully understand what he meant. Maybe he didn't either.
"Goodnight, Maya."
"Goodnight, Liam."
I climbed the stairs without looking back.
But when I reached the third-floor landing, I couldn't help it.
I glanced down.
He was still there.
Watching to make sure I made it inside.
I didn't expect to see him again.
People like that—people who appear in pivotal moments—usually fade back into the world as quickly as they arrive. They become anecdotes. Stories you tell your friends over coffee.
"You won't believe what happened to me."
But the next afternoon, when I pushed open the door to my favorite café on Elm Street, I saw him immediately.
Not because he was looking at me.
Because he was looking at everything else.
He sat near the window, camera resting on the table beside a half-empty mug. His attention was fixed on an elderly couple across the room, their hands intertwined over a chessboard.
He didn't notice me.
And for a moment, I just stood there, watching him the way he had watched me.
There was something intensely focused about him when he worked. A stillness. Like he was waiting for the exact second a truth surfaced.
As if sensing my gaze, he looked up.
Our eyes met.
Recognition flared instantly.
He smiled—not surprised, not startled. Just… pleased.
"Well," he said as I approached, "you didn't disappear."
I rolled my eyes lightly. "Neither did you."
"Coffee?" he asked, gesturing to the empty chair across from him.
I hesitated for only a second before sitting down.
This was how it began.
Not with fireworks.
Not with declarations.
But with rain and a broken sign and a stranger who saw me when I felt invisible.
I didn't know then how deeply he would change my life.
I didn't know how complicated it would become.
All I knew was this:
The way he found me—
standing in the rain, heart cracked open, pretending I was fine—
was the way no one ever had before.
And maybe, just maybe,
that mattered.