It started simple — a seat between conversations, a half-smile cut by streetlight hum. You said you’d owe me a dance one day; I laughed and pretended I didn’t believe you. The air was thin and electric, the kind that hums before rain. We sat between moments, too careful to call it fate, too scared to name it anything else. You talked about wolfcuts and late shifts, the soft violence of being tired. I said you felt like rest, and you smiled like disbelief set on fire. Every sentence shimmered, like glass before the break. You owed me a dance, but gave me quiet instead. That silence sang like thunder slowed, a melody stitched beneath my skin. We sat there, breathing between words, two half-healed echoes learning to trust again. The static around us felt alive, the city lights bent just for us. If grace ever had a heartbeat, it sounded like that night. You didn’t know what I’d survived. I didn’t ask what haunted you. We were ghostlight and rainsteam, two shadows trading warmth beneath the hum of passing cars. If that was the beginning, I’d live there again. [whispered echo: “again … again … again …”]
