She came for the quiet comfort of the books. He came for peace.

Both looking for an escape from the world outside — chaotic and a mess…

Neither expected to find someone who understood the spaces between the words…

The small understanding nods, turning to the smiles of fondness…

How did they even get there…?

There’s a stillness to the bookstore that feels almost sacred.

Clara stands in front of the second shelf in Literary Fiction, fingertips grazing book spines like they’re old friends she’s forgotten the names of. The quiet hum of the overhead lights, the faint scent of paper and dust — it’s a kind of sanctuary. Outside, the city moves — cars, footsteps, lovers arguing under their breath. But in here, the noise stops just short of the door. Time folds in on itself.

A different kind of time. One where stories breathe and heal on their own terms.

She’s started coming here almost every evening after work. Just to walk by the aisles. Sometimes she buys something, but mostly, she just… exists. Among the pages. Among the quiet. It’s been four months since she moved to this quieter part of the city. Three months since she last heard from her ex. Two weeks since she deleted the thread of messages that she used to reread like a favorite tragedy.

Some days she doesn’t know whether that was a moment of strength or surrender.

She doesn’t believe in fate anymore. But she believes in places — in corners of the world that seem to hold something for you, even when you’re not sure what. And this place — with its wonky floorboards and handwritten staff picks and every comforting creak of the door, which may be not much — feels like it’s been waiting for her.

She pauses, her fingers coming to rest on a familiar gap in the shelf.

The God of Small Things. It was missing last week too. She remembers noticing, remembers the small flicker of disappointment. Not because she couldn’t find another book to read, but because that one — that one mattered. She hadn’t read for a long time now, but it had stayed with her. A story that didn’t shy away from the messy parts. That whispered instead of shouted.

Her fingers linger on the empty space, as she sighs softly with a hint of disappointment.

“Good choice,” comes a voice from beside her — warm, quiet, unhurried.

She hadn’t realized anyone else was in the aisle.

She glances sideways. He’s taller than she expected. Worn denim, a charcoal coat, a stack of books in his hand. The kind of face that looks like it belongs in this kind of place — thoughtful, a little tired, open in a way that doesn’t ask for anything in return. He doesn’t look at her — not quite — just gestures toward the gap in the shelf.

“I just finished it,” he says, almost apologetically. “Couldn’t put it down.”

A beat passes.

“I was hoping it would be back,” Clara says. “It’s one of those books that… doesn’t try to fix you. Just understands.”

He nods once, then smiles — not big, just enough. Like they’re both in on something quiet and true.

That’s it. No names. No lingering conversation.

Just a shared space.

And a missing book.

They cross paths again the next week. And the week after that.

Always near the same shelf — the one isolated in the far corner of the library’s second floor, where the lighting flickers on rainy afternoons and the titles leaned a bit outwards like they’re tired from being forgotten.

Always in silence first — until a comment about a book, or a quiet laugh at how one of them is always holding too many novels for someone with only two hands.

Names never come up. They didn't ever need to.

They become something almost habitual in each other’s routines — a rhythm built around pages, book spines, and quiet recognition. She starts to anticipate the sound of soft footsteps around the corner, the faint scent of worn pages and that old cologne that clings to his jacket. He always goes through the first editions like he's hunting for something. She rereads back covers like they're clues.

One Thursday, he holds out a book. Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. His fingers tap the cover lightly, like he's hesitant to recommend it — like he's offering more than a title.

“Sneaks up on you,” he says. “In a quiet way. Haunts you, but... in a good way.”

Clara checked it out that afternoon. She starts reading it on the bus ride home and doesn't stop until the streetlights blink outside her window. She finishes it the next night, sitting by the edge of her bed, her dinner long cold on the nightstand.

She underlines lines in pencil, even though it’s a borrowed library copy — an old habit she thought she’d grown out of by now , but never did. Some passages she circles twice. She rereads one line three times:

[“Sometimes I get these moments when I just want to go back to how it was before.”]

The words echo. Not just in her head — but in her chest, in the stillness of rooms that have grown too quiet lately. She doesn’t know what “before” she’s longing for. Only that she understands the wanting.

The next time she sees him, he’s crouched near the bottom shelf, flipping through a paperback with bent corners and a loosened spine.

“I read it,” she says, holding up the book.

He looks up. Smiling like he already knew she would.

“And?”

“You were right,” she says. “It stays.”

He nods once, like that’s all he needed to hear.

They don’t really greet each other. Don’t exchange numbers. There’s no dramatic crescendo, no sweeping music or sudden confessions. Just a moment of pause, acknowledged. Two people who met between pages and lingered in their own little comfort space.

She leaves before he does. As she walks down the stairs and out into the soft afternoon light, she realizes she’s smiling in a way that feels unfamiliar. Unpracticed.

A smile that felt so natural, she didn't force the corner of her lips to go up…

Like a forgotten language trying to return. A sense she thought she had lost… turns out she hadn't. It just needed a little push perhaps.