I cross the room barefoot, the tile cool and smooth beneath my soles, and pick up the journal. The page falls open to a half-finished entry I started two days ago:
“He doesn’t flinch. Even when he should. I don’t know if that’s bravery or something colder.”
I skim it, then turn the page. Clean slate. Fresh ink.
And then something flickers in the corner of my eye.
At first, I think it’s a shifting shadow from the wind nudging the curtains, but when I glance toward the window, everything inside me stills.
He’s there.
Across the narrow alley, just beyond the slanted rooftop of the old tobacco house, Rafe stands on the edge of the tiles, one foot slightly forward, arms folded across his chest. The light behind him is dim, barely enough to frame his silhouette, but I know it’s him. No one else moves like that. No one else holds still with that kind of precision, like stillness itself is a form of dominance.
His head tilts slightly, and I realize with a jolt that he’s not just looking at my apartment.
He’s looking at me.
The breeze lifts the curtain slightly, letting moonlight slip through in slivers. I step closer to the window, slow and careful. Not because I’m scared—I’m not—but because something about the moment feels fragile. Like the silence is a thread we’re both holding between our hands, waiting to see who lets go first.
I reach the glass and place one palm flat against it.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t raise a hand. Just keep watching.
As if he was never there at all, he turns and disappears beyond the edge of the roof.
I open the window and lean out, searching the angles, the nearby ledges, the fire escape. Nothing. Only the empty roof,the steady chirp of a scooter fading around the corner, and the distant clang of some metal gate being pulled shut.
He’s fast.
I close the window and lock it this time, not because I think he’ll come through it, but because part of me wants to know that he won’t. That he’s only watching. That the boundary between us still exists.
Barely.
Back at the desk, I sit slowly, the journal open and waiting.
I write in firm strokes.
“There’s something inhuman about him.”
After a pause, I keep going:
“He moves like he belongs to the sky and the ground at the same time. Like gravity isn’t a rule, just a suggestion. His silence speaks in frequencies most people are too numb to hear. I’m starting to think I was never supposed to meet him—and yet somehow, everything before now feels like it was leading me straight here.”
The pen lingers at the end of the sentence. I want to say more, but I also know what I’m feeling is a dangerous slope. Objectivity is supposed to be the cornerstone of my work. No attachment. No emotional entanglement. No letting the subject take up space in your personal life.
But I’ve never met a subject who showed up on my rooftop just to look into my windows. And I’ve never stared back wondering why I didn’t want him to stop.
My phone buzzes from the counter.
I cross the room and check the screen. It’s Pilar.
Just a single line of text:
“He was quiet tonight. That’s worse.”
I don’t respond.
There’s nothing I can say that would make sense.
