She arrived like a change in weather — the kind no forecast dares to predict.

Not lightning, but the hush before it.

Not warmth, but the memory of it on a windowsill long after sunset.

They met where clocks forgot themselves.

He carried a map made of wrong turns and coffee stains,

and she, a compass that spun only when he laughed.

They spoke in borrowed songs,

their meanings tucked inside the spaces between syllables.

No one said “stay,”

but the teacup never cooled.

Days folded quietly,

like letters no one meant to send but never quite threw away.

In that house of maybe’s,

shoes stayed by the door,

but one pair began to tilt subtly toward the other.

He never touched her hand.

Not in the way hands are touched.

But once, he offered her a peeled orange —

and she took it,

as if it were a promise.

And so they remained,

not as names or shapes,

but as the echo of two chords

that almost made a song

no one had written

but somehow always knew.