ALVA
I shouldn't still be thinking about it and yet I find that I can't shake it off.
Here I am, sitting in the driver's seat of my rental car, fingers resting loosely on the steering wheel. I am parked by the corner of the road, eyes fixed on a cottage somewhere ahead that I'm not allowed into. The engine is off, the world outside quiet, but my mind keeps replaying the same moment over and over again.
The moment she bumped into me.
It hits me again, more vivid than the last. I recall her smell. It was not overly sweet or artificial like the shop. It was something soft, clean, with a faint trace of flowers that felt like it belonged to her rather than something she put on. It had caught me off guard, that brief collision in the flower shop. The brush of her body against mine, the startled intake of her breath, the quick apology she mumbled without even looking up before she moved past me.
A normal moment, yet as unforgettable as the first collision at the book fair.
