—FromHerPOV—
The bus is late again.
It always is at this hour, but I never complain. Something about the delay feels fitting—like the city itself is slowing down just long enough to let me breathe.
I board without looking at the driver, slipping my card across the scanner and moving toward the middle. My usual seat. Near the window, third row from the back. The plastic's cracked. The cushion's flat. But it's familiar, and that's what matters.
The tablet is already warm in my hands, waiting for me like a soft-spoken friend. I scroll, not through a novel, but through comments. Reactions. Feedback.
"Chapter 109 made me cry. AGAIN."
"This slow-burn is destroying me."
"How does Nymphaea keep doing this?!"
It's flattering. Always is. But tonight… I don't know. The words land differently. Lighter. Like feathers brushing across a skin I've grown numb in.
I haven't written anything new in three days.
Well, not anything I didn't delete five minutes later.
It's funny—everyone thinks Nymphaea is this elegant, mysterious author with a perfect outline and endless inspiration. They imagine I write by candlelight, whispering poetic lines to myself while sipping herbal tea.
But the reality?
I write in sweatpants at 2 a.m. with an aching back and a messy bun, rereading the same sentence ten times before deciding it's trash. I overthink commas. I hate every chapter before I love it. And then I hate it again.
Writing isn't romantic. It's a war with your own voice.
The bus shudders slightly as it turns the corner near 7th and Alden. I barely notice it anymore. But what I do notice—without fail—is the soft creak of someone sitting down across from me.
Him.
He's here again.
Dirty blonde hair, slightly disheveled under his hoodie. Blue eyes that seem to carry both sleep and stories. He always looks like he just escaped a long shift, which, judging by the retail nametag I once caught a glimpse of, is probably true.
He sits in the same spot every time. Across from me, slightly turned toward the window, pretending not to glance at my screen.
Until tonight.
"You always read on here?" he asks.
I glance up, mildly surprised. His voice is lower than I expected—gentle, like he's unsure if he should've spoken at all.
"Usually," I reply. My tone is neutral, but not cold. I'm curious too.
He gestures slightly toward my tablet. "What kind of stuff?"
I debate whether to lie.
But why would I? He doesn't know who I am. I could say anything, and it would just be a passing conversation between strangers who share the same bus route and silence.
"Romance," I say, letting my fingers relax on the edge of the screen. "A little drama. Some slow-burns."
He smiles. Just a little. It lights up his whole expression for a second.
"You ever read Under the Moonlight, I Write?"
And just like that, my heart thuds once. Hard.
Of course I have.
I wrote it.
But I don't let my expression shift. Not even a flicker. After all, I've had years of practice being someone else. Nymphaea is a name that belongs to the version of me people fall in love with—not the one sitting here in a faded hoodie with under-eye circles and chipped nail polish.
"By Nymphaea?" I ask, like I'm not intimately familiar with every line of that story.
He nods. "Yeah."
I give him a faint smile, warm but vague. "I like it. It's quiet. Thoughtful."
That's the best compliment you can give me, and he doesn't even know it. Quiet and thoughtful. That's exactly what I try to be. Not flashy. Not dramatic. Just… honest. Gentle. Real.
He exhales, like he's relieved.
"It's one of my favorites," he says. "Feels like it actually gets people, y'know? The characters feel real."
I feel something strange tighten in my chest.
He sees them.
The little moments—the glances, the silences, the things left unsaid—I wrote those thinking no one would really notice. That most people would skim until the big drama kicked in. But this stranger? He sees them.
I study him for a second longer.
He's young. Maybe early twenties. There's an honesty in his posture, in the way his voice cracked slightly when he said favorite. And there's something familiar in that slight hesitancy he carries, like someone used to writing in the margins instead of the main pages.
"Do you write?" I ask.
He laughs softly, scratching the back of his neck. "Trying to. Not sure I'm any good."
That makes me want to say a hundred things all at once. That doubt is normal. That writing is a constant act of bravery. That sometimes, the people who think they're bad at it are the ones who understand it most.
But I don't say any of that.
I've learned not to offer too much too soon. Especially not to someone I might see again.
The bus starts to slow—my stop.
I zip my tablet into my bag, standing and adjusting the strap on my shoulder. Part of me wants to keep talking. Just a little longer. But timing matters.
So I glance at him one last time and offer a simple, "See you."
No expectations. Just a soft possibility.
He nods, a little surprised. Maybe hopeful.
The doors hiss open, and the night greets me with cool air and quiet streets. As I step off the bus, I don't look back.
But as I walk away, I catch myself smiling.
Because for the first time in a long while, I met someone who didn't know who I was—
and liked the story anyway.