I arrived in the town just before spring found its rhythm, when winter was still dragging its feet across rooftops, and mornings smelled like Softened earth and old leaves. It was quiet here. The kind of quiet that didn't feel empty, just still. After everything I had run from, that stillness felt like a kindness.
I didn't plan to stay long. Three weeks, maybe four. Enough time to exhale, to stop answering emails, to remember what it felt like to wake up without my heart already racing. The past few years had blurred together in hotel rooms and airport lounges, my camera always in hand, my mind always elsewhere. Somewhere between Tokyo and Cape Town, I had forgotten what it felt like to sit in one place long enough for the seasons to change.
This town, a small coastal patch of earth tucked between two hills and a stubborn ocean, didn't care who I was. Nobody asked why I was there. Nobody looked at me twice. I liked that. I liked the way people minded their own business but still nodded good morning. Like they saw you, but didn't need to know your whole story. It felt respectful somehow. Gentle.
I found a little rental house on a crooked street where the windows opened wide and the floor creaked like it had secrets. It had one bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and a sunroom that smelled faintly of lavender. I unpacked only what I needed: a toothbrush, two books, three sweaters, and my camera. The rest stayed in the suitcase like it knew I wasn't staying long.
That first morning, the sky was pale with leftover clouds, and the air was still wearing winter's chill. I wrapped a scarf around my neck and went walking, not really aiming for anywhere in particular.I walked through narrow planes with colourful shutters and walls covered in leafy vines, letting my boots lead the way. Everything felt like it had a past like the buildings here had seen things and just quietly kept the memories placed beneath their bricks.
I found myself on the main street, where little shops stood close together like longtime friends. A bakery, a tailor's, a flower shop with hand-painted signs. And in the middle of them, a narrow door with peeling blue paint and a crooked sign that read:
Shoreline Books.
It was the kind of place that looked like it might fall apart if you closed the door too hard, which made me love it immediately. I stepped inside, and a little brass bell announced me with a gentle ring.
The warmth hit me first. Not just from the old heater humming in the corner, but from the smell of paper ink, and something sweet like cinnamon. Shelves lined every wall, most of them stuffed with books that looked like they'd been loved more than once. A few plants drooped from ceramic pots on the window shelf, and somewhere in the back, soft music played something with a piano and a soul.
Then I saw him.
He was standing behind the counter, sleeves rolled up, flipping through the pages of an old paperback. Tall, slightly rumpled, like he hadn't planned on company. His hair was the kind of messy that could only be natural, and he had the quiet look of someone who spent more time listening than talking.
He looked up. His eyes were soft and brown, like wet tree bark, kind, tired, and full of quiet curiosity.
"Looking for anything in particular?" he asked, voice low and easy.
"Something soft," I said, surprising myself. I hadn't meant to say that. I meant to say poetry, or fiction, or maybe just browsing. But what came out was soft. Like I'd forgotten how to protect myself.
He didn't question it. Just gave a small nod and walked around the counter, moving like someone who didn't like to rush. He led me to a narrow shelf near the window, one labeled Gentle Reads. I almost smiled.
He pulled out a worn copy of Letters to a Young Poet and handed it to me. "This one listens more than it speaks," he said.
I took it. Let my fingers trace the faded title. "Thank you."
He nodded and returned to the counter, leaving me to walk around. I didn't stay long. I was still exhausted in that quiet, invisible way. I paid for the book, left some coins in the tip jar, and walked back out into the street without another word.
I didn't realize I'd left my camera on the counter until I got home.
It was late afternoon when I returned to the bookstore, embarrassed but hopeful. I pushed the door open and that same bell rang a little softer this time, or maybe I just heard it differently. He was still there, still reading, but looked up the moment I walked in.
"You left something," he said, holding up my camera. The way he held it, gentle, made it feel like he was holding a part of me he didn't want to let go.
"Thank you," I said again.
He handed it over carefully. "Old model," he noted. "Film?"
"Digital, but built to look like a film. I like the weight of it."
"Most people don't like weight anymore," he said, not unkindly. "They want light. Easy. Fast."
I wasn't sure if we were still talking about cameras.
"I like things that feel like they have a soul," I said.
He smiled a little at that. "Me too."
That night, I sat in the room filled with sunlight with the book he gave me in my lap, and the salty breeze slipped in through the open window. I read Rilke's words slowly, like each one was a pebble I was tucking into my pocket.
"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart…"
I underlined the word.
In the days that followed, I returned to Shoreline Books almost without meaning to. Sometimes I buy something. Sometimes I just browsed. Once, I left with a secondhand poetry collection and a tiny clay bookmark shaped like a whale. Every time, Noah I finally learned his name from the receipt greeted me with that same calm stillness. Like nothing could startle him. Like he was used to waiting.
We didn't talk much. Not at first. But something in the quiet between us felt familiar. Safe. The way people who've been broken recognize each other.
I started bringing my camera out more. Not for work, just for me. I took pictures of gulls resting on rooftops, of the way sunlight danced through cracked windows, of an old couple holding hands at the market. I showed a few to Noah once, and he studied them the way he read slowly, carefully, like he didn't want to miss anything.
"They're sad," he said. "But in a beautiful way."
"So am I," I replied without thinking.
He looked at me then, really looked, and I swear something shifted in the room. Like the air leaned in closer to listen.
From that day on, the conversations came easier. He'd slip poems into my bag without telling me. I'd bring him photos tucked inside books. We didn't talk about the past. We didn't need to. It was enough just to exist in the same quiet space, to be seen without explanation.
I didn't realize I was falling for him.
Not yet.
But something in me was softening. Like the frost was finally starting to melt.
Like maybe just maybe I had arrived in the wrong season.
but something still wanted to bloom.