Nora's POV
I hadn't left the apartment in two days.
The walls had grown closer somehow, pressing in with the same words that had driven me here in the first place. I could still hear them if I let my mind drift too long—sharp, faceless voices bleeding out of glowing screens. Anonymous but merciless, strangers who believed they could define me with a few cruel lines typed between their morning coffees.
I'd shut it all off—my phone, the TV, even the laptop. Still, their voices lingered like ghosts, fragments that slipped through the cracks. Gold-digger. Opportunist. Not his type. She'll never last.
I told myself it didn't matter. That I didn't care. That I was tougher than this.
But the truth was, each word landed like grit under the skin. Too small to remove, too sharp to forget.
The knock at my door startled me out of the spiral. I dragged myself up from the couch and opened it to find Ella, arms full of a paper bag and the kind of energy that could rewire a dead room.
"God, you look like you've been living on black coffee and despair," she announced, stepping inside without waiting for an invitation. Her perfume, citrusy and light, immediately cut through the stale air. "Lucky for you, I brought carbs."
She thudded the bag onto the counter, pulling out pastries that smelled like butter and cinnamon. My stomach tightened in protest—I wasn't sure I could force myself to eat—but the gesture itself made my throat ache.
"I'm fine," I muttered, because it was easier than the truth.
"You're not fine." Ella spun to face me, hands on her hips. "You're hiding. And newsflash: hiding only makes the hyenas louder."
I tried to smile but it felt brittle, like wearing someone else's expression.
"Seriously," she said, softer now, "don't let them do this to you. You're stronger than a comment section."
I wanted to believe her. I wanted to step back into my life as though nothing had changed. But my reflection in the darkened TV screen told another story—pale, hollow-eyed, shoulders curled inward like I was trying to make myself disappear.
Ella filled the silence the way she always did, with noise that was half comfort, half distraction. She sat cross-legged on the couch, recounting the tragic comedy of her latest date—how the guy had tried to impress her by ordering in French, except the waiter was Dutch and barely understood him. She imitated his gestures, his overdone accent, and soon I was laughing, really laughing, for the first time in days.
It felt like the sound was someone else's, rusty from disuse, but it loosened something in me all the same.
When Ella finally left, the apartment was too quiet again. I tidied aimlessly, wiped down counters that were already clean. Eventually I gathered the trash, mostly empty takeout containers, and carried the bag downstairs.
The night air hit me like a shock. Cool, damp, and scented faintly with rain on stone. For a moment I just stood there on the sidewalk, breathing it in, feeling almost human again.
That's when I felt it.
A gaze, steady and deliberate, catching mine across the street.
A man leaned casually against a lamppost. Not the kind of man who looked out of place anywhere—his shirt pressed, jacket tailored just enough to whisper money without shouting it. His posture was easy, like the street belonged to him.
When he smiled, it wasn't the open kind of smile strangers shared in passing. It was sharper, deliberate. The kind of smile that said he already knew more than he should.
"Evening," he said as I passed. His voice was smooth, unhurried. Polished in a way that didn't belong to this quiet corner of the city.
I nodded, clutching the trash bag tighter. I didn't owe him anything—not even eye contact.
But then he added, almost gently, "You shouldn't let them get to you. The vultures. They don't deserve the space they take in your head."
I froze mid-step. The trash bag cut into my fingers. Slowly, I turned.
"Do I know you?"
"Not yet." He straightened, his eyes catching the streetlight. "But I know enough to see you're stronger than you think."
The words should have comforted me. Instead they slid under my skin like something rehearsed, a line tailored for maximum effect.
"How do you know who I am?" I asked, sharper than I intended.
His smile deepened, but his tone remained light. "The city talks. It talks about everyone eventually. Don't worry—I don't put much faith in gossip."
"That's reassuring," I said flatly.
He chuckled, as though my resistance amused him. "Fair enough. You have every right to be cautious." He tilted his head, studying me with a kind of intent focus that made me want to step back. "But it's also… refreshing. Most people bend themselves in knots to please. You don't strike me as someone who does."
I didn't answer. I just shifted the trash bag to my other hand and kept walking toward the dumpster.
He fell into step beside me, not too close, not threatening—just near enough that I felt the weight of him. "For what it's worth, I think it takes a certain kind of strength to walk through fire when everyone's waiting for you to stumble."
I dropped the bag into the bin with a hollow thud. "Do you practice these speeches?"
That earned a laugh, low and genuine enough to surprise me. "Touché."
He didn't follow me back toward the building, just leaned against the lamppost again, watching as though the conversation had gone exactly how he wanted.
I pulled open the door, telling myself not to turn back. But something made me glance over my shoulder anyway.
He was still there. Smiling.
And this time, when his eyes met mine, I felt the prickle of something I couldn't quite name—interest, warning, maybe both.
I closed the door quickly behind me, heart pounding in a rhythm that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with unease.
Because whoever he was, he wasn't a stranger in the way strangers should be.
He was something else.
Something waiting.