Lisbon had a way of holding people gently, as if it understood how easily some souls could slip away.
Elias Moremi had lived in the city for three years and still felt like a visitor—someone passing through a story that was not entirely his. The mornings smelled of salt and old stone, the evenings of coffee and unfinished conversations. It was a beautiful place to hide, which was why he had chosen it.
He sat at his usual table by the café window on Rua da Misericórdia, notebook unopened, pen resting uselessly between his fingers. Outside, the rain softened the city, blurring its sharp edges. Inside, the café hummed with low voices and the quiet clink of porcelain. Nothing demanded his attention.
That was when she walked in.
There was nothing dramatic about her arrival. No sudden hush. No turning heads. She entered the way people who are used to surviving enter a room—aware, careful, unassuming. Her coat was damp from the rain, dark curls pulled loosely behind her ears, her movements deliberate but unguarded.
Elias noticed her the way one notices silence after noise—slowly, then completely.
She paused near the counter, scanning the room as if deciding where she could exist without being interrupted. When her eyes passed over him, they didn't linger. That should have been the end of it.
Instead, something settled in his chest.
She chose the seat by the window opposite his, separated only by a narrow aisle and two small tables. When she sat, she exhaled softly, like someone who had been holding her breath longer than she realized.
Elias looked away immediately. He had learned that looking too long led to questions, and questions led to things he had no intention of reopening.
Still, he felt her presence—not loudly, but persistently. The way you feel a change in weather before it announces itself.
She ordered tea. Chamomile, he noted absently, though he had no reason to care. When the cup arrived, she wrapped both hands around it, eyes lowered, lashes casting shadows on her cheeks. There was a tiredness about her that didn't come from lack of sleep, but from endurance.
He recognized it.
That recognition disturbed him more than her beauty ever could.
Elias returned his attention to the notebook. The blank page stared back at him, accusatory. He had not written anything meaningful in over a year. Words used to come easily—love, loss, longing woven into sentences that made strangers feel less alone. Now they refused him, as if they no longer trusted his intentions.
Across from him, the woman—*Amara*, the barista had called her—turned slightly, resting her elbow on the table. Her gaze drifted to the rain-soaked street, then, without warning, to him.
This time, their eyes met.
There was no spark. No cinematic moment. Just a quiet, startling awareness.
Her eyes held something unspoken—sadness, yes, but also resolve. She did not look away immediately, nor did she smile. She simply acknowledged him, as if saying *I see you too*, and then returned her attention to her tea.
Elias felt the moment pass through him and leave something behind.
He should have gone back to his notebook. Should have stayed in the safety of distance. Instead, his fingers tightened around the pen.
Some people come into your life like a question you were never planning to answer.
He had the unsettling sense that this woman—this stranger with rain in her hair and quiet strength in her posture—was not passing through.
And for the first time in years, that frightened him.