Chapter Three | The Space Between Strangers

It happened on a Tuesday.

She had walked to the market the long way, through the quiet trail behind her cottage where the leaves gathered like old letters. She liked it better than the main road—fewer cars, more time to think.

She had only meant to pick up apples.
But life, she was learning, never sticks to the list.

There was someone at the stand when she arrived. A man. Not young, not old. A soft kind of presence. He wore a dark green sweater and had that look people sometimes carry when they’ve known silence long enough to respect it.

She stood a few feet behind him, waiting.
He turned just slightly, enough to offer her a polite nod.
Not too familiar. Not too distant.

She nodded back.
Then looked down at the apples.

When she glanced up again, he was gone.

But on the way home, she noticed something strange.
The wind had changed.

It rustled the leaves differently. Brushed her cheek like it meant to say something. There was no music playing, no reason for her heart to feel like it had skipped—but it had. And there was a warmth in her palms like she'd just held something without realizing it.

Back home, she lit a candle and sliced the apples into thin pieces.
She didn’t think about the man again.
Not really.

But when she went to write in her notebook that night,
she found herself hesitating—pen hovering over the page.

Eventually, she just wrote:
“There was someone at the stand today. He didn’t say anything. But I felt it. I think he saw me.”

And then, under that, in smaller letters:
“It’s okay to hope.”