The rooftop wasn't locked.
Ava half-expected it to be—like the universe would try one last time to stop her from making a mistake she didn't yet understand. But the door creaked open with the lightest push, revealing a narrow metal stairwell bathed in the copper glow of late afternoon.
She climbed.
Every step echoed.
Her heart did too.
The air up there was different—cleaner somehow, laced with the smell of brick and dusk. A quiet breeze nudged her hair into her eyes.
And there he was.
Eli sat cross-legged near the edge, a notebook in his lap, a cup of coffee next to him, already going cold.
He didn't look surprised when she appeared. Didn't even say "hi."
Instead, he tilted his head, like she was a riddle he was still working out.
"I almost didn't come," she said.
"I knew you would."
She sat, leaving space between them. Enough for air. Enough for the unsaid.
Below them, the city moved like it didn't care they were up here—cars honking in the distance, someone yelling about a cat, a train screaming on its rails. But none of it reached their bubble.
"You always bring people up here?" she asked.
"No."
He scribbled something, then paused. "Only the ones who feel like they've been carrying too much silence."
She glanced sideways. "That's a weird thing to say."
"It's a weird thing to notice," he said, smiling.
Ava let her legs dangle over the edge. She wasn't afraid of heights. She was afraid of falling without meaning to.
"I used to talk all the time," she said. "Nonstop. My mom said I never shut up."
"What changed?"
She plucked at a loose thread in her jeans. "I said a lot of things that didn't matter. Then I stopped knowing what mattered. So I just… stopped."
Eli didn't respond right away.
When he finally did, it was quiet: "That happens."
Another silence settled between them.
But this one didn't feel heavy. It felt... full. Like a pause in music before the chorus.
He passed her the notebook.
No words—just a gesture.
Ava took it, flipping it open to the latest page.
---
There's a kind of grief that lives in the bones,
Not loud. Not messy. Just heavy.
You carry it until something finally sets it down for you.
---
She stared at the page longer than she meant to.
It didn't feel like something he wrote.
It felt like something she never dared say out loud.
She turned another page.
This one had a sketch—simple pencil lines, soft and unfinished. A girl sitting on a roof. Alone.
Her.
She shut the notebook, too fast.
"You draw people without asking?" she asked, a little harsher than intended.
Eli didn't flinch. "Only the ones who leave echoes behind."
"I don't leave echoes."
He looked at her.
"You left one in a secondhand book no one touched for six years."
She went still.
Her voice came out small: "You read it?"
"Only the first page," he said. "The one you tore out and left tucked between chapters."
She exhaled shakily. "I forgot I even did that."
"No," he said. "You hoped someone would find it. That's different."
The wind picked up, brushing past her ears like a whisper. She closed her eyes.
It was ridiculous how easy he made it feel to unravel.
"What did it say?" she asked, not sure she wanted to know.
Eli hesitated. Then said it from memory:
---
"Some days, I pretend I'm someone who still believes people don't leave just because they can."
---
Ava winced.
"It was raining when I wrote that," she muttered. "I was seventeen. Stupid."
"No," he said. "You were honest. People don't do that enough."
He didn't reach for her hand.
Didn't move closer.
But Ava felt the warmth of him anyway—something invisible stretching across the space between them, like gravity finding new purpose.
"Why do you care?" she asked suddenly. "Why me?"
Eli's answer came slow. Deliberate.
"Because you walked into a bookstore like it was the only place left that might still tell the truth."
That hit harder than it should've.
Because it was true.
And she hadn't even realized it.
She looked at him again—really looked. The worn denim jacket, the fading ink on his fingertips, the guarded way he met her gaze like he expected her to look away first.
But this time, she didn't.
Sunset dipped behind the buildings, staining everything in orange and soft gold. For a moment, it didn't feel like a city. It felt like the edge of the world.
Ava finally spoke.
"My dad left when I was nine," she said. "He said he'd be gone a week. I remember thinking it was strange he didn't hug me. But I was watching cartoons, and I didn't want to pause them just for a goodbye."
Eli listened.
She continued.
"He never came back. No accident. No death. Just... disappeared into the life he wanted more."
Her voice didn't crack.
It didn't have to.
The silence afterward was louder than any scream.
Eli nodded, slowly.
"My mom left two years ago," he said. "Didn't run away. She just stopped being home, even when she was in the house."
"Where'd she go?"
"Nowhere," he said. "That's the point."
Their pain was different.
But somehow, it spoke the same language.
Ava leaned back on her hands, eyes on the sky.
"I hate that I don't hate them," she admitted. "I wish I did. It would be easier."
Eli's voice was a murmur. "Easier doesn't mean better."
She laughed, but it was brittle. "You're full of sad wisdom, aren't you?"
He tilted his head. "It's the only kind that sticks."
She smiled despite herself.
And for once, it wasn't because she was trying to hide something.
They didn't rush to leave the rooftop.
Even as the sky deepened into a darker hue—burnt orange melting into navy—Ava stayed, tracing patterns in the gravel with the toe of her boot. Eli sat still, as if waiting for something unspoken to settle between them.
She looked up. "So… is this what you do? Invite people to rooftops and unlock their trauma?"
He let out a soft laugh. "No. Usually just drink my overpriced coffee and pretend the world doesn't bother me."
Ava tilted her head, curious. "Why me then? Why not just leave the mystery alone?"
Eli considered that. "Because I saw the way you looked at the books, like they were safer than people."
That wasn't the answer she expected.
And yet, it fit too perfectly.
Ava leaned her chin against her knees, arms wrapped tightly around her legs. "Books don't lie. People do."
"They both tell stories, though," he said. "One just gives you the option to close the cover when it hurts."
Her heart tugged in a place she thought had gone numb.
They sat with the truth a while.
Not debating it.
Just letting it exist.
Then, something shifted in his expression—his jaw tensed, eyes flicking away for the first time that night.
She caught it.
"What?" she asked.
Eli hesitated, fingers drumming softly on his knee.
"I didn't just find your note in the book by accident."
Ava blinked. "What do you mean?"
He reached into his backpack and pulled something out—an old paperback. Torn spine. Faded title.
Her breath caught.
"No way. That's…"
"Yep," he nodded. "The Places Between."
She stared at it, stunned. "That copy's been gone for years. I thought it got tossed."
"It didn't," Eli said, voice low. "It ended up in a box of donations. I was helping a friend sort through them for the store's reopening last month. That's when I found your page."
He handed her the book.
It felt heavier now.
Older.
More sacred.
Ava opened the cover slowly.
And there it was.
The page she had torn out years ago.
Wrinkled.
Smudged ink.
A piece of herself frozen in a time capsule she never meant to revisit.
"I didn't think anyone would care," she whispered.
Eli looked at her like that was the saddest thing he'd heard all day.
"I did," he said. "I do."
She held the book to her chest, suddenly overwhelmed by a thousand memories she'd buried under sarcasm and silence. Nights she cried into that book. Nights she clutched it because it was the only thing that didn't walk away.
"I didn't write my name in it," she said. "How did you know it was me?"
Eli glanced at her sideways. "Your handwriting was on the back of a café receipt. You'd used it as a bookmark. It had the name 'Ava' and an address. A few blocks from the store."
Her heart skipped.
"You stalked me?"
"I knocked once," he smirked. "But no one answered. So I waited. You came in last week. Same walk. Same look. Same quiet."
She couldn't believe it.
This whole time…
"You were watching me?"
"No," he corrected gently. "I was listening. There's a difference."
And somehow, that didn't feel creepy.
It felt… seen.
Too seen.
Ava's voice softened. "What did you expect to find?"
He didn't answer right away.
Then, without looking at her, he said: "Someone who'd remember what it felt like to feel."
She didn't know what to say to that.
So she didn't say anything.
But her eyes burned.
And she hated how much she wanted to stay in this moment.
How much she didn't want to go back down those stairs and pretend like none of this happened.
Finally, she broke the silence.
"You gonna keep trying to fix me?"
Eli's smile was faint. "I'm not trying to fix you, Ava."
He stood slowly, brushing dust off his jeans. "I'm just making sure you don't forget you're not broken."
Her breath caught in her throat.
He offered his hand.
Not to pull her up.
But to walk side by side.
She took it.
They didn't speak much on the way down.
The stairwell creaked beneath them, but it felt less eerie now—like it had already witnessed something sacred and wouldn't betray it.
At the bottom floor, the door clicked behind them, sealing the rooftop in memory.
As they stepped onto the street, the night greeted them with cooler air and the faint scent of rain waiting in the clouds.
Ava paused at the curb, turning to him.
"You do this a lot?" she asked.
"What?"
"Find people before they disappear."
He looked at her.
And this time, there was no sarcasm. No teasing.
"Only the ones who look like they've already started to."
She nodded slowly, letting that settle.
Then: "Okay."
He raised an eyebrow. "Okay what?"
"I'll come back tomorrow."
That surprised him. "Really?"
"Yeah. But only if you bring real coffee next time. Not that bitter trash."
He grinned. "Deal."
They stood in silence again.
But this time, it felt like a beginning, not an end.
Before they parted, Eli said one last thing:
"I didn't just keep the book, you know."
She looked at him.
He held her gaze.
"I kept the page too."
Ava felt the world tip, just slightly.
Not dangerously.
But enough to know something had shifted forever.
And just before he walked away, Eli added:
"You should ask your mom what really happened the night your dad left."
Then he disappeared down the block, turning the corner like he hadn't just dropped a match in the middle of her peace.
Ava stood frozen.
Because he shouldn't have known that.
She never told anyone.
Not even herself.