The late afternoon sun draped the city in soft amber, casting long shadows across the quiet streets. This pocket of the metropolis—just far enough from downtown to breathe—felt caught between stillness and motion. The sidewalks were worn, cracked in places, with tufts of grass forcing their way through like stubborn reminders of life. Traffic was a low murmur in the distance, muffled by the taller buildings to the west. Local shops lined the main street: a narrow bookstore with a bell that rang when the door opened, its windows fogged slightly from the old radiator near the back. A small café nearby spilled the scent of espresso and baked sugar onto the sidewalk, mixing with the faint tang of city pavement. Across from it stood a florist with wilting bouquets in mismatched buckets and a hand-painted "Cash Only" sign that had faded from sun exposure. Then, almost unnoticed, the tailor’s shop—a narrow storefront with gold-leaf letters flaking off the glass, its pressed suits arranged in the window like still, waiting ghosts. Above that shop, behind a tall window framed by ivy and the slow crawl of time, lived something more constant than the passing day. Music. It began low and steady—notes curling from the open window like incense, wrapping around the quiet buildings and slipping between the cracks in the sidewalk. It moved like smoke, like breath. Familiar yet elusive. The piano wasn’t hesitant. It was precise, clear, purposeful. This wasn’t someone toying with keys or searching for meaning. This was someone who spoke. Ricky played without hesitation. His movements were fluid, instinctive, honed over years of discipline. Every finger placement was confident, practiced—not just technically, but emotionally. The music wasn’t for show, and yet it moved like something living—shaped by longing, memory, and control held just tightly enough not to shatter. He played because it was the only language he had left. Not for applause. Not even for comfort. But because not playing would mean confronting the silence—and that was louder than anything. The afternoons often disappeared beneath his fingers. The light would fade across the room in slow gradients—honey to copper to dusk. So when he looked up from the piano—just briefly, just for a stretch—it wasn’t routine. It was interruption. And there she was. Across the street, barely moving, wrapped in the golden hush of early evening. A woman. Still. Focused. Half-shrouded by a lamppost and the lengthening shadows of the buildings. She wasn’t watching him, not exactly. She was listening—with her whole body. The kind of listening that wasn’t casual or convenient. The kind of listening that required something of you. She wasn’t a passerby. She wasn’t curious. She was present. He stared, breath caught in his throat, heart nudging upward like a key pressed just slightly too hard. The air around him shifted. Not drastically. Not loudly. Just enough to pull him out of the trance. It wasn’t about being seen—it was about being heard. That realization clung to him like gravity, sudden and weighty. She knew the music. She felt it. He let the curtain fall and returned to his seat without a word. His fingers hovered, then settled. And when he began to play again, it was softer—but not less certain. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he wasn’t alone at the window.