The city at night was a whole different vibe.
By day it was overrun by a cloud of hurried people and shapeless noise.
Now the sidewalks were empty, and the silence let her enjoy the little details: the cozy glow of the streetlights, the shapes the shadows drew, the cool of the tiles under her bare feet.
Almost everything felt like too much to Eva. Things weren’t there to be used, they were weights to carry around. Over the years she had let go of more and more… why wear shoes, when it felt this good without them?
She walked unhurried. Fay trotted along beside her, stopping every now and then to sniff a corner before catching up again. You’d swear that cat had the spirit of a dog.
She carried the address printed in her mind. More than the address, she carried the whole scene. Axel’s smiling face and the excitement in his voice: “See you at nine then. Dove Alley, number 6, apartment 1A. Don’t chicken out!”
As she walked, she rehearsed what she was going to say when she got there.
“Hi, sorry I’m late, I got caught up doing some things”
No. Too silly.
“Hi, a little late, but I decided to come after all”
That one didn’t work either. It sounded like nothing, as if coming hadn’t cost her a thing.
And it had cost her everything.
She soon reached the alley and spotted number 6 right away. An ordinary building, its paint a little chipped, the metal mailboxes waiting patiently in the doorway.
She studied the facade, looking for a lit window. They were all dark.
She took a deep breath and pressed the very first buzzer, 1A.
Nothing.
She rang again. Waited. Nothing at all.
“Maybe he’s asleep already,” she said to Fay, more to herself than to the cat.
She tried one more time. Nothing.
“I wouldn’t keep trying if I were you,” came a voice from above.
Eva looked up. Across the street, leaning out of a lit window, was a little old man in a tank top.
“Sorry?”
“If you’re looking for the young man, he’s gone. I saw him leave a while ago.”
“He left?”
“Loaded with boxes, big backpack on his back. In the middle of the night, go figure.” The old man shrugged. “I just saw him walk by, that’s all I know.”
And he ducked back inside, closing the window.
Eva went cold. Standing in front of a door that no longer led anywhere.
He was gone.
Of course he was gone.
A familiar feeling bit her from the inside. The same old little voice.
“See? That’s why you shouldn’t put yourself out there. Because the door always ends up closed.”
She sat down on the doorstep. Fay climbed into her lap.
The only thing left to do was go back. Go to bed, forget about it, and tomorrow return to her usual corner, her nameless songs. Her warm, safe little nothing, where nobody let her down because she expected nothing from anyone.
But then she looked at the closed door one more time. And a furious fire woke up inside her.
It wasn’t him who had left.
It was her, always arriving late.
Late to everything. To places, to people, to her own life.
For years she had believed she was free. But she had mistaken escaping for leaving.
Escaped, she had. Long ago. She had left behind an entire life that wasn’t hers, a pile of things other people had decided for her: what to do, how, and when.
But after escaping she hadn’t gone anywhere in particular. Random cities, nameless corners, singing for no one.
That boy from the market, on the other hand, had done in one single night what she hadn’t dared to do in years. He had left to chase a decision of his own.
All her life she had been told where to go. And when she could finally choose, she had chosen to choose nothing.
She looked at Fay. The cat was watching her calmly, with those little blue eyes that could pass for an ocean or a sky, as if he already knew what she was about to figure out.
“So what do we do now, huh?” she asked him.
Fay didn’t answer. He never did. But he hopped off her lap, walked a few steps down the street and turned to look at her. As if to say “this way.”
Eva knew that look. She trusted it more than any other.
“That way?”
Fay kept walking, no hesitation.
That boy had said he was going north.
Eva got up from the step.
“Okay, Fay. Let’s go see what’s up north.”
The cat set off happily, tail sticking straight up.
They followed the alley to the end. Then several avenues, each one darker than the last.
And then, a bridge.
On the other side, things changed. The houses and the streetlights ended, the ground stopped being asphalt and turned to dirt.
Eva stopped for a moment in the middle of the bridge.
The air was different on the other side. Cleaner, more alive.
A drop landed on her cheek. Then another.
It was raining.
She didn’t care.
She took a deep breath and crossed the bridge. The earth was cool and soft under her feet.
She didn’t know where she was going, or whether she would ever see the boy again.
But for the first time in a long time, she wasn’t running away. She was searching.
On the other side, Fay was waiting for her, in no hurry.