He didn't text the next day.
She checked the app three times before noon and closed it without doing anything. She wasn't waiting. She was just aware of the silence, which was different.
She told herself it was different.
The morning after, her phone buzzed while she was still half asleep.
Seth: okay this is going to sound unhinged but hear me out
Seth: I just watched a pigeon walk into a café, take a chip from someone's plate, and walk back out. no flying. just walked in. took the chip. walked out. like it had a reservation
She stared at the message.
Then despite everything she typed:
Alya: the audacity
Seth: full eye contact with the owner the whole time. zero remorse
Alya: it knew exactly what it was doing
Seth: it has a whole system. I could see it in its eyes
Alya: you looked into the pigeon's eyes?
Seth: I was in shock. it held my gaze. it wanted me to know!
She pressed her lips together hard.
Alya: this is the most unbothered creature I've ever heard of
Seth: living completely rent free in my head right now. I respect it
Alya: we should all be so lucky
Seth: right?
And just like that they were talking again. No mention of the other night. No formal acknowledgment that a day had passed without contact. Just a pigeon and a stolen chip and the conversation finding its footing the way it always did, easy and slightly ridiculous, like it had never stopped.
Except it wasn't quite the same and she knew it and she was fairly certain he knew it too and neither of them was going to be the one to say so first.
Seth: how are you? Like, actually
Alya: fine
Seth: fine fine or fine like two nights ago?
Alya: fine fine
Seth: okay. good
Seth: I wasn't sure if you were going to respond
She looked at that. He'd said it simply, no performance around it. Just an honest admission that he hadn't been sure, sitting there without asking her to do anything with it.
Alya: I wasn't sure either
Seth: but you did
Alya: I did
Seth: okay
A pause. She waited for him to follow it with something light, a joke, a subject change, the usual move when a conversation got too close to something real. He didn't.
Seth: can I say something without it becoming a whole thing?
Alya: you can try
Seth: I keep thinking about the way you said it. what you said to me the other night
Alya: Seth
Seth: not in a bad way. seriously. just. you waited until you knew exactly what you wanted to say and then you said it. no extra words. no dramatics. just exactly what you meant
Alya: …okay
Seth: I'm not good at that. I say things and then figure out what I meant about three hours later. which is how we ended up here in the first place
Alya: I noticed
Seth: 💀 yeah. fair
Seth: I'm just glad you said something instead of going quiet and never explaining why. I've had that happen before. it's worse
Alya: what happened?
Seth: someone just. stopped responding one day. no reason. no explanation. just gone
Alya: that's awful
Seth: it was a while ago. I'm over it. I just. I don't know. I appreciate that you didn't do that
She sat with that for a second. The image of him checking his phone and getting nothing back, no explanation, just silence. She understood that particular kind of silence better than she wanted to.
Alya: I don't do that
Seth: I know. I'm starting to know that about you
Alya: starting to?
Seth: I'm still learning the full list
Alya: there's a list??
Seth: growing one. yeah lol
Alya: …what's on it so far?
Seth: you don't do the disappearing thing. you say what you mean when you've figured out what you mean. you're funnier when you're uncomfortable than when you're relaxed. you reread things. you check the app before you do anything else in the morning
She sat up straight.
Alya: I don't
Seth: Alya
Alya: I check other things first
Seth: sureeee
Alya: I do!
Seth: yeah, okay
Alya: stop saying okay like that
Seth: 😂 like what?
Alya: like you know something
Seth: I'm just agreeing with you
Alya: you're really not
Seth: I really am. you check other things first. completely believable. very normal behaviour
Alya: you're so annoying
Seth: and yet
She stared at the screen.
Alya: and yet what?
Seth: and yet here you are
She put the phone down for approximately four seconds. Picked it back up.
Alya: uh-huh
Seth: yeah
The conversation went lighter after that. They talked for another hour, the easy back and forth that she'd come to know the shape of, and mostly it felt like it always did. He made her laugh twice. She won an argument about something she'd already forgotten by the time it was over. By the time they said goodbye it felt almost normal again.
Almost.
Because later, when the phone was down and the room was quiet, she sat with something she'd been avoiding looking at directly all day.
She was waiting for him to do it again.
Not hoping for it. Not dreading it either. Just watching. Some part of her had made a quiet decision without telling the rest of her, and now everything he said went through an extra layer before she responded. Not consciously. Just. There.
The thing he'd said the other night hadn't just bothered her because it was presumptuous.
It had bothered her because it felt like someone reaching past the part of herself she'd carefully chosen to show, and helping himself to something further in. Like her walls weren't a thing to respect but a thing to be curious about getting past.
He'd apologised. Genuinely. She believed that.
But she was still watching.
And the part she really didn't want to think about: she didn't know if that meant she didn't trust him anymore.
Or if it meant she trusted him enough that the idea of being wrong about him actually scared her.
Her phone lit up.
Seth: the pigeon was there when I left. different table. different chip. exact same energy
She looked at the message. Then at the ceiling. Then back at the message.
Alya: it's never going to stop
Seth: why would it? it's winning
Alya: completely undefeated
Seth: living its best life with zero consequences
Alya: I'm starting to think we've been approaching everything wrong
Seth: become the pigeon
Alya: become the pigeon
Seth: 😂 goodnight Alya
Alya: Night
She put the phone down.
The watching didn't stop. She let it keep running.
She just hadn't figured out yet whether she wanted it to find something or not.