But I was not the same man who had stood at that window three nights earlier, careful and half asleep in his own life.
Behind me, Laya said, “No, Mom. I’m not confused. I’m not being dramatic. And I’m not discussing Adrien anymore.”
A pause.
Then softer.
“I love you too. But you don’t get to invite people into my life just because you miss who I used to be.”
When she hung up, she stood very still.
I crossed the room.
“How did it go?”
She touched her cheeks, surprised.
“I didn’t cry.”
“I usually do.”
I opened my arms, and she walked into them.
Not collapsing.
Not hiding.
Choosing.
That afternoon, I went home through the front door like a normal person, then returned an hour later with actual clothes, my toolbox, and a better latch for her window.
Laya watched me install it from the couch.
“You know,” she said, “most people bring flowers.”
“I brought security hardware.”
“Romantic.”
“I can also bring flowers.”
She grinned.
“Good. I like both.”
So I brought flowers the next day.
Basil the day after that because hers was dying and she blamed emotional weather.
We moved slowly, but not uncertainly.
There were real dates without witnesses. A rainy bookstore afternoon where we kissed in the poetry aisle and got scolded by a woman in a cardigan. A hardware store trip where Laya discovered I did, in fact, flirt near power tools. Sunday mornings with pancakes that improved marginally over time.
Adrien sent two more messages from new numbers.
Laya blocked both, documented them, and did not answer.
Eventually, silence became one more room he no longer owned.
Celeste took longer.
She apologized badly at first, then better.
Tessa got married in the fall, and Laya sang at the ceremony. I sat in the second row, and when her voice trembled on the first line, she found me. I touched two fingers to my heart.
She smiled.
Then she kept singing.
Six months later, the window between our buildings was open again.
Spring rain fell into the alley. Laya leaned on her sill in one of my sweaters, hair messy, eyes bright. I stood across from her in my kitchen holding two mugs.
“Careful,” she called. “If you stare too long, I might make you fix something.”
“I’m hoping it’s dinner.”
“You fixed dinner last night.”
“I assembled sandwiches with confidence.”
I passed one mug across the narrow gap.
She reached for it, fingers brushing mine over the rain-dark space between our buildings.
We had keys to each other’s apartments by then. Half my shirts lived in her closet. Her sheet music had migrated onto my dining table. My toolbox had a permanent place under her sink.
We still used the windows anyway.
Because that was where it began.
A year after that night, I asked her to move in while we were sanding the old walnut credenza together.
She had sawdust on her nose and my pencil tucked behind her ear.
She did not answer right away.
She just looked at me, then at the piece of furniture between us, scarred and sturdy and becoming beautiful under our hands.
“Only if we keep both windows,” she said.
So we did.
And sometimes, even now, I catch her across the room or across the alley, and she catches me catching her.
She always smiles first.
That is the part I never get tired of.
Not the drama.
Not the ex.
Not even the accidental beginning.
The best part is this:
Being seen, and instead of shame or fear, finding someone opening the window.
Months after she moved in, I found the green dress hanging in our closet.
It was tucked between one of my flannel shirts and her long black coat, softer now, less like armor, more like a memory that had finally stopped hurting.
Laya stood in the doorway behind me.
“You found it,” she said.
“I almost threw it away after that party.”
She came to stand beside me, her shoulder brushing mine.
“Because it was the first thing I wore when I stopped letting someone else decide how much of me was too much.”
I looked at the dress, then at her.
“For the record,” I said, “it was never too much.”
Not the teasing smile from the window.
Not the brave smile from the party.
This one was softer.
Safer.
Ours.
Outside, rain began again, tapping the glass in the same rhythm as the night everything changed.
Laya reached for my hand.
“Coffee?” she asked.
“At this hour?”
“You were making coffee at 10:43 the night we met.”
“That was before I knew better.”
She lifted an eyebrow. “Do you?”
She laughed and pulled me toward the kitchen.
The windows were open.
Both of them.
And for once, neither of us was afraid of being seen.