The rain started just as I reached Pike Place Market.
I didn't mind. Seattle rain wasn't like rain anywhere else — it was softer, quieter, the kind that settled into your hair and your coat without making you feel drenched. I pulled my sweater tighter and ducked under the flower stall awning, shaking droplets from my sleeves.
Tuesdays were for peonies. I don't know when that became a rule, but it was one now, solid as the coffee I drank every morning or the way Koen's hands felt on my temples every night. Tuesdays meant peonies.
The vendor knew me by now. She smiled and gestured toward the back corner where the good ones were — the ones that hadn't been picked over yet, still tight-budded and heavy with scent.
I lifted a stem to my nose. Closed my eyes. Breathed in.
Rain and sweetness. Something else underneath I could never name. It made my chest feel warm.
Someone grabbed my arm.
Hard.
I jerked back, eyes snapping open. A man stood there — tall, gaunt, wearing a coat that looked expensive but hung all wrong on his frame, like he'd borrowed it from someone bigger. His face was unshaven. His eyes were red-rimmed and wild.
"It's you," he said. His voice cracked. "It's really you. You're alive."
I stared at him.
He was crying.
"I thought—" He grabbed my other arm, pulling me closer. "I thought you were dead. I thought I lost you. Oh god, Yara, you're alive—"
I didn't think. My hand came up fast and cracked across his face.
The sound was sharp. Clean. His head snapped to the side.
"Get your hands off me, you creep," I said.
I yanked my arms free. Stepped back. My heart was pounding but my voice came out steady. Clear.
He stood there, one hand pressed to his cheek, staring at me like I'd just shot him.
"Yara—"
"I don't know you," I said. "Don't touch me again."
I turned and walked away. Left the peonies on the counter. Didn't look back.
Behind me, I heard nothing. No footsteps. No voice calling after me. Just the rain and the market noise and my own pulse in my ears.
I kept walking until I hit the street. Then I stopped, pressed my back against a brick wall, and took three long breaths.
My hands were shaking.
I looked down at them. Watched them tremble. Didn't understand why.
He was just some guy. Some creep who grabbed me. It happened sometimes. Cities were full of people who didn't understand boundaries.
But something about his face—
I shook my head. Pushed off the wall. Walked home.
---
In the flower stall, Julien Carter stood frozen.
Rain dripped from the awning onto his shoulders. His cheek stung where she'd hit him. He didn't move to touch it again. He just stood there, staring at the space where she'd been, at the peony stem she'd left on the counter.
She didn't know him.
She looked at him like he was a stranger.
She slapped him and walked away and she didn't know him.
The vendor was saying something. Asking if he was okay. He didn't answer. He picked up the peony stem Yara had dropped. Held it carefully, like it might break.
She was alive.
She was alive and she was here and she was real.
For three years he had carried her death like a stone in his chest. For three years he had stood at a grave and touched a ring and drowned in the specific, endless horror of having destroyed the only thing that mattered and having no way to undo it.
And she was alive.
He walked out of the market into the rain. Stood on the sidewalk. Looked down the street where she'd gone.
He wasn't leaving Seattle.
---
I told Koen about it over dinner.
"Some guy grabbed me at the market today," I said, twirling pasta on my fork. "Total weirdo. Called me by name and started crying."
Koen's hand stopped halfway to his glass.
"He grabbed you?" His voice was very calm.
"Yeah. I slapped him." I grinned. "Pretty sure I left a mark."
"Did he follow you?"
"No. I just walked away. He didn't come after me." I took a bite. "Probably just some guy having a breakdown. You know how it is."
Koen set his glass down without drinking.
"What did he look like?"
I shrugged. "Tall. Thin. Expensive coat. Kind of… hollow, I guess. Like he hadn't been sleeping." I paused. "Why?"
"Just want to know," Koen said. "In case I see him."
He smiled. It didn't reach his eyes.
Under the table, his hand was a fist.
"I'm fine," I said. "Really. It was just weird, not scary."
"Good." He reached across the table and took my hand. His grip was warm. Steady. "If you see him again, call me right away. Okay?"
"Okay."
We finished dinner. He did the dishes while I sketched at the counter — loops and layers, something almost like fabric. When my head started hurting, he sat me on the couch and worked slow circles at my temples until the ache faded.
"Better?" he asked.
"Better," I said.
I leaned against his shoulder. Outside, the rain kept falling. Inside, everything was warm and safe and mine.
I didn't think about the man in the market again.
But that night, Koen stayed awake long after I fell asleep. He sat in the dark living room with his phone in his hand, staring at nothing, running through scenarios and contingencies and the specific, cold calculations of a man who had already lost her once and would burn the world down before it happened again.
