Alex felt so good walking side by side with her. He felt as though the world had stopped and they were the only ones on that narrow, barely illuminated street. Only he and her were in a parallel world to the one where he’d lived alone by then, a world where his heart and soul were alive, and where he wasn’t living anymore only through the eyes of others. And, eager to be with the one that made him dream of her so many times before and melancholic, Alex told himself that it wouldn’t be anything wrong if the way to the hotel would have been thousands or maybe more times longer than it really was. He wanted that, to be able to feel for longer the scent of the ripe chestnuts that was felt from her… so pleasant that he often caught himself smiling.

He winced eventually when he heard her asking, „Something happened?”

„Like?” The man answered with another question, shy.

„I don’t know. I just feel something strange.” Then, Kate kept silent, realizing that she was talking without thinking and somehow recklessly. She said that when she saw him smiling, and she didn’t understand why he was doing this. Since they started to walk together, none of them said anything funny. They only set up their footsteps to have the same rhythm, just as their hearts seemed to have the same beats. „Like the sound of the piano keys in an empty room,” Kate caught herself thinking. Then, she smiled, feeling weird, as she hadn’t ever felt before, not while walking side by side with another man.

Yes, he was a stranger and not her man. A stranger who was with her at that moment, advancing on that narrow and dark street just to make sure she’d get safely to the hotel that night. Her soul instead, the one named Jonathan Ward, didn’t even bother to text her that day and ask her if she ate something or if she missed him or be together. No, Jonathan hadn’t probably ever asked her such things and seemed so cold with her, especially lately.

„Others instead can be so warm even with the strangers,” Kate thought, suddenly feeling her heart strangely pouncing in her chest. She felt that when she understood that cruel truth about her relationship, for the umpteenth time. „One that seemed so durable to me, but which might be ephemeral.” Then, Kate sighed. She closed her eyes for a few moments, focusing her mind only on the sound of his footsteps… those footsteps that were secretly having the same rhythm as hers. At the same time, Kate had the feeling that those footsteps were whispering a secret to her, like „We are here! With you! So… don’t ever fear the world, your secrets, or us!”

All this was strange. Kate didn’t fear anything at that moment, although she was with a man who was a stranger to her, a man whom she had met by chance in a coffee shop and then on the street. Nevertheless, she felt so good with him. She felt safe and a real woman, a feeling she hadn’t ever had with another man. She hadn’t felt all this even when she was with Jonathan, for whom she fell so hard and whom she declared the eternal king of the castle of her soul eventually.

Yet, maybe she’d rushed a little to do that. Maybe she’d been wrong in falling in love as she did, thinking that fate would eventually find its own rhythm and make their heart beat in the same rhythm. Yet, this didn’t happen, not even after three years of relationship, and this really hurt. Yes, all this hurt like hell because, you see… the one she loved and to whom she gifted herself completely, hadn’t ever been able to set his steps in the rhythm of her footsteps. The stranger instead, whom she knew for a few days only, managed to do that in a single evening. He managed not only to set the rhythm of his steps to have the same speed, but he had also held her hand and so kindly told her „Sweetheart,” something Jonathan hadn’t done for a long time, or maybe „Never!”

All this made Kate smile again. She bitterly smiled, looking to her left this time, trying not to let the stranger understand that she felt so weird next to him. Kate felt so strange that she got to compare him with her boyfriend, finding so many differences but no similitude. At the same time, Kate didn’t want to accept a tough truth that night - that the stranger had strengths that she hadn’t ever found in Jonathan, and one of these was the care for her. „A care I missed so much, just as I missed not feeling myself a stranger in a world full of people.”

„What are you thinking so intensely?” Alex finally asked her, making Kate wince. Then, also wincing, because he found his question not proper for the relationship they had at that moment, Alex rushed to say, „If it’s something others can know, of course.”

„Why shouldn’t my thoughts be something others shouldn’t know?” Kate responded, smiling. She didn’t look at him but at her feet, which she found so lonely at that moment. „I think about people,” she added after a short while of silence.

Her answer amazed and confused Alex at the same time. That’s why he looked at her for a while, waiting for the woman to say something else. Yet, Kate was silent. The woman whom he fell for but who wasn’t his also seemed confused and thoughtful, and her glance was sad at that moment. „Does she feel all this because of people?” He wondered. „Probably yes because people can be so cruel sometimes.” Loudly he asked, „Why exactly do you think about people tonight? Or… should I ask what they have done wrong to you?”

Kate finally looked at him. She looked at Alex because she found his question strange but still pleasant. If he was interested in her thoughts, this meant they had a conversation and not a monologue as it had happened to her so many times before with others. Kate also found the man interesting, that man who was walking side by side with her and who hadn’t lost sight of her even for a second. She also found him mysterious, especially his blue eyes that were so strangely and beautifully shining in the blind light of the night. „Eyes where a woman will lose herself forever if he allows that,” Kate thought, smiling again. She smiled so beautifully, managing to confuse Alex again. He even felt clumsy and shy, as he hadn’t felt before next to someone. That’s why he rushed to look in front, trying to hide his nervousness from her because… he really didn’t want to seem strange in her eyes. In others’eyes yes, but never in her eyes.

He looked at Kate again when she said, „I was talking about people in general. About their weirdness and the fact that they exist. We always see them walking by us, we think about their look, how they walk, smile, or the words they might say or might have said. Yet, what we never think about is their thoughts, the feelings these people might have, and the life they might have, a totally different life than ours, in many of the cases if only judging by appearances.”

She was right at that moment. Alex also knew that very well: that people often judge by appearances, never asking others what there’s in their soul or what happens to them at that moment. He also knew that many people do that because they are bored or because of the routine and longing to be spotted by others. People generally do that, thinking that if they talk about others, other people will talk about them. Thus, they would stop feeling so lonely. „Just as I think that people often don’t think about themselves or their life.”

„What makes you think about this? A story in particular?”

„No. Just thoughts… a kind of continuation of your thoughts. It might be something I think too. Yet, I haven’t ever thought about this before. Just as I must accept that I haven’t ever thought about the souls of those who pass by us, those who we never notice passing by.”

Kate smiled. „A shadow.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Alex winced. „A shadow? What do you mean?”

„We… people! We are a kind of shadow in this world. At least… I notice that the majority of people live like that: somehow isolated by others, hidden from the sun, somehow lonely. They live like that not because they like to do that but because they don’t know how to make others notice them.”

„You know, others simply enjoy living like that. Yes, some people feel good if others don’t notice them and leave them to live as they want. Thus, they have time for dreams, longing, and ideals.”

„And steal books,” Kate jokingly said, making Alex look at her in amazement.

„To steal books? Who exactly?”

„You, for example! And the book you’ve picked up from the park, which can be seen on the counter in your coffee shop today.”

Alex also smiled. „You saw it.”

„It wasn’t actually difficult because… it’s a book I can recognize from miles due to the cover. I have to accept that’s unusual and somehow in contrast with the color of the eyes of the one about whom the story is.”

„A pair of blue eyes.”

„Just like yours,” Kate caught another thought crossing her mind while deeply looking into the man’s eyes. And, doing this, Kate understood one thing: she was looking at the man who walked side by side with her not like at a stranger but like at the man who made her feel safe and so good that night.

***

It was already past 11 p.m. when Kate finally entered her hotel room. She returned to her room, after walking on the streets for hours with the stranger, a thief of books, who eventually stole her thoughts too. Unwillingly, she was thinking about him again, and about that „Sweetheart” he said that night, something fugitive and so kind at the same time. Then, it was that hold of hands that warmed her inside. „A hold of hands that made me feel so good,” her lips murmured eventually. Then, she smiled, sticking her back to the door and looking at the hotel room that was empty at that moment.

That room wasn’t only empty but also cold. It was so cold there, despite the good fire from the fireplace, which the hotel employees took care to ignite for their clients to feel better staying there. Yet, not even this way, they did not manage to enter Kate’s soul because, instead of that fire, she would have liked not to be „alone” when she turned back home. At the same time, she would have liked to see HIM there and not the fire in the fireplace.

Yes, Kate would have undoubtedly liked to see Jonathan waiting for her at least that night at the hotel. Yet, he wasn’t there. He wouldn’t have probably come even after this, as he had done so many times before. Jonathan hadn’t stopped by there for many days, something that made Kate often wonder if there was still love between them or if it was just a loneliness that was lived together and from far away.

Such thoughts about loneliness made Kate sigh. Then, she crawled her legs until she got by the bed, on which she sat right away. She felt her shoulders hunched and her soul overwhelmed because of time and thoughts. She felt a stranger in her own skin. All this was undoubtedly because of regrets, inner weakness, that unshared love, and the care of the stranger for her. Yet, the one she loved more than her life didn’t seem to feel the same. This hurt. The world’s „betrayal” hurt her like hell because she would have liked the whole world to ignore her and consider her a shadow, but Jonathan to see her, appreciate her for what she was, and love her just because she existed. This remained a simple desire she couldn’t fulfill because Jonathan hadn’t ever asked her about this, just as he hadn’t ever asked her about her feelings. He just passed by her sometimes, kissed her on the run when he was leaving, and he did that because she insisted on being kissed when they were seeing each other, and then left with „important business,” having no free time for her.

Yet… was he so busy that he didn’t have even a few minutes a day for her? No, Kate was sure that it wasn’t anything like that in most of the cases. Even so, he was telling her all that more often than she would have liked to hear. What was worse than this was that not Jonathan told her about his busy schedule but his secretary, Susan, a blonde with big green eyes. „A real human doll,” as she had heard so many people talking about Ward’s secretary because Susan Doyle was really beautiful, much more beautiful than Kate would have liked her boyfriend’s secretary to be.

Kate couldn’t change this though. She didn’t have either the power to change Jonathan or bring her back to her. Kate didn’t even have the power to give some orders to his secretary because Jonathan had forbidden her to do that right from the first day when they met. He did that, saying to Kate that it was improper for her, his girlfriend, to be involved or somehow related to his work. His requirement seemed strange to Kate because she would have liked to know everything related to him. HE instead kept her away from him, acting coldly with her even when he held her hand when they were out. Ward was also coldly kissing her when they were splitting in some place and, even on the nights when he „wasn’t that busy and had time to be with her,” he seemed cold with her.

At first, those „available” evenings were almost every day. Then, he stopped by Kate’s apartment less and less that Kate lost the number of days they’d been together. They even got to talk by phone rarely and see each other only if Kate insisted on that. After a while though, they weren’t seeing each other, not even if Kate called him and told him that she missed him. Ward was telling her instead not to be a child because he had work to do and that if he was busy, it was because he wanted them to live better in the future.

That „to live better in the future” would have been equal to the poverty lived together for Kate. She would have liked Jonathan to spend more time with her and not work that much for „them to live better.” You see, „Nobody is happy living alone, not even if he has a lot of money in his pocket or bank account. Yes, maybe some people prefer that. Maybe others prefer to live comfortably, having money for shopping, traveling, and fun. Kate instead would have given up on all the money Jonathan put into her account every month to „compensate the days he was missing” instead of being with her even for a few minutes. Yet, she would have liked that at least from time to time to go somewhere together, to hold her hand more often while walking side by side on the street or in the park, kiss her lips before going to sleep, and hold him into her arms and not a cold pillow in a room as cold as he was with her.

Such wishes Jonathan hadn’t ever noticed on her. He seemed at all interested to know what Kate wanted because, each time she told him about her dreams, he was sending more money but never gave her his attention. She received money to buy dreams, but she hadn’t ever been able to buy with that money those feelings Kate was starving for.

That night though, although Kate didn’t ask for them, she received feelings for free. She received them from a stranger who had held her hand just to protect her from two strangers who were bothering her on the street. He had even called her „sweetheart” with such a sweet voice, something she had seen only in books or movies, and this moved her inside and made her happy. It was impossible for her not to feel all this because you see… who wouldn’t have liked her hand to be held by a handsome man, with blue eyes, from whom such a pleasant coffee scent and warmth was felt?! Yes, she felt so intensely the soul warmth at him, something Kate considered that it was impossible to find in a stranger. „As though there is a huge fireplace in his soul, one where the fire always burns, gathering warmth in an invisible sack, just to make sure he’d have enough to share with other people after that. Soul warmth that one finds in people so rarely because people nowadays are busy only caring about themselves and never about paying attention to others. Alex instead… he’s not only interested in sharing his warmth with the strangers, but he also seems to care about them and them to be happy and fine.”

These thoughts made Kate smile again. She was somehow overwhelmed by the attention she received that night, although she didn’t ask for it. Even so, she had to accept that she missed it so much because she was also a human and wanted to be loved and love someone. More than that, Kate wanted to stop feeling so lonely. She desperately wanted that because loneliness could be overwhelming sometimes. That’s why she told herself eventually when she finally understood that all she wanted at that time from Jonathan and those she cared about wasn’t their attention or hearing the words „Still, I love you,” but to be with her, sharing their soul warmth with her. If they had done this, Kate would have undoubtedly stopped feeling herself a Shadow among other shadows that restlessly wandered the world. She would have done this if she had found her source of warmth to melt the ice and the coldness from her soul. At the same time, she had to accept that she wanted to have someone she could count on when it was so hard for her and whom to tell „Still, I felt so good with you today.”