CHAPTER TWO
~THE QUIET BETWEEN~
"Some people collide like fire and gasoline. Others unfold, one truth at a time." – Riley's journal
The gallery buzzed with warm light and low conversation. Riley stood just off to the side of her own exhibit, fingers loosely wrapped around a glass of red wine she hadn't touched.
People wandered from photo to photo—leaning in, tilting their heads, whispering to one another in that strange reverent tone people reserved for art and graveyards.
She should have felt proud. Accomplished.
Instead, she felt like she was watching it all from behind glass.
Mara approached, heels clicking against the concrete floor, her excitement radiant. "Everyone loves it. Especially that one." She nodded toward the piece Riley hadn't meant to include—the photo of Jacob at the tracks.
A woman with bright green eyeliner and a long red scarf stood staring at it, arms folded, lips pressed together like she was deciphering a language she almost understood.
"What do you think they see in it?" Riley asked.
"Loneliness. Mystery. Maybe longing."
Riley stared at the image. "I didn't plan it."
"Some of the best ones happen that way."
Just then, she caught movement near the gallery's back wall.
Jacob.
He was here.
Not leaning in a shadow. Not watching from a distance. Standing. Present. In the open.
Wearing a charcoal button-down, hair damp from the rain outside.
Their eyes met, and everything else faded—the noise, the chatter, even the nerves.
He approached without ceremony. No smile this time. Just a kind of quiet, serious calm.
"Didn't expect to see myself framed tonight," he said.
"I didn't expect you to show up."
"I wasn't sure I would." He looked at the photo again. "You made me look like I matter."
"You do," she said, before she could stop herself.
The words hung there. Raw. Exposed.
He didn't flinch. "You're good at finding people. Even the ones trying not to be found."
They stood in silence. She expected it to be awkward, instead it was grounding.
"I don't usually let people in," she admitted.
"Neither do I."
They looked at the photo together, the moment suspended in time.
And then, as if the gallery were just a detour in a longer story, he asked, "Would you want to see my world? Just for a while."
She didn't ask what he meant.
She just nodded.
---
They walked through the city in silence. Past shuttered shops and glowing diner signs, through puddles that mirrored the night sky.
Jacob led her to an old bookstore tucked between two modern glass buildings—an architectural afterthought, like it had refused to be erased.
Inside, it smelled like dust and ink. The air was still.
He moved through the aisles like someone who had once lived here. He didn't explain. She didn't ask.
"I used to draw here," he said finally, settling onto a worn leather armchair in the back.
She sat across from him on the floor, cross-legged.
"Why did you stop?"
He hesitated.
"Someone I loved got sick. I stopped everything for her."
"What happened?"
"She died."
Riley's chest ached, but she didn't look away. "I'm sorry."
"She wanted me to keep going. I didn't know how."
They sat like that for a while. Two strangers held together by old wounds and new understanding.
"I didn't mean to take your picture," she said. "But I'm glad I did."
He smiled softly. "Me too."
The bookstore felt suspended in time. Outside, the rain had stopped, but the windows still wore the condensation of a long night. Jacob's voice had settled into something softer, as if the walls themselves might echo back whatever he was brave enough to say.
"She was my sister," he added finally. "Her name was Claire."
Riley blinked. "You took care of her?"
He nodded. "Through most of it. It was just us after our parents died. When she got sick, I thought... I thought if I stayed close enough, if I gave everything, I could stop it."
Riley felt that familiar sting of guilt she always got when someone laid down their grief. Like she wasn't equipped to hold it—but she wanted to.
"I lost my mom a few years ago," she said after a beat. "It was different. Quick. Sudden. I didn't get to give anything. I just came home one day and she wasn't there."
Jacob's eyes flicked to hers. "That's worse, in some ways."
"No. Just… different."
They let the silence breathe.
"Sometimes I think," she said, "that's why I take pictures. Because I didn't get to save anything real from her. Not her voice. Not her laugh. Just these fragments. Like I could build a whole person out of pieces if I tried hard enough."
He looked up at her and nodded. "same too, that's why I used to draw. Not to remember someone. To remember how I saw them."
They were quiet again, but it wasn't empty. It was full—of weight, of resonance, of something unspoken but mutual.
She stood finally, brushing her hands against her jeans. "Come with me."
"Where?"
"Just trust me."
"Okay" he nodded as he trailed behind her.
---
They boarded the last train heading uptown. It was nearly empty, the air inside cool and humming with that underground electricity. Riley sat by the window, her camera slung across her chest, the strap worn and frayed.
Jacob sat beside her, their arms not quite touching—but close enough to feel the static.
"I used to do this when I couldn't sleep," she said. "Ride until the end of the line. Let the city move around me."
"And now?"
"Now I take pictures of other people not sleeping."
He smiled, small and tired.
She snapped a photo of him—without warning.
He blinked, surprised. "Hey."
"You were thinking something honest."
"I was thinking you're the first person who's asked me nothing and somehow knows everything."
She stared at the screen. The shot was moody. A little grainy. Perfect.
She didn't tell him she'd already made a folder for him in her archive.
---
They got off near the river, where the city hummed a little less. The skyline blinked from across the water, scattered and soft.
She led him to a hidden pier she used when she needed to breathe. There were no tourists here. Just the city breathing quietly in the distance and the sound of the river licking at the shore.
"I used to think healing looked like going back to who I was before," she said. "But I don't even remember who that girl is."
"You're not supposed to go back," Jacob said. "You're supposed to build forward. With what's left."
She turned toward him. "How do you build with broken pieces?"
He looked at her like she wasn't broken at all.
"Some of the strongest things I've ever seen were held together by cracks."
They stood there like that. side by side, surrounded with comforting silence. Not touching. Not needing to.
Jacob finally broke the silence
" Mind exchanging contacts" he smiled offering her his mobile
"Hmm okay?" She took it and typed in her number
"There you go " Jacob smiled again returning her phone.
"Thanks i should head home now"
"Yeah sure it getting dark "
Riley didn't take another photo.
For some reason , she'd didn't feel the need to
---