*CHAPTER ONE: STRANGERS DON'T STAY STRANGERS*
The first time Adrian saw her, she wasn't doing anything special.
Just standing across the street in the rain, no umbrella, phone clutched in her hand like she was waiting for something—someone. Her hair stuck to her cheeks, her eyes unfocused, as if the world around her didn't matter. And somehow, that made her matter more.
He didn't know her name then. He didn't need to. Some people don't enter your life with an introduction. They just… appear. Like a memory you haven't made yet.
Days passed. Then weeks. She kept showing up in small, scattered pieces. At the bookstore on 7th. On the same bus, once. Always alone. Always unreadable.
Adrian wasn't the type to chase strangers. But Annabelle wasn't a stranger in the usual way. She looked like something he'd forgotten how to feel.
So he approached her. Eventually. Quietly. No pick-up lines. No charm.
Just:
"Are you okay?"
She looked at him for the first time. Like really looked. And something in her eyes—wounded, sharp, familiar—answered before her mouth did.
"No."
And that was how it began. With a no. And a man too obsessed with yes.
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