It has always puzzled me as to why people feel so much. What makes them cry at movies as their cheeks dripping wet, laugh at stupid jokes they made no sense to anyone, or stare at sunsets as if the sky was winking its secrets to them alone. I have never understood it. 

Like the blind's colors, the deaf's sounds, emotions are something that exists but is never for me. 

It's not that i don't function. I do. I get up, I do what I do, I go on living. I know when to give a smile when a person recognizes it is expected of you. I do nods, I do handshakes, I say, "I understand." But I don't. Not really. 

I was never cruel. They assume that the lack of empathy equals being a monster, that without kindness, there must be evil. But I don't hurt people. I don't feel the need to. I simply exist, separate, detached. 

My world is built on logic. I move forward, and so I observe and I analyze. I don't live in the past nor look forward to the future. I have a story, but my life is not. It's a straight line. 

However, one day, she appeared. 

I first went up to the café right by my apartment and I saw her by the window staring out and into the rain as if it was keeping some kind of secret. The rain brings most people rushing through it, cursing, covering their heads, and eager to be anywhere else but under the downpour. Rain was something to be thankful for, she just sat there, a small smile playing at her lips. 

It didn't make sense. 

Only she was different, I noticed her. She wasn't loud, or dressed peculiarly, or doing something dramatic, in the way people think. But then, it was the way she was, how she lived, how she was there, how she was meant, how the rest of us were merely going. 

I watched her for a moment longer than necessary, then turned back to my coffee. 

It didn't matter. 

By coincidence or design, I saw her again at the bookstore I visited regularly. Kneeling in one of the aisles, she was flipping through the cracked pages of a battered book. 

She didn't look up but asked, "Are you just going to stand there?" 

I blinked. I hadn't realized I was staring. 

I mumbled sorry and reached for a book beside her on the shelf. 

Then she finally looked up at me, tipping her head in attempt to solve the puzzle. 

"Do you believe in God?" 

Almost I laughed at the absurdity of the question, so out of place. Instead, I said, "No." 

As if she had expected that, she smiled. "Why not?" 

"I don't have any faith, so belief requires faith." 

She didn't seem offended. If anything, she looked... curious. "Then what do you have?" 

"Reason." 

Humming, she seemed to roll my answer over in her mind. "Reason doesn't give you hope." 

"I don't need hope." 

She didn't argue. I don't think she knew what she was saying, but she just nodded. "Maybe you will, someday." 

After that, I didn't know why I continued to talk to her. Perhaps because she didn't tell me what I wanted to hear — she didn't tell me to persuade me, dismiss me or call me clinical. She just listened. 

For the first time in my life, I pondered whether someone like her could relate to someone like me. 

Not that it mattered. 

Because at the end of the day, I was still the same. 

Empty. Detached. Unchanged. 

Almost human. 

The world consists of people who pass, each one with burden, thoughts and stories to tell. I'd always been fine with that. Interactions are just interruptions. They are temporary and meaningless. 

That's what I at least thought. 

But then, there was her. 

I did not expect to see her again, so soon. 

The sun was now starting to make its slow descent, and now it cast golden light through the windows of the bookstore. Late afternoon. I didn't come here for much, nothing in particular, just an escape, just a place to be free from expectation. Being comforted by old paper and ink had always been better for me than people being there. 

Yet, I found her again as I walked past the shelves. 

Her fingers traced down a spine, scrutinizing it from the inside, and her hands relaxed on a book, open with her in the same aisle, where she was before. 

Before I could turn away, she noticed me. 

She smiled and said, 'you again'. 

I nodded; I had no idea how to respond. It was strange to be referred to in this way; to be reminded that I existed at all. 

"Do you come here often" she said turning her head slightly. 

"Yes." 

My answer seemed exactly what she had expected and when she nodded, it almost seemed like she was the one who had been expecting it all along. "That makes sense." 

I frowned. "Why?" 

She glanced at me for a moment before shrugging. "After all, you can't help but have the impression that you would prefer books over people." 

I couldn't argue with that. 

"And you?" However, I wasn't sure why I was asking this. 

"I love bookstores," she said. "Not just for the books, but for the silence. What is it, don't you think, it is a different kind of quiet? Not empty, but full." 

It was an odd way to phrase it. Silence was silence; there was nothing there. To her it seemed to have meaning but. 

Glancing at the book she was holding, she looked back at the man. "Have you read this?" 

'Faith and purpose' was the title; I looked at it. "No." 

She held it out to me. "You should." 

I chose not to put it into my hands until I hesitated because I was curious why she wanted me to. 

The words came out as a statement instead of a question, "You believe in God." 

She nodded. "Yes." 

"Why?" 

My bluntness seemed to amuse her. "My gut feeling tells me that because I've seen faith can do." 

I raised an eyebrow. "And what has it done?" 

Her smile softened. "It's given me hope." 

Hope. That word again. 

It seemed like I wanted to tell her hope was an illusion, an excuse among people to gain some sort of sense of their suffering, to justify their pain. However, I found myself holding my tongue because something about how she said it seemed to imply foul play. 

Instead I probed: What about if you were wrong? Would this then be the only life?" 

She didn't flinch. "And once at least, I have spent my life thinking there was good in something." 

I just stared at her waiting for the usual defensiveness, or at least eagerness to deny me. But there was none. She was just not trying to change my mind. It was just sharing a part of herself. 

That was... new. 

I gave the book back into her hand. 'I do not believe in what I cannot see.' 

However, she took the book, not looking disappointed. "That's okay." 

I frowned. "You're not going to argue?" 

She shook her head. "Why would I? Faith isn't proved. They find it on their own." 

I had no response to that. 

She smiled again, and for some reason, it felt like warmth in a place I didn't know was cold. "See you around, bookstore guy." 

And then she walked away, leaving me standing there, still holding the feeling of her presence like an echo I couldn't quite shake. 

Two days later, I saw her again. Not at a bookstore this time, but in the café down the block from my place—the one where I first saw her. 

Again she was sitting by the window, hands around a cup of coffee, staring out to the world as if it could tell all. 

I don't know why I took that step. 

"Have you been talking to the rain again?" I asked. 

She leant her head up in surprise, then grinned. "Ah, bookstore guy." 

I did not pay attention to the nickname and I sat across her. I don't know what about me, that made me do it—I don't sit with strangers. However, she wasn't feeling like a stranger anymore. 

Just then she took a sip of her coffee and began to speak. "In a situation such as this, do you ever just watch the rain?" 

"No." 

She chuckled. "Of course not." 

I leaned back in my chair. "What do you even see in it?" 

Her eyes softened. "Peace. Renewal. A lesson that even the heaviest hurricanes end." 

"You have a tendency to see meaning in things that there is none." 

She shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe you didn't see it yet." 

I scoffed. "I don't need meaning." 

She tilted her head. "Then why are you here?" 

I opened my mouth and closed it. I didn't know the answer. 

She smiled as if she already did. 

After that, we sat there, watching the rain together, in silent. The quiet did not feel empty and it had been a long time since it did that. 

It felt full. 

I didn't believe in God. 

I had no faith, none in miracles, things that can't be seen. 

I began to wonder, however, for the first time, if belief has more to do with the person in front of you and less to do with the proof. 

But that thought trickled into my mind longer than I would have thought.

I should have ignored her. 

It would have been the logical course of action. I never let them stay with my thoughts and people come and go. Today if someone spoke to me, I'd go to sleep, forget the face by tomorrow. It had always been that way. 

But somehow, she was different. 

Not in a dramatic, life-altering way. She wasn't an overachieving nerd in how books romanticized being one: she didn't have a tragic past, a unique talent, and an air of something to see about her. She was just... herself. Uninhibited, lovely, unflinching, and continuously seeking something in me that it wasn't. 

She was getting under my skin and for reasons I couldn't understand. 

I saw her for the fourth time, it wasn't accidental. 

It was routine, I just said that I would go to the bookstore yet again. Whenever I went there, if she was also there it didn't mean anything. 

But I knew better. 

It wasn't until I stepped inside, trying to read the contents on the crowded, but I knew my mind already had to begin searching for her before I could stop it. 

When I opened the door of the bookshop, I noticed her sitting on the floor between those shelves, a book opened on her lap, her head bent slightly as she read. The world outside didn't seem to exist to her, she looked completely at ease. 

I could have walked away. 

Instead, I cleared my throat. "Is it usual for you to sit on the floor?" 

A smile took place on her lips; she looked up. "Bookstore guy." 

I sighed. "Do you ever intend to call me by my actual name?" 

"I don't know it." 

I frowned. "You never asked." 

She shrugged. "You never offered." 

I hesitated, then muttered, "It's—" 

"Wait." She held up a hand. "Don't tell me." 

I raised an eyebrow. "Why not?" 

She grinning with answer, "Because I think it is fun this way. It makes you more mysterious." 

I rolled my eyes. "I'm not mysterious. I just don't like talking." 

"Exactly what a mysterious person would say." 

I exhaled slow, wanting to walk away. She was irritating. Yet, after I sat across from her as though we had done this a million times before. 

She watched me curiously. "So, did you read the book?" 

Closing my eyes, I glanced at the one she had given me last time. I had it still sitting on my desk untouched. 

"No," I admitted. 

She didn't look surprised. "Why not?" 

"I already know what it will say." 

Her lips quirked. "And what's that?" 

"That faith is important. Believing in something that is greater than you, provides that greater meaning in life." 

"Do you think that's wrong?" 

"I think it's unnecessary." 

She hummed thoughtfully. "Then what do you do to give meaning to your life?" 

I hesitated. 

It was just a simple question, which I had never truthfully asked myself. I didn't seek meaning in life, life was the thing I endured. A series of moments, obligations, routines. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Her expression softened because she seemed to notice my silence. "I wasn't trying to get you on the spot." 

"I had nothing to say." 

As if she expected that, she nodded. "Maybe you're still yet to find it." 

I scoffed. "And you think I will?" 

Her smile was calm, unshaken. "I think everyone does, eventually." 

She was so sure of things. Thoughts of life having purpose, people having purpose. So confident they were that life and people had meaning, purpose. It should have annoyed me. And maybe it did. 

But it also intrigued me. 

Days went by, and she did not stop showing up. 

Or maybe it was me who was place where she was. 

While at the café, I saw her again and she sat by the window lost in thought. 

I saw her at the park feeding birds with quiet patience I couldn't understand. 

I saw her at the train station assisting an old woman with her bags as if it were nothing. 

She was in every place she was and yet never seemed, to a degree, to be intrusive. Wherever she went left her traces of warmth, and she simply existed. 

Yet there I was, continually befriending people that I knew had no interest in me and somehow found myself in her orbit. 

On that one afternoon, I saw her sitting outside the bookstore, a notebook in her lap. 

I should have walked on by her. 

Instead, I stopped. "What are you writing?" 

In surprise but not in displeasure though, she looked up. "A letter." 

"To who?" 

She smiled. "To God." 

I blinked. "Are you writing letters to someone who does not reply?" 

She chuckled. "Who says He doesn't?" 

Sitting down on the bench beside her, I sighed. "And just what do they say?" 

She shrugged. "Whatever's on my heart. Gratitude, worries, prayers. Sometimes I just tell Him what is going on in my day." 

I frowned. "I mean, do you think He cares what that is?" 

"I know He does." 

She had no hesitation and no doubt in her voice. 

I didn't understand it. 

"Even if He doesn't answer?" I pressed. 

Her eyes settled on me then, still. "A person doesn't have to speak to mean that they are not present." 

She said those things that made no sense to me, and I was still unsettled at how she said it. 

She was frustrating. 

Annoying. 

Yet I couldn't pull myself away. 

Thinking to herself, she closed her notebook and looked at me. "I think you're a good person." 

I scoffed. "You don't know me." 

She said simply, "I don't have to." "I just know." 

I shook my head. "That's ridiculous." 

She smiled. "Maybe. I've had bad people before and you're not one of them." 

Feelings of uneasiness gripped my chest. 

"You shouldn't put me on a pedestal," I mumbled. "I'm not kind. I don't help people. I don't even like people." 

She laughed. "There is nothing wrong with being good without liking people." 

I frowned. "That makes no sense." 

"Maybe not to you," she said. "But I see it." 

I frustrated, not looking at her, not at myself. 

Because I wanted to argue. I wished to say to her that she was wrong, that I was nothing special. It was that I didn't deserve whatever goodness she saw in me. 

But the words wouldn't come. 

Because for the first time in my life... 

I wanted to believe her. 

It was that night as I lay in bed in bed, staring at the ceiling, I realized something. 

No other human had ever done what she managed to do. 

She made me feel something. 

The thought scared me, but I didn't know whether to be grateful or terrified.