03 | Annoying Yet Intriguing

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. 

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