Chance Encounters

The densely-packed streets of New York City offered no room for casual walking. There was barely space for breathing. Eris fought her way through the hoards of pedestrian tourists, dodging elbows and children as people stopped to gawk at the same trinkets that littered each little uniform storefront. She never understood the draw of t-shirts with a simple place name on them nor shot glass collections that wasted away in the cabinets of older generations. These days, she didn’t understand much of temporary, small joys whatsoever. After years of focus only on her books, nothing else mattered besides getting to the next steps of the publishing process. Nothing else mattered besides the idea of releasing something into the world with her name front and center on the cover for all to see. That idea - that glimpse of what success would feel like after years of work - it brought her true joy.

Every day revolved around that goal. The coffee she would pick up on her way into work was for her focus, so she could jump immediately into editing other people’s writing without the need for conversation or brain puzzles. The clothes she wore were all variations of the same outfit; she was just comfy enough to not have to change when she returned home until she was ready to pile into bed, but everything was professional enough that no one looked twice at her during her hours at the publishing agency. She could open up a zoom call with a client at a moment’s notice, and she quite often did. Inside, she would smirk at her authors’ bedheads and crumpled t-shirts when they casually discussed their latest chapters.

She was constantly comparing herself to them. She was always better.

That day, weaving through the crowded streets, she could feel an extra layer of humming conversation. Some sort of event must be happening downtown. She could have pieced together details from the broken conversations around her if she had wanted to, but she had no real desire to know what had entranced her neighbors this time. She was running late to lunch with a client, and her single-minded focus was busy keeping her from stepping on people’s toes as she pushed through the crowd. With her eyes on the ground, she did not see the person in front of her come to a full stop. They collided, flinging the unsuspecting girl forward.

“Geez don’t stop in the middle of the sidewalk like that!” Eris growled, her hand shooting out to help up her roadkill before that girl truly became trampled by the swarming peoples.

“Sorry!” The girl peeped, immediately grasping Eris’s hand and meeting her eyes. There was no hint of defense, despite Eris’s criticizing gaze. The girl even had the nerve to smile as she continued. “Thanks for the hand! These streets…”

Eris had already begun to walk away. Her heart hammered in her chest, and she repeated the same line over and over in her head as her stride increased and her arms swung higher. Soon she was practically sprinting down the blocks.

“That was not Sarah. That was not Sarah. That was not Sarah.”

The girl’s auburn hair was what had done it. No, it was the sweet tone of her voice. The hammering was all because of that bright green shining in her eyes. How did a simple touch of hands cause this panic in her?

It had been years since Eris’s last panic attack. She collapsed against a nearby wall, ignoring the grime that she could feel sticking to her poor business jacket, and took out her phone so she could follow one of the breathing exercises she thought for sure she was done with after twenty-eight years on this planet. She breathed in through her nose. She held the breath for three pulsing seconds. She slowly let it out through her mouth. She repeated the process again, and again, and a fourth time until her mind had settled around the simplicity of counted seconds. Then, surrounded by those numbers, she conjured the girl’s image back into her mind’s eye.

There was no scar. If it was Sarah, there would have been a scar. Eris choked as her best friend’s image appeared instead of the stranger. Of course that had not been Sarah; she had barely any freckles. Sarah would not have been caught dead in a ruffled shirt like that girl had been wearing. There was no eyebrow piercing to catch on strands of that ginger hair when they lay in bed sweaty and cuddled up.

Eris could feel the tears well up in her eyes, but she had calmed enough that she was able to hold them back. Sarah’s funeral had been years ago now, and the only good those memories served today was in summoning up the emotion of grief so she could write scenes involving it. Since she was not at her desk doing that, she decided that she needed to replace those thoughts with work. She brushed off what dirt and dust she could from her outfit, and scampered quickly off to lunch.

The girl was their waitress. Her nametag read “Emily” and she was just as bubbly as she had been in the street. Eris fumed as she fought to ignore the resemblance in her brain; they looked so damn similar. The client droned on about how there would actually be no climax in their book as a strategic choice, and the idea was such a wash that Eris had all but completely blocked out the conversation to retreat deep into her own head and manually reign in her scattered thoughts and emotions. She nodded along, eating as if she was ravenous so that she could get back to the office as quickly as was humanly possible. As the client was finishing their last bites, Eris excused herself to wait out the rest of the time in the bathroom.

She emerged five minutes later and was relieved to catch the client at the front of the room, paying the bill for their table. They must be trying to salvage a decent impression from her. While she watched, a flash of orange on her left caught her eye, and her shoulder clipped what she quickly realized to be another human being who was trying to navigate around her. They failed, and the slight collision sent everything in the waitress’s hands wobbling. That unfortunately included several cups of coffee that happily skidded to the edge of the platter, sloshing all over the beige jacket Eris loved so much. One cup even managed to make it off the plate entirely, sending a vertical streak of coffee straight down Eris’s front. That one did more damage to her actual shirt than her jacket, which meant that both were going to need soap and cold water as soon as she got home today.

Could this day get any more annoying?

It could. The waitress who had spilled on her was Emily.

Eris let loose a string of curses under her breath, and immediately ducked back into the bathroom as Emily followed her back, ensuring the client saw none of the exchange while she whispered how sorry she was. Emily rambled about how she had just moved to the city and how no one moved like she expected them to and how she kept causing these accidents all throughout the past week. Eris barely heard a word she said, as her head was bent over the faucet and her jacket, trying to get the stains to at least lessen their holds. She did notice when Eris made some grand gesture with her hands, because when she leaned to the side to avoid the girl’s outstretching arms she caught sight of a bright blue pushup bra. Suddenly, she realized she was looking at a shirtless Emily, who had her own top off and was offering it to Eris to wear instead.

Eris’s heart pounded and her hands shook as she was thrust back into the height of the conversation. She must have accepted the shirt, because it was suddenly in her hands.

“It should fit you well - we look like we are around the same size! And you can just drop it off at my place one day whenever you next end up on my side of town. I can even wash the coffee out of your clothes if you want and then you can come and pick everything up tonight. Eris shook her head no at the idea of doing anything besides her own writing after work, but words still escaped her. The girl’s shirt was cute though, and it fit the business casual requirements of her job, and it was not covered in coffee. Taking it wouldn’t be a bad deal.

“Do you have anything else to wear?” Eris asked, realizing that the girl would need to return to her own post soon.

“Yea, I will be fine!” The girl said, peering out the cracked bathroom door. “My bag is just around the corner, and I’ve been bringing some backup clothes around while I get used to the city. This was actually my backup shirt, but the other one isn’t too bad. I just also managed to run into someone on my way into work today out in the street so I had actually changed into this one when I got here today.” Eris realized in that moment that the girl had indeed been wearing a different shirt when they had first collided. She also realized in that moment that she was slightly, just slightly disappointed that the girl did not remember that Eris was who she had bumped into earlier.

Before Eris could offer to go get this girl’s bag and shirt for her, she realized that Emily was gone and the door was swinging closed behind her. Eris’s jaw dropped to the floor at the bravery and recklessness of this stranger in the middle of her workplace. Her jaw was still on the floor when Emily crashed back inside, grinning ear to ear and panting a little bit from the excursion. Her chest rose and fell fast, and Eris had to force herself to look away from that gorgeous bra that seemed to mold so perfectly to this girl’s otherwise nude top half.

She threw off her own shirt and quickly switched to Emily’s donated one, wondering if their eyes roamed in the same ways. She had been given an invitation to this girl’s house. She wondered if that was simply how easy romance was for bold, social types of people. She wondered if she should even consider the potential of a hook-up with someone who had initially reminded her so much of Sarah.

She shouldn’t. She did anyway.

This time, Eris met Emily’s gaze. The girl was still smiling from her success grabbing the shirt. “Thank you.” Eris said. It felt like it had been a long time since she had had such a genuine dealing with another human. “What is your address? I’ll drop off your shirt tonight.”

Eris passed her phone to Emily, the page to create a new contact open. Emily put in her information, including her last name, which Eris quite appreciated not having to ask for, and then texted her address to her own number from Eris’s phone.

“There! Now you have a contact and we have a text chain already started! So no worries about reaching out to me. I could use more friends in my life here.” Eris did not know how this girl was not already swamped in friends being as social as she was. She did not know why Emily wanted more friends, nor specifically why she was so open to being friends with her.

Something about the girl drew her in though. For the first time in years, Eris also thought she could use more friends in her life.

“Okay, I will.”