In Stillness

“Have We Met Before?”

The man on the train platform wore a navy wool coat, the kind that made him look either ex-military or just well-organized. His hair was buzzed down to shadow, and his jaw worked on something he wasn’t chewing. Talia noticed him because he was still. In the crowd of morning chaos — coffee sloshing, headphones bobbing, voices like torn newspaper — he didn’t check his phone, didn’t shift his weight. He just watched.

She would’ve looked away if he hadn’t looked right at her.

He didn’t smile. Didn’t nod. Just stared for maybe two seconds too long.

Then the train screeched in and the moment passed.

By the time she got on and found her spot, standing wedged between a hedge-fund guy and a woman applying eyeliner without mercy, the man was nowhere to be seen.

Just one of those weird things. Cities are full of them.

But then it happened again.

Two days later. Same time. Same platform. Same coat. Same look.

This time, when he caught her eye, he stepped forward, like he was going to say something. But the train arrived, people surged, and he disappeared again.

She told herself he was probably just some guy with a familiar face. Maybe he mistook her for someone he knew. Or maybe he was just one of those intense people who hadn’t learned not to stare. Either way, she was being paranoid.

Until the third time.

This time, he was waiting for her.

He stood near the edge of the platform, hands in his coat pockets, scanning the crowd. When she walked up, he straightened, his eyes locking on hers like a magnet snapping to steel.

Talia stopped.

He walked over.

“Have we met before?” he asked.

His voice was calm, but there was something under it. Like he was trying very hard to sound casual and not quite pulling it off.

Talia’s stomach flicked.

“I don’t think so,” she said.

“You sure?” he asked, head tilting.

“Pretty sure. Why?”

He studied her a second longer, then shook his head, almost to himself. “You just… look like someone I used to know.”

That’s usually where these things ended — awkward mutual apology, maybe a laugh, and then everyone went back to pretending the city didn’t exist. But he didn’t move. Neither did she.

“What was her name?” Talia asked, surprising herself.

His mouth twitched. “That’s the thing. I don’t remember.”

“You don’t remember the name of someone I look exactly like?”

He looked down, then back up at her. “I know how it sounds. But I swear, it’s not a pickup line.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You think we met before, but you don’t know where or when or why or who I was.”

He nodded once. “Exactly.”

And for some reason, that honesty made her pause. There was no edge to his voice. No attempt to charm. Just this quiet confusion. This quiet certainty.

“You know what’s weird?” she said.

“What?”

“You look familiar too.”

He blinked.

She shook her head. “But I have a pretty good memory for faces. If we met, I’d remember.”

He looked like he wanted to ask something else, but the train arrived, cutting their conversation clean. The moment snapped again.

He didn’t get on.

Neither did she.

They just stood there, the crowd funneling around them, and something silent passed between them — recognition, maybe. Or something close to it.

His name was Eric.

They met for coffee that afternoon.

He told her he worked in logistics. Warehouses, delivery networks, supply chains. “Not exciting,” he said. “But I like it.”

She told him she was a freelance designer. Logos, layouts, brand stuff. “I make ugly things a little less ugly,” she said. He smiled at that.

They talked for two hours. Easy. No weird silences. No red flags. But both of them kept circling back to the same thing — this sense that they knew each other.

“You ever go to St. Alban’s High?” he asked.

“No. I went to Kennedy.”

“You ever live in Pittsburgh?”

“No. You?”

“Nope. Just checking.”

It became a game. She named cities. He named colleges. They compared mutual friends, previous jobs, online communities. Nothing matched.

Finally she said, “Maybe we knew each other in another life.”

He raised an eyebrow. “You believe in that stuff?”

“No,” she said. “But I might start.”

The weeks passed.

They kept meeting. Not dating, not exactly. Just meeting. Talking. Sitting across from each other like bookends that had been separated and somehow found their way back to the shelf.

She learned he had a sister in Colorado. That he hated the sound of metal scraping metal. That he always checked a room’s exits without thinking.

He learned she took her coffee black because milk made her sick. That she used to draw comics as a kid. That she once ran away at sixteen, made it five blocks, and came back because she forgot her charger.

Still, the feeling didn’t go away.

That strange gravity between them. Like unfinished business.

Like memory with no anchor.

It was Eric who finally said it out loud.

They were walking along the East River, cold wind off the water, both clutching coffee cups like armor.

“I had a dream,” he said.

“Yeah?”

“You were in it.”

She looked at him.

“We were somewhere green. Like a field. And I knew you. Not like now. I knew you.”

“Was I wearing anything embarrassing?”

He smiled. “A blue dress. You had bare feet.”

She froze.

“What?”

“I’ve had that dream,” she said.

Now he stopped too.

“The field, the dress, the—” she shook her head. “Okay, now this is getting creepy.”

“You were smiling in mine.”

“I was running in mine.”

They stared at each other.

He said, “What if this isn’t the first time we’ve met?”

“You mean like… fate?”

“No. I mean… what if something happened before. Something we can’t remember.”

She wanted to laugh. She didn’t. Because her stomach twisted again, and not in a bad way. In a way that felt too close to something she couldn’t name.

They started digging.

Hypnosis. Past life regression. Therapy. Even a DNA test.

Nothing. No secret links. No tangled bloodlines. No overlapping timelines.

But dreams kept happening. The field. The sun. The laughter.

And more. A hallway of mirrors. A crash. A name — Barbara — that made no sense to either of them but left them shaken.

It wasn’t just dreams, either.

Talia started noticing songs she didn’t remember knowing, but could hum every note. Eric walked past a bakery and almost collapsed from the smell of something he swore he’d never tasted but missed like oxygen.

They weren’t scared.

But they were starting to wonder what the hell was happening.

Then came the fire.

Eric called her at 2 a.m.

“I just woke up,” he said, voice raw. “My apartment — there was smoke—”

Talia was already putting on shoes. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I got out. But — Talia, it started in my kitchen. With the stove.”

“You left it on?”

“No. That’s just it. I never use it. But something told me to check it before I went to bed. And it was on. Like someone lit it.”

She went cold.

“There’s more,” he said.

“What?”

“There was a message. On my bathroom mirror. In the steam.”

Silence.

“What did it say?” she whispered.

Two words.

“Not again.”

The investigation turned up nothing.

No sign of forced entry. No signs of arson. No explanation.

But after that, things changed.

They felt watched.

Not constantly. Just… sometimes. A flicker in the corner of the eye. A reflection that didn’t match. A breath that didn’t belong to either of them.

They started sleeping at each other’s apartments. Not for romance. For safety. For witness.

And one night, Talia found a photo.

It fell out of a used book she was reading. A black-and-white snapshot. Faded, creased.

Two people in a field.

The man wore a military coat.

The woman, a blue dress.

Neither of their faces were clear. But she knew.

So did he.

They brought it to every expert they could find. Photographers. Forensics. Artists. But no one could explain it. Paper dated to the '40s. No way to trace it.

The past didn’t want to be found.

But it left breadcrumbs.

In the end, it wasn’t a breakthrough. Just a moment.

They were walking again. Cold again. Her hand in his.

She said, “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“I think maybe we keep finding each other. Life after life. And maybe we keep forgetting. But not all the way.”

“And the fire?”

“Maybe something didn’t want us to remember. Or maybe it was a warning.”

He nodded slowly.

They stopped at a crosswalk. Lights flashing.

She turned to him.

“You never asked what my middle name is.”

He laughed. “Okay. What is it?”

She looked at him.

“It’s Barbara.”

His face drained.

She smiled. “Do I know you?”

He didn’t speak. Just pulled her close, forehead to hers.

And somewhere, behind the noise of the city, they heard the wind rustle through grass. And the echo of a memory, finally coming home.