​I stood on the curb waiting for Bus 3 northbound when I saw him, the man on the opposite side of the street. Blue-collar type, holding a steaming cup of coffee from the High Street Bistro behind him. He looked like he carried the weight of the world. Slumped shoulders, distant eyes, the kind of sadness you can smell in cold air, though I couldn’t name it.

​Our eyes met.

​I smiled.

​He smiled back.

​People call this “a moment.” If this were a movie, the soundtrack would swell, strings lifting the scene beyond the ordinary. But in my story, time freezes not with music, but with stillness, like in Big Fish when the world holds its breath just before magic happens.

​The rain slowed to a ghostly drift, suspended and delicate. I reached out to touch a droplet, and it felt like touching the past. Soft. Impossible.

​No words were exchanged. No steps taken.

​Then the bus screeched into view, a harsh rewind. Time snapped back. The rain fell hard again, as if nothing had happened.

​I boarded my bus heading north.

​He caught his heading south.

​I wanted to reach across the distance, to hold onto what had passed between us. But the driver’s heavy foot decided otherwise, and we pulled away from the curb.

​That night, Amélie played in my head: the lonely girl who believes in fate and small miracles. I envied her certainty. I wanted to be her. I wanted to make magic.

​So I went back to the café the next morning, orders memorized, heart pounding.

​I waited for him. Will; I learned his name from the barista, a detail I held like a talisman. I ordered his usual, a caramel latte, and left it with a Polaroid I’d taken earlier. On the back, a note written quickly, almost foolishly:

​This coffee is for thee,

From Zorra with a “Z.”

After this drink, come meet me,

On Bus 3, heading north, see?

​Monday passed. Then Tuesday. Each morning I arrived early, hiding behind sunglasses and a scarf. The barista smirked. “Like a movie,” she said.

​Will appeared like clockwork, coffee in hand. I stayed on my side of the street, heart racing, rain falling just like before.

​The bus came early.

​I let it pass.

​Will stood there, Polaroid in hand, looking at me.

​He smiled.

​I smiled back.

​The rain slowed again, as if we had been rewound to the start.

​Will took a sip of his caramel latte.

​I took a sip of mine.

​Time held.

​Hail scattered across the pavement, sharp and sudden.

​And then he stepped toward me.