Linda stepped into the bookstore just before closing, the city's noise dissolving behind the glass door like a curtain falling on a stage. The scent of old paper and ink wrapped around her like a shawl—familiar, quiet, safe. She didn't come here looking for anything. Not really. Just a place where no one asked questions, where silence didn't feel like punishment.
She moved between the shelves slowly, fingers grazing spines like she was reading braille. Her eyes were tired, not from lack of sleep, but from holding back too much for too long. That's when she saw him.
He was standing in the philosophy section, one hand in his coat pocket, the other holding a book he wasn't reading. His posture was too casual to be accidental. His eyes flicked up and met hers—not startled, not curious, just… aware. Like he'd been waiting.
"Looking for something?" he asked, voice low and smooth, like a question he already knew the answer to.
Linda blinked. "Just escaping."
He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Then we're both in the right place."
She should've walked away. She should've smiled politely and turned back to the poetry aisle. But something about him—his stillness, his precision—felt like a mirror she hadn't dared to look into. They spoke for five minutes. Maybe ten. About books, about silence, about nothing at all. And when she left, she carried his name like a secret: Levi.
That night, she wrote about him in her journal. Not as a love interest. As a question.
Days passed. Then weeks. And somehow, Levi kept appearing. At the café near her office. On the same train platform. At the art exhibit she almost didn't attend. Each time, he had a reason. Each time, she believed him.
He was charming. Not in the loud, obvious way. In the way that made you feel seen. Heard. Like you mattered. And Linda, who had spent years being useful but invisible, began to believe she was special.
She fell in love slowly. Then all at once.
But love, she would learn, is not always a gift. Sometimes it's a trap dressed in tenderness.
Because Levi wasn't who he said he was. He wasn't just a man with a complicated past. He was a man with a plan. And Linda—soft, sovereign, unsuspecting Linda—was part of it.
She would discover the truth in pieces. A phone call that ended too quickly. A lie that unraveled under a second glance. A night when she followed him and saw what she wasn't meant to see.
And then—his confession. Not of love. Of intent.
He had planned to use her. To break her. To kill her.
But Linda didn't scream. She didn't beg. She looked him in the eye and said, "I forgive you."
Not because he deserved it. But because she refused to carry his poison.
That moment shattered him.
He changed. Slowly. Painfully. But by then, it didn't matter.
Because Linda had already chosen herself.
She didn't stay to heal him. She left to honor herself.
And Levi—he became the man she deserved, after she stopped needing him.
That was her first encounter. Not with Levi. But with her own myth. Her own vow.
And she never looked back.