Collab

We both reached for the same book.

Shelf 3, Row 2, bottom corner.
It was a slim poetry collection, Between Stillness and Smoke, the kind of book that feels like it’s already been read by someone you love.

Our fingers touched the spine at the same time. I let go first. She looked at me and smiled without apology. “Only one copy,” she said.
“I noticed,” I replied.
She didn’t offer it. But she didn’t take it either.

We stood there for a moment, two strangers with similar taste, awkwardly polite. Then she said, “Want to read it together?”
I nodded. “We’ll need chai.”

The first session was at a cafe behind the fairgrounds, plastic chairs, one fan working, two cups of over-sweet tea. We sat at opposite ends of the book, taking turns reading the poems out loud. No judgment. No analysis. Just voice and silence.

Second session, Cubbon Park. She brought samosas. I brought my copy of Neruda, just in case she liked detours. She did. We didn’t just read that day, we interpreted. Argued gently about what the poet meant. Added our own endings to unfinished stanzas. Laughed at lines that weren’t funny, but felt too heavy to ignore.

The third time, she brought a notebook. Handwritten verses.
“These are mine,” she said, like it was an apology.
I read them. Quietly.
Then I opened my phone and showed her some of mine.
“We should collab,” I said. “Your emotions, my writing.”

That became our inside joke.
Our rhythm.
We met twice a week, sometimes more. Park benches. Quiet cafes. Sometimes the steps of her building when nothing else was open. The poems started to blur, hers, mine, ours.

Somewhere along the way, I stopped showing her what I wrote.
Because all of it had started to become about her.
She taught me what it meant to write from feeling, not just form. I taught her how to structure a stanza. But feelings? They don’t come with punctuation.

I was falling in love.
She, I think, was learning to feel.

Then one day, no reply. No next time. No explanation. Just... stillness.

I waited. At the café. At the park. At Shelf 3, Row 2, bottom corner.
The book was back. Second-hand, I think. A little more underlined than before.

She taught me emotions by leaving me alone in love.
What began as a collab ended as a confession written only by me.

And still, on some days, I find myself writing for two.
Out of habit. Or maybe something softer than habit.