When We Are Together

Elouise seemed like someone who wore her heart on her sleeve.
The truth, however? She was very careful not to.

Her life moved in gentle routines: shelving books at the shop, volunteering at the nursing home, filling her days with small, dependable connections. Predictable. Safe. Enough to keep the loneliness at a manageable distance.

Then he appeared.

A stranger with a lemon-print umbrella, whose visits to the bookshop followed a peculiar, almost ritualistic pattern. He never lingered too long. Never explained himself. Yet each encounter left Elouise curious in a way she hadn't felt in years; drawn toward something she didn't fully understand, but couldn't stop noticing.

And behind her, the past waited.

Not her mistakes, but the wreckage of someone else's. A history she's spent years avoiding. A voice she never wanted to hear again. Memories that refuse to stay buried, no matter how carefully she's built her life around them.

As grief resurfaces and lines between strangers begin to blur, Elouise is forced to reckon with the question she's spent a lifetime dodging:

Can needing someone ever be safe? Or does love always come with a cost she can't afford?