Sleep was hard to come by that night. My heart felt tortured by thoughts of the past mixing in with the present. I had always given in to that pain, that almost blissful reprieve where I didn’t have to think, didn’t have to wonder about how I lived my life. Surviving this way was easy; I could mourn for my lost love and simply exist until one day I ceased to do so. But I was assaulted with the feelings I’d had in the restaurant and questions that were asked in innocence had exposed an ugly truth. Even with the understanding of what I had made of my life, I was scared to change. If I started truly living again, that meant that I would have to really embrace the fact that Jaime was gone, that I wouldn’t suddenly just wake up with him next to me. I would have to start again and that was almost too much to bear. I went over everything time and time again and through the haze of my thoughts, at times one face would pop up, his smile warm and friendly. And each time it did I tried my best not to notice, to ignore the way my heart had felt when that gaze was directed at me.

I gave up on sleep at around five in the morning, tired of tossing and turning. Mentally I was exhausted but my body refused to listen, possibly feeling that I had slept enough to last me for decades. I hadn’t rested in the master bedroom, still too uncomfortable in that room to gain even a semblance of peace. The spare bedroom was large enough and was just down the hall, so I had stayed here through the night. I was annoyed to be up so early and I decided that the best way to get rid of the irritation was a scalding hot shower.

The master bath was much the same as it was the night before, its updated shower and tiles in grays and blacks the height of modern simplicity. I’d never really looked before but it was nice, the whole house was honestly. The bedroom was a bust but I could enjoy the townhome’s other amenities. As I stripped off my cami and shorts, I finally looked into a mirror and what I saw shocked me.

I had never truly been thin in my life; there had always been a healthy layer of cushion around my body and it had suited my frame shorter frame well. Jaime had liked to run his hands over my waist and hips, curving out an hourglass. I had laughed at him every time, happy that he was happy with me. But now I was bordering on skinny, the same size I had been as a child before I’d gotten my womanly curves. My s and had shrunken and while I didn’t look bad, I didn’t feel like myself any longer.

My mood fell further if that was possible and I turned away from the mirror, unwilling to look any longer and see the damage I had done to myself. I stood under the spray of water for long minutes, letting it soak into every pore until my fingers began to prune. When I finally left the shower, I toweled off and took a second look at myself. My wet hair hung limply past my shoulders, the curls weighed down with moisture.

The same eyebrows curved over my brow, my eyes rounded and nose pert. My lips were full and thick; I remember that I had always loved them, how they had pursed together just right. I thought of how Jaime used to trace them with his fingers after a kiss, his delight in them obvious. I bit my lower lip to fight back a stinging tear; I knew I had been loved and I knew what it truly meant to lose it. Maybe it would’ve been better to never have experienced it at all. But the ache in my chest said otherwise, it demanded that I remember and slowly I could learn not to let the memories of that sweet caring tear me apart.

It was much too early to eat, so after dressing I simply sat in my kitchen and wondered what to do. I’d had very little direction to my life in the past year, very little that I could do to take my mind off of things. I had gone to college to get a degree in business that I had never used and instead started working for a realty company; when I had quit that had been the end of my professional career. My house was devoid of books and games, I had no television. The only electronic I used was my phone and the old device could no longer receive updates to it. My despair over what I had allowed my life to become was staggering now that I thought of it. I knew that Jaime wouldn’t have wanted this for me, but what did I honestly want for myself?

It was all too big to contemplate at once., too many feelings to sift through. I needed to start with the small things and work my way up. But first I did something that I hadn’t done for a long time, something that I had promised myself I wouldn’t do anymore. Two fat tears managed to break through the wall I had erected around my emotions and as they ran quickly down my cheeks, I felt some of the pressure lessen. I wiped them away with the tips of my fingers and let out a long breath that was more like a sigh. Maybe forbidding myself to cry hadn’t been the right answer, maybe I honestly needed to grieve without trying to block out every single hurt. When I thought of what I wanted next, a woman’s face came to mind.

It was still early in the day when I finally left home. I had managed to find some decent clothes to wear, the plain white cotton tee and blue jeans still fitting me well despite the weight I’d lost. I’d put my hair into two low buns and it had been nice to see myself looking neat after how I had felt this morning. Small improvements, one bit at a time, that’s how I would now measure each day. What I had thought about as I’d gotten ready was finally upgrading my device. Something tiny that I could change, something that I needed. And maybe I would be able to call my family more often when the device I used wasn’t so full of memories.

I left my home eagerly and walked into the downtown area. The whole street was alive with music playing in the background as each store tried to lure in paying customers. Custom shops and restaurants lined the streets for at least three blocks in every way until you reached the city’s center where the skyscrapers resided. I spent twenty minutes trying to find a phone store and then another two hours inside, just trying to figure out what the young kid behind the counter was trying to sell me. I didn’t know if they worked off of commission, but he’d insisted I buy the latest and largest iPhone, assuring me I needed all the extra storage and the heavy duty charging case. I didn’t resist in the face of his selling tactics and I left the store with my wallet significantly lighter.

Glad that I’d taken my debit card with me, I continued walking for some time, looking for a place to eat. I must have gone through Center City twice, just looking at the mismatched buildings, beautiful graffiti, and hearing the angry curses of the populace as they moved through their daily lives. Something about the area infused me with contentment, a feeling I hadn’t experienced in far too long. My previous treks into the open world hadn’t led me here and I realized how much I had been missing of my new home. It wasn’t a place that boasted vast mountain-scapes and abundant fresh air, but this place had a quality to it that dug into the soul and planted itself there. I wanted to explore what it had to offer, get to know it and see if I could make a place for myself here at last.

After my lunch and with my newfound resolve to give Philly the chance it deserved, I pulled up google maps on my new phone and let my phone guide me to my next location. Within fifteen minutes I had arrived at my destination and from my extensive walking earlier, I knew generally where I was, where the next part of my journey would begin. The community center was bigger than I remembered from last night, the red brick of it more washed out in the light of day, a bit more weathered then it had looked in the rain. The high-pitched yelling of children at play permeated the area amidst the sounds of traffic congestion and I watched for a moment while the small park outside of the building came to life with activity.

I steeled my nerves as I walked inside and reached the front desk where a woman sat typing madly at her keyboard, the click of her nails on the keys faster than I’d thought it possible for a human to move. I watched with envy as her colorful extensions gleamed with rhinestones and tapped away. The woman didn’t once look down and I felt almost bad for interrupting her.

“Hi uh, is MiRan here?” I asked hesitantly. “She gave me her card the other night,” I explained while showing the slightly bent card in my hands.

“Oh sure! Just go down this hallway and it’s the last door on the left. You can’t miss it,” the woman chirped and immediately went back to her typing when I nodded in reply.

I walked with a purpose to my steps, wary of someone stopping me if I didn’t look like I knew where I was going. I arrived at a thick wooden door that was closed and I knocked lightly, afraid to disturb in case anything was happening inside.

“Come in,” a familiar voice called out and I wiped my sweaty palms on the front of my jeans. Pushing open the door, I walked into a large office space, the whole of it outfitted with maple wooden panels. In the back of it and directly in the center was a large desk and behind it sat MiRan. A name plate described her job role as center director and I thought again of her outside feeding the homeless. With this kind of a director at the helm, I wondered how much good she had done for the city.

“Zayne Miller, it’s nice to see you so soon! Sit down dear, don’t just hover there,” she said with both affection and admonishment in her tone. I pulled out the chair directly opposite her took a seat, the old style wing-backed seating cozier than I’d expected. There was an awkward pause as I thought of something to say and my eyes quickly landed on an easy target.

“They’re very pretty,” I remarked as I looked at the flowers on her desk, the bright pink petals of them adding a feminine touch to the darkly masculine room.

“Yes they’re from my husband. Every third day of the week, whether I ask for them or not, the stubborn man,” She said with fondness suffusing her tone. “He’s not too big on words, but no matter if we’re in the middle of the fight or there’s nothing special happening, I still get my flowers.”

Her words sent chills through my veins and the cold seeped into my heart. Each beat of the dead thing in my chest hurt and I bit my lip to keep from crying out. Maybe that could have been Jaime and I.

“Come with me,” she said as she rose from her seat, “let me show you around the property.”

“We’re close to the Philadelphia convention center,” MiRan explained, “and that afforded us a good location for parking lot use and taking care of the homeless from first to thirteenth streets and all those in between.”

“It’s alright for everyone in the spring and summer, the weather stays pretty clear. But the winter time is when things usually take a turn for the worse. Some of regulars refuse to go to the shelters for any multitude of reasons. I do worry about them but one thing I’ve learned since being program director is that you can’t save everyone. It’s a hard lesson,” she commented almost to herself, but I nodded along and made sounds of agreement. This seemed to be enough for MiRan as she pointed out the bits I’d need to know to navigate my way around the area.

“And this is the church,” she said while stopping in front of a huge relic of Catholicism. “It’s been here for almost fifty years, the rest of the locations here sort of built up around it. Would you like to go inside?”

“Sure,” I replied, interested in the little facts she seemed to know about the place. We entered into the huge wood-engraved double doors and they creaked gently as they moved to let us inside. It was a cooling temperature within and the place smelled lightly of incense. We walked further into the large open space and I could see that the walls were made of stone.

“Sometimes I come in here just to sit. I’m a Buddhist but you know it’s a kind of spirituality, sitting here with the candles and just letting the silence fill you up.”

“It’s peaceful,” I said giving voice to my thoughts and MiRan sent me a smile.

“Exactly right. And it’s open every day in the mornings even though they don’t have Mass.”

I didn’t really answer as I took in the space, the somewhat dim surroundings lit only by what seemed to be hundreds of candles. Each one symbolized a prayer and I tried to remember the last time I had asked God for anything. There was only one thing I truly wanted, but it wasn’t something faith could bring back. But my guide was right, the place was beautiful with its stained-glass windows and redwood pews. And peace did permeate the place, an emotion I wanted to hold on to for as long as I could. I left it with some reluctance, but I knew I would be back.

Our last stop was the kitchen and MiRan pushed open its heavy doors with a surprising amount of strength for a woman her age. There were four people in the large cafeteria kitchen, two women and two men.  One woman I recognized from yesterday and she smiled from her place at the stove. Everyone looked relatively harmless save for one of the men. He was a huge white man, the hair on his head shaved and shiny in it’s baldness, a thick beard around his face. Coupled with the muscles and tattoos lining every available square inch of his arms, he looked like some rogue biker.

I looked away quickly and back at MiRan who asked if I knew how to cook.

“I don’t know, there isn’t much I can cook well and on a large scale,” I mumbled while looking down at the shorter woman.

“Don’t worry about that, we’ve got a few chefs back there,” she said with a chuckle. “What we need is more people on the front lines. Are you ok with passing out the meals?”

I thought of the night before and how everyone had stood in the rain. It didn’t seem so bad but I wasn’t sure if I was ready to be surrounded by people again.

“If it’s alright, could I work in the kitchen instead? Just to start out?”

“Of course dear! Ricky, can you bring Zayne here an apron?” Ricky, the biker lookalike, walked over with a green apron in hand and I was surprised to see that up close, his light brown eyes were warmly sweet. Maybe he wasn’t a tough biker after all. I fell easily into the food preparations that MiRan assigned to me and chatted lightly with the other volunteers. I learned their names and they learned mine, but I didn’t go into details about why I was there, didn’t seek to form deeper connections. For now I was content with this small thing I could do, maybe in time I would be able to handle more.

For the next two weeks I helped out at the community center and went to the large chapel, the atmosphere created by the candles and the somewhat gloomy space calming to my soul.  I kept my eyes closed while I sat there and I wasn’t sure if I prayed or if it was just meditation. But I tried to think of what I wanted in my life, tried to understand what it is that I could offer to the world. If I stayed stagnant, what would remain of me?

Saturday emerged bright and early, I was awake to witness it. I had become one of those people I had used to joke about in a condescending manner, a morning person. It was a particular kind of horror to wake up early and since seemed to be my new normal, I went for a run. The importance of this has to be understood in full; I never ran anywhere for anything. If a car was coming down the street, at the most I would power walk to safety. I was always fifteen minutes early to any event or meeting, my strict punctuality in place just to avoid having to run anywhere. I was happy in my sedentary life.

But as football jock, running had been second nature to Jaime and after he’d stopped playing sports in college, he ran to release all of his pent up energy. Every morning at the crack of dawn he’d leave me in bed with a kiss and be gone for an hour or two. So maybe that was why I put on my yoga pants and looked through boxes until I found a pair of sneakers that had adequate heel and arch support. Because Jaime has always said that that was important. And after finding an old tank top and sports bra, I left the house around seven am because my head was still too full of memories to sit in silence any longer.

I didn’t run to any specific place, content to just jog along almost absently while the city came alive. I didn’t run to a park and complete my exercise there; I didn’t want to really be around others. The kind of solitude that running gave me meant I didn’t have to stop to say hello and I could ignore the glances thrown my way. I ran until I was out of breath and then I began to walk until I caught it again. I did this several times and eventually I ended up in a market of some kind, the salty-fishy smell of sea creatures floating in the air. I gazed with interest at the wares on offer, taking my time to peer into open barrels and look at the angry lobsters in huge glass tanks. I wandered through it all easily until I saw the back of a familiar figure. It was Jimin.

Watching the man that I hadn’t seen but had remembered so vividly was jarring in the extreme. Rarely had I seen someone so naturally handsome and comfortable with their own body. As he walked, he shifted to lean against the brick wall behind him, the action done carelessly but with full control. If I had tried to do so without looking, I would’ve fallen flat on my backside. It was hard to look away as he fiddled with the zipper of his boots. Like a moth I was drawn to him and while he stood there I walked by, a strange hope that he would call out to me taking up residence in my stomach.

I didn’t slow down as I went by; in fact I was walking faster than normal. I had almost gone right by before I heard the sound of my name come from his lips. And the way he said it, with confidence and joy and something I couldn’t quite place in his tone, it caused my heart to stutter as I stopped. I turned around to face him slowly, not totally sure I hadn’t imagined it all. But he was there, staring at me for all he was worth. Wearing all black from his tightly-fitted tee to his black jeans and low-heeled boots, the only bit of color was the silver chain he wore that ended in a cross. It had to be a sin to look that good in casual clothing and I inwardly winced when I remembered the sweaty running attire I was dressed in.

“Hi, how are you?” I asked in unhurried manner as if I hadn’t seen him standing there.

“I’m good,” he said throatily, his smile brightening his whole face. “Are you enjoying your exercise?”

“Yeah and the scenery helps,” I replied with a nod to our surroundings. Ok great, let him think I usually ran around fish markets, this was going perfectly. But even with the slight embarrassment that heated my cheeks, if he was going to come into my life at odd moments I’d have to get used to his presence. I wanted to go back to his restaurant; the food had been amazing and I was eager to experience something new again. I wanted to ask what he was going to buy but too much interest would be bad. Jimin could be bad.

“Jimin-ah!” A deep voice called out and Jimin finally looked away from me and down towards whomever had called. He waved a hand and then turned to me once again, his smile brighter now than it had been before.

“Is he waiting for you?” I asked in reference to the dark-haired man I saw off in the distance.

“Kinda. If I don’t get to the other part of the market soon, all the fresh lobster will be gone.”

Jimin’s feet don’t move though, and his eyes never leave my face. I felt my lips twitch as he continued to stand in front of me, seemingly at a loss for words as much as I was.

“Well, aren’t you in a rush?” I pointed out to him hesitantly. Warm brown eyes blinked at me again slowly, his lashes catching the early morning light. But he still he made no movement to go.

“Yeah, I’m definitely going to be late,” he replied with a little laugh, his eyes squinting in mirth. He ran his hands through the long locks surrounding his forehead, pushing the mass of it to the back of his head in such an absent way that I knew it to be a habit.

“So then...” I began to say with care, dragging out my words.

“Do you have time for breakfast?” He questioned me suddenly while stepping closer into my space. Mere inches separated us but they might as well have been miles. I threw chains across my still-rapidly beating heart, locking it away until I could think again.

“No, I- I’d better finish my run,” I muttered in panic. “Thanks though,” I added with no small amount of regret on my part, where it had come from though was a mystery. With a nod of my head in his general direction, I started to jog once again and I forced myself not to look back.

The sounds of my sneakers hitting pavement couldn’t distract me from the memory of his gorgeous face though, or the way he had spoken in such a silky smooth voice. I ran harder, hoping against hope that it had all been a fluke.

A/N: Hello everyone! Welcome back to the fic and I hope you enjoyed this chapter. This took a long time to write for some reason but now that's it's finished I have no idea why I struggled so. From now on I'm going to make chapter outlines though I hate planning my fics because I legit cannot deal with my unorganized self. In any case, what did you guys like about this chapter, was there anything that you want to happen next? Let me know down below and remember to COMMENT, UPVOTE and SUBSCRIBE for more content. Much love as always guys, <3!