Chapter 7: The Almost Encounter

The mail room always smells faintly of paper and metal, a scent that somehow manages to feel both cold and nostalgic. Usually, it’s a quick in-and-out errand. Today, I lingered. I pretended to read a label on a package shelf, I had my fingers tracing the rows of locked boxes. The hum of the fluorescent lights buzzed like a pulse in my ears.

I shouldn’t be nervous. It’s only mail.

But part of me kept wondering if he’ll be here.

My heart jolts when the door opens behind me.

A quick draft of cooler air slides in, carrying a trace of cologne—something woodsy, subtle, familiar. I didn’t have to look to know. Every sense in me tightened around that scent.

Mark.

I kept my eyes on the little brass numbers in front of me, willing myself to appear calm. The sound of his footsteps approached. They were measured, unhurried. He was whistling under his breath, some tune I can’t place. I told myself to breathe normally. I failed.

The lock on his mailbox clicked open two rows down from mine. Metal scrapes against metal. I glanced sideways, just enough to catch a fragment: the cuff of his shirt, the veins on his wrist, the way his hand moves easily, confidently. I’ve seen that hand a hundred times in passing—carrying keys, lifting groceries, adjusting his watch but never from this close. The small space feels different now, thick with the kind of silence that notices everything. The fluorescent lights hum; an envelope slides from his box and my heartbeat becomes the loudest sound in the room.

I opened my own box and stared at the contents without seeing them. Bills. Flyers. A small package. My fingers shook as I reached inside. Of course they do. They always do when he’s this close.

“Afternoon,” he says, casual, kind.

I froze for half a second before managing to answer. “Hey.”

The word barely makes it past my lips. My voice sounds strange—too soft, too careful.

He turned slightly towards me, smiling the way people do when they share a hallway or an elevator. Polite. Warm. He doesn’t know that the smile means more to me than it ever should.

“It's cold in here,” he adds, tucking a stack of envelopes under his arm.

“Yeah,” I responded. My hands are still inside my mailbox, as if the thin edge of metal could keep me grounded. “Always is.”

He chuckled, low and brief. The sound vibrates somewhere deep in me, catching me off guard. It’s nothing but just a laugh but my body reacts like it’s a secret shared. I want to look at him fully, to see the shape of that sound on his mouth, but I’m afraid that if I do, I won’t look away. Instead, I focus on the small details: the paper crinkle as he folds his mail, the faint scent of coffee on his clothes, the warmth in his voice when he hums again. He moves closer to the trash bin beside me to toss a flyer. For a heartbeat, we stand less than a foot apart. I can feel the heat of his shoulder near mine, and something inside me leans toward it instinctively, like a plant seeking light.

Say something, I tell myself. Anything. But my throat locks around the words. His name sits there, ready, heavy.

Mark.

If I said it now, he’d turn. He’d smile again, maybe ask if we’d met before. The whole fragile barrier between imagination and reality would crack open.

I grip the mail tighter instead. The edges press into my fingers, reminding me that this is real, that I’m standing in a building’s mail room and not in one of the daydreams that have become second nature.

He glances at the parcel in my hands. “You’ve got quite a haul,” he says lightly.

I nod. “Online shopping habit. Dangerous.”

The joke slips out before I can stop it, and he laughs again—a warm, genuine sound that makes my chest ache with relief. For a moment, I feel almost normal. Two neighbors exchanging small talk. Nothing more.

He gestures toward the door with his mail. “After you.”

I step forward, careful not to brush against him, though the temptation to feel the slightest graze of contact nearly overwhelms me. When I reach the hallway, I turn enough to offer a polite smile. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he says. His eyes meet mine then—steady, kind, curious in that casual way people have when they don’t realize they’re being watched so closely. The moment stretches, fragile as glass.

And then he’s gone. He heads toward the elevator, and I stand there holding my breath, watching his reflection blur in the metal doors until they close.

The hallway feels emptier than it should.

I walk back to my apartment slowly, each step echoing louder than the last. The mail crinkles in my hand. I don’t even remember locking my box, but the key’s back in my pocket. My mind replays every detail: the sound of his voice, the tilt of his smile, the faint warmth that lingered in the air between us.

It was nothing.

A hello. A laugh. A shared space. And yet my heart is still racing as if something enormous almost happened and then didn’t. Maybe that’s what makes it worse—the almost.

Back in my apartment, I drop the mail on the counter and lean against the wall. The silence presses in, heavy and expectant. I close my eyes and let the moment replay again and again, until it becomes something softer, almost cinematic: the glow of fluorescent lights, the smell of paper, the hum of closeness, his voice saying Afternoon.

I whisper his name once, barely audible. “Mark.”

The sound steadies me and undoes me all at once.

Maybe I’ll see him again tomorrow. Maybe not. But now there’s a shared thread between us, thin as spider silk, invisible but impossible to ignore. And that thought more than anything he actually said keeps me awake long after the lights go out.