6 Years Ago

"Hey, Silver?"

"Hmm?"

A storm was rolling in; with lawn chairs set up on the roof of the apartment, Lyra and Silver watched the clouds roll by, towering gray armadas bringing forth uncustomary cool breezes for the summer. Her mother had told them to come in the minute they heard thunder; both had pretended to ignore the low rumbles in the distance. A cloud floated by, resembling some sort of crouched cat with a crooked tail; it piqued Lyra's attention, and for a moment she became engrossed with the sight of it. She felt Silver's curious gaze, and she remembered her question. "Silver, what's it like to have a dad who's always around?"

"Probably the same as always having a mom that's around," he said. He had on a pair of sunglasses he'd borrowed from her, neon yellow cat-eyes that absolutely did not suit his face. "I never knew my mom."

"Yeah. They have to do a lot of everything, I think, when it's just them," Lyra admitted. She stretched a hand up, as if to touch the clouds. "Even when they were together, Mom did everything. Dad was always gone for work."

He peered over at her, and Lyra started giggling. Irritated, he gestured with one hand, the movement brusque. "What? What is it?"

"You look like a bug," she told him. "You're trying to be so serious, but you're like a beetle or something right now."

"Shut up," he ordered, yet he pushed the atrocious sunglasses even further up onto his nose. With far less vitriol, he added, "Before you called me a bug or whatever, I was going to ask why you asked me that."

Lyra shrugged. She now looked at her hands, covered in grime and bandages that indicated a fun, fruitful summer. "Dad's not gonna visit me at all this summer. He and Mom fought on the phone earlier."

"Didn't he do that at Thanksgiving, too?" Silver asked.

"Yeah. It's been a hard year at his job, I think. Mom told me to try to understand, but I don't think she's being understanding. She was really, really mad. That's why I said we should come up here earlier," Lyra said. She stood up and scooted her chair closer to Silver's and lowered her voice. "Don't tell her this ever, but I don't care that Dad isn't coming. After a few days with him I just wanna hang out with my mom and my friends again."

Silver looked at her in surprise. His eyebrows lifted comically behind the neon frames. "Really?"

She nodded. "Yup. I'd rather spend time with Mom or you or any of the neighborhood kids."

"Huh. I bet that would hurt his feelings," Silver remarked, turning away from her. She could almost sense the aura of deviousness rising from him as he added, "You should tell him that."

"Silver! That's so mean!" Lyra gasped, whacking his arm hard.

He whacked her back, not as hard. "Hitting is mean!"

Lyra felt her cheeks start to puff out, but she stopped herself. You look four when you do that, she reminded herself. "You deserved it! I'm not gonna be mean to my dad!"

"Fine! I'll go bully my dad, then!" Silver declared, jumping to his feet.

"Why do either of our parents need to get bullied?!"

Silver was about to retort when a loud clap of thunder sounded. Simultaneously, they both gathered up their lawn chairs and darted for the door. "We'll continue this later but right now I don't wanna die!" Lyra declared.

"It's one little clap of thunder!" Silver retorted.

Once inside the stairwell, which smelled strongly of rust, Lyra turned to him with raised eyebrows. "One little clap of thunder? Dude. You were ahead of me the whole time."

Silver blushed furiously. "Maybe you're just slow."

Lyra wanted to argue, but she simply shrugged and trotted down the stairs. "Whatever you say, Silver."

"I wasn't scared!" He insisted, trotting down after her. "I don't get scared!"

She laughed, in spite of her earlier pensiveness. "If you say so!"

His fiery, puffed-up arguments fell on deaf ears, and Lyra ignored his declarations of fearlessness with purpose. Such was the nature of their friendship, but Lyra also didn't feel nearly as close with any of her other friends.

Back in her apartment, Lyra began to watch the rain started to fall outside, but Lyra felt warm and happy.

He's totally a scaredy cat. But he's my best friend, she decided, watching a raindrop trickle down he window. Stupid Silver.

Present Day

Drip. Drip. Drip.

Lyra woke up to the sound of rain, feather-light and arrhythmic on the roof. Groggy, she peered over at the alarm clock sitting on the night stand, determining that it was before seven in the morning. She groaned and rolled over; she had gotten home no more than a few hours prior and had slept for even less.

As her bleariness subsided, the previous night had flooded back to her. Her stomach twisted, and she rolled onto her back. Lyra watched out the window, barely dampened by the rain, and grumbled, "Stupid, stupid Silver." Realizing she wouldn't get back to sleep as the rain fell harder and faster, she slipped out of bed and decided to start her day.

What was she to do from here? She'd been fixated on Silver and trying to find him for a while now, and he wanted nothing to with her—or if he did, he certainly didn't show it well. Naïve? Really? She thought as she stripped her t-shirt. Plus, if he's going to say that a lot has happened and refuse to tell me what it is, he maybe shouldn't talk to me, anyway.

She grabbed the first shirt and shorts she could find, leaving her slightly mismatched in a mustard yellow peasant blouse and red chino shorts. Lyra left her hair down and ignored its curling mass. Before she even considered what to do with herself, she needed coffee. Heady, heavy, dark roastcoffee…with copious milk and sugar to make its bitterness bearable. Lyra wasn't about to kid herself and pretend as though she could stomach black coffee.

In the kitchen, she was surprised to see her aunt already awake, making eggs in a pan. She rarely was up early; the shop didn't open until eleven. "Lyra, good morning," she said. The wan light, in a kitchen painted in cool blues, made her aunt look pale and sickly.

Lyra raised her eyebrows. "You're up early."

"You, too. You were out quite late," she said. Gesturing to the eggs in her pan, she sighed. "I have craved eggs horribly this entire pregnancy. It's such an American food and far more filling than any breakfast I've ever wanted to eat. Any time I visit your mother, she makes them for me. Not to mention the bacon, too. Now I'm pregnant and eggs are all I want to eat."

Lyra smiled. She settled herself into a seat at the kitchen table. "That's funny. Mom told me she craved granita when she was pregnant with me."

"That had to be a hard find in the states," her aunt remarked. She flipped her eggs and glanced over at Lyra, her eyes questioning. "You look sad this morning. What happened?"

Lyra shrugged. She gazed out onto the street, watching water puddle on awnings. "Silver was not nearly as excited to see me as I was to see him."

"Oh." For a while, the kitchen was quiet, minus the sounds of her scraping eggs onto a plate and her movements. She maneuvered herself carefully into a chair and perched herself on it with her breakfast. Lyra was surprised to feel a hand reach across the table and touch hers. "If it makes you feel better, I wouldn't shut up about how excited I was about your visit over this summer. My friends probably wanted to throttle me over the past couple of months," she said.

Lyra smiled back at her. Her aunt was far too kind. "Thank you."

She settled back in her chair, folding her hands over her protruding belly. "That said, explain to me what happened. I'm surprised he wouldn't be excited to see you, especially if you were close friends."

Lyra recounted the night, continuing as she brewed a pot of coffee, and finishing as she stirred in milk and sugar. She sat back in the chair with her mug, overwarm between her palms. She peered into the creamy brownness. Her face was reflected to her, almost featureless in its opacity. "So that's that. I just felt like he was humoring me."

"Hmm." Her aunt had finished her eggs now. The bowl sat forgotten off to the side, venturing into her uncle's favorite spot at the table. "But he came here to visit you. He could have taken off and never seen you again in a city like this. If he truly didn't want to see you, then he could have avoided you. I think somewhere inside of him, he was happy to see you."

"If he called me naïve in such a rude tone, was he really?" Lyra muttered. She sipped at her coffee and sighed. "What do I do about this? I had become really fixated on the idea of finding him, the minute I saw that red hair a few days ago—"

"You saw him a few days ago?" Her aunt clarified.

"Yeah. I saw red hair, and I became fixated on this idea of meeting him again. It has come up before. But then I caught wind of a 'weird guy' with long red hair in all-black when I was out shopping yesterday and something told me it had to be him for real this time," Lyra remarked. She gazed out the window, at a sleepy street dampened by rain. "I was so excited. Now I'm sad."

Her aunt was silent for a moment. She drummed her fingers on the table, drawing Lyra's attention to her. "I'm getting a thought here, and I want to run it by you. I don't want you to take anything I say in a bad way."

Lyra nodded slowly. "Okay."

"So, when you were hanging out, you said he didn't talk much about himself, right?"

"Right."

"You tried to connect with him by talking about your shared past a bit and about yourself," she said. "I don't think he cares to talk about the past."

Lyra shrugged. "I didn't know what else to do. I felt him slipping away. Like we didn't have common ground."

Her aunt adjusted herself in the chair, the wood groaning as she did so. "You're both different people than you were then, even if he feels that you haven't changed. Tell me one person you know who's the same as they were when they were twelve."

"My friend Ethan, but honestly? He's been a menace from the day he was born," Lyra responded, her tone jovial. She sighed and rubbed at her forehead. "I'm kidding. I don't know anyone who's like what they were when they were twelve."

"Right." Her aunt settled back and combed her hair from her eyes with her fingers. "So, Lyra. I think you may have focused too much on things you once shared. He's clearly uncomfortable with his past, and you may have hit a nerve."

Lyra gazed out the window. Her stomach was uneasy. You may have hit a nerve. Guilt settled in, realizing how uncomfortable she likely had made him last night. "I told him I wouldn't ask about his past."

"But he could tell it was what you wanted to do. Knowing you, you were giving off an air of concern and curiosity, and it made him nervous," her aunt said gently. "I think that if you want to connect with him, you need to not focus on the past. You're different people. Find new common ground if you value him and your former friendship with him. His treatment of you was not considerate, but try and see it from his side."

"What do you think his side is?" Lyra asked, stirring her coffee. "In your opinion."

"Whatever happened between your friendship with him then and your attempt to reconnect now was probably quite difficult. Your probing may not be as welcome, in his eyes," she responded. "You want to try to know Silver again, right?"

Lyra nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

"Then take it slow. If you value his side of things, he may begin to value yours as well." She stood up with a groan and carried her dish to the sink, beginning to wash it. "Also, don't think I'm telling you that you need to heal this person or fix him. But you may have to play by his rules, at least starting off, to get to know him again. Does that make sense?"

"I…think so." Lyra sighed.

Her aunt raised her eyebrows. "What's troubling you?"

"Is it worth it to try to play to him if he was already terrified to see me from the start?" Lyra asked. She stood and paced about the kitchen, her coffee abandoned and steaming alone at the table. "Before I as much as started talking to him tonight, he seemed sad that he'd even met me. As if…" A slow realization dawned on Lyra. She paused in her pacing and braced her palms on the counter, her jaw tight.

"What, Lyra?" her aunt asked, concerned.

Silver's past wasn't just painful to talk about. There were things that he was ashamed of. Why else would it be so awful to talk about? He'd never minced words, even as a child. He was honest about things that had happened in his life, telling her about where he and Giovanni had lived prior to moving to the states. Whatever happened with him had to be awful, she thought, her brow furrowing. Remembering that her aunt had spoken to her, Lyra lifted a shoulder up and down, the movement slight. "I think Silver has things that happened in his past that he's ashamed of. It's just a hunch, but even if he's changed, he was always straightforward. Something happened that not even he is okay with."

"I see," her aunt said, her tone encouraging Lyra's mouth to continue running.

"Like, okay. Just." Lyra huffed a sigh and recollected her thoughts. She gathered her hair into a ponytail in one hand and massaged at the back of her neck with the other. "Silver's never had an awesome life. He told me when we were kids that his dad rarely let them stay somewhere for more than a year. When we were ten or eleven, he told me that he'd never been in any one place as long as he'd been in the states. He told me that he never met his mom, and his dad did little to connect with him. I believe it. When we were friends, he was always at my place and spending time with me and my friends, right? He'd lived so many places already. Florence. London. Barcelona. Places I can't even remember or pronounce. All over Europe and Northern Africa, honestly. But he told me about all of it. He told me when…" she trailed off. "When he trusted me. He doesn't trust me anymore. I have to regain that. Oh, God, how? Where? Where's this guy?"

Lyra's aunt half-chuckled as Lyra's pacing resumed. "You've just had a lot of thoughts and feelings, haven't you?"

"Yeah! I have. God, I want to…" she sighed. "I want him to trust me again. But I think you're right, and I have to do it on his terms."

"Well, you seem to have been lucky to run into him here. I think you'll run into him again before long, huh?" her aunt jibed, her tone gentle.

"I sure fucking hope so," Lyra retorted. She realized how poor her language was and clapped a hand over her mouth, earning laughter from her aunt. "Sorry. Bad habit."

"I wasn't going to judge." Her aunt gestured toward her room. "I'm going to get dressed. You're free to hang out in the shop today. Set your keyboard up down there if you want. With the weather, it'll be slow, but you may not want to go out in it. The rains here are relentless"

Lyra didn't want to practice. Her fingers weren't itching; her feet were. She wanted to run and find Silver again. Where would he even be, though? I didn't think to ask where he worked. I could find him playing violin, but in this rain? I doubt it. Instead of voicing her thoughts, she gave her aunt a rather taut smile and replied, "Sounds like a good idea."

"I know you don't believe that, but thanks for humoring me," her aunt said dryly.

Later in the morning, the rain hadn't ceased, and Lyra was toting her keyboard down into the shop. It was a tiny, dusty space packed wall-to-wall with local oddities and antiques. Her aunt burned incense in it, lending it a swarthy aroma that would oftentimes clog Lyra's nostrils; nonetheless, the shop never seemed to lack for visitors, whether or not the scent was off-putting. Lyra set her keyboard up in a back corner, slightly behind a display of porcelain dolls, and plugged the keyboard into a power strip.

"Do you really need it in Venice?" her mother had asked, as Lyra had feverishly checked the airline's website to see if she was allowed to bring it with her.

"Uh, yes. I can't go without practice for an entire summer before I go to college," Lyra had insisted.

As she tapped middle C now, testing the acoustics of the shop, Lyra almost resented her keyboard. It was rain and cluelessness that kept her in the shop, but it felt like an anchor and a diversion from what was currently bothering her. You have all summer to practice. You should be out finding Silver, she chastised herself. Rain? What rain? She surely could tear across Venice on foot in this downpour!

Thunder clapped. She began her warmups.

Her aunt was settled at the front counter of the shop, paging through a romance novel. Her uncle was somewhere upstairs, his heavy footsteps occasionally punctuating Lyra's playing. The rain drummed against the pavement outside. The sign on the door outside read "OPEN". It all contributed to a feeling of restlessness in Lyra, as she dug through the tote bag she had dragged downstairs to work on a new Chopin.

She began to work on it, playing through it at half the tempo it was supposed to be at. It was sleepier and heavier than it was supposed to sound. Chopin's pieces, in Lyra's opinion, always held an air of melancholy; the slow tempo exaggerated the feeling. I don't think I'll work on this piece for long today, she thought as she paused and marked a crescendo with her pencil. I won't be able to get it up to a speed where it isn't sad.

Not long after she thought that, her aunt requested, "Would you consider playing something more upbeat?"

"I have some Mozart I could work on," Lyra responded.

"Anything other than Mozart? He puts me to sleep," her aunt responded, her tone cheeky.

"Well…" Lyra dug through her bag. "A few Holst transpositions, a few Brahms. Prokofiev. Liszt. Some jazz, the majority of which is Ellington for jazz band auditions—"

"Whatever isn't depressing. Or Mozart," her aunt insisted.

Lyra laughed. "I can figure something out, but you pretty much just shot down Brahms and Prokofiev."

She dug through her music and grew increasingly frustrated. It seemed most of her music was melancholy, written in minor keys with brooding motifs. Lyra finally settled on a contemporary jazz piece, one she had been working on in tiny spurts over the past two years. It reminded her of water droplets rolling down the window—perfect for the dismal weather. She set it up in the stand and ran her fingers through its various scales and modes before setting to work on it.

She played the first chord, hesitant. The sound rang pearly through the shop. Lyra eased into the next chord and grinned as it came out, radiant. She worked through the opening chords and came to more technical playing. Her fingers flipped through syncopated runs, picking up tempo as she went. Her foot tapped as the song's delicate notes dropped through the air rhythmically. "Come la pioggia," she muttered to herself. Like the rain.

She came to the first repeat and circled back to the beginning. Lyra's worries melted away, and she through her energy into it. She emphasized its Latin rhythms with a flourish. She wished she had foot pedals, but this particular keyboard didn't have any. Sacrificing ornamentation for practicality had been a necessity while Lyra toted her belongings through customs. Not to mention anything other than a keyboard with a folding stand would have been cumbersome or banned from even being put on the plane.

Nonetheless, her music bubbled forth and filled the shop with a content aura.

"I like this song. Keep playing it," her aunt called over the music.

"There's plenty of it. The score is fifteen pages with lots of repeats," she responded.

"Whatever that means. I don't read music."

Lyra smiled to herself and hit another repeat.

The morning passed, her mood lighter. She worked almost exclusively on jazz, playing through her Duke Ellington repertoire and through a few cheerier Liszt pieces. The rain continued to fall, but Lyra's spirits had lifted. Whatever would become of her friendship with Silver was not up to her, she was beginning to understand. It takes two to tango, and if he doesn't want to dance, I shouldn't force him to, right? Lyra told herself. If I see him again, I'll put the ball in his court.

Even with that thought process, her feelings about Silver were unsettled. She wanted to find him, but it wasn't up to her to reinitiate anything. The ball is in his court, she reminded herself, but she worried regardless.

The next three days continued in a similar fashion. The rain didn't let up, nor did her unsettled feelings relent. Lyra practiced in the shop, playing through all of her pieces and riffing around, just to pass time. She would head go upstairs and make lunch or run to her aunt's favorite café to grab some of her favorites.

Lyra knew she was on edge more than usual. On the third day, Lyra brought back sausage and cheese crostini. She set the Styrofoam container in front of her aunt on the counter upon returning inside. "It's so damp out," she muttered as she slipped out of her rain jacket.

"June can be pretty rainy," her aunt told her. "I'd like to think all this rain will cool things down, though. It's been far warmer than usual. 28 degrees is almost unheard of in the summer, especially this early."

Lyra pulled up a stool on the other side of the counter and pulled out her purchase. Her aunt raised her eyebrows. "Just a salad?"

"I'm not really hungry. But I figured I should eat something," Lyra remarked.

Her aunt sighed. She bit into a crostino while Lyra poked at the salad. "You know, your mother would lose her appetite over boys, too. Mom always reminded me about that when I'd get into a fight with a boyfriend." She adopted an austere expression, waving her fork around angrily. "'Adrianna, no man is worth that! No man should have that power over you! Eat your bread and drink your wine, child!' We agreed on nothing, but she had a point."

"I'm not in love with him," Lyra clarified. "He just meant a lot to me, and I wish we could get back to where we were."

Her aunt drummed her fingers on the counter. "Is he worth the trouble, though? If you want to reconnect, that's fine. But consider what he said to you and how he said it. It was unkind."

"I just feel that…somewhere under that, he wants to know me again. But I'll respect his decision. If I don't see him in the next few days and have a chat with him, I'll move on," she said, but there was no certainty in her voice. "At least I know he's alive and living somewhere in the world, you know? Even if those are all the answers I get."

"Wise words, but stick to them. I don't want you to waste your time on someone like that if he says those kinds of things and never apologizes," Adrianna said.

"I don't suppose I'd want me to, either," Lyra admitted.

After lunch, the rain seemed to slow and then let up. Lyra watched it as she played through a Mendelssohn piece, her fingers almost robotic in their movements. People began to trickle back onto the walkway in front of the shop again, no longer scurrying in and out of the rain. The clouds were lined silver instead of being dark and heavy like iron, threatening to let the sun come through.

"Look at that. I think it's the end of all this rain. Lyra, now that it's not raining, could you go sweep up out front?" Adrianna requested.

She nodded. "Sure thing."

As Lyra passed the front counter, her aunt handed her the broom handle-first over the counter. She was engrossed in a novel; a large chunk of pages had riffled by since Adrianna had started reading that morning, a sign of a slow day. Lyra opened the door, greeted by a cool breeze. Adrianna was right about the weather cooling off with the rain, she thought. It had been less noticeable when she was darting to and from the café with a piping hot paper bag of crostini under one arm.

Lyra swept in front of the shop. Dirt and mud caked the grout between the cobbles in the sidewalk, which further complicated her job. She groaned and scrubbed at a particular bit of grout. Who would want to enter a shop with a dirty walkway in front of it?

Nonetheless, Lyra tried to attract people who walked by. "Ciao!" she'd greet with a wave. Other foreigners, chiefly Americans, would wave back and greet with a "Hi!" or a poorly pronounced "Ciao!" of their own. Others ignored her and scurried by. An older woman, possibly French by the accent in her returned greeting, gave Lyra a nod and entered the shop.

As Lyra finished her sweeping, she wiped her brow and leaned against the broom. The walkway at least looked better. Silty mud no longer stained the otherwise light cobbles. Nonetheless, the world seemed gray, with a gray sky above and gray and white buildings all around her. On a sunny day, the street was gorgeous, but between Lyra's poor mood and the rain, her surroundings looked sad.

Nonetheless, Lyra noticed a spot she'd missed and resumed her sweeping. How else was it going to get done?

She sensed movement behind her. As it drew closer, she called, "Ciao!" with the hope of drawing in yet another customer.

She heard the footsteps stop, fairly close to her. When the person didn't speak, she huffed and turned around. "Come posso—" Lyra froze.

There stood Silver, in black slacks and a white button-down, untucked with the sleeves rolled up. He had said he worked at a café, right? Maybe that was his uniform. His hair was tucked sloppily into a low ponytail, and his eyes were guarded. Lyra felt her stomach tighten into a knot, and she swallowed hard, avoiding his pale, silvery gaze. "Silver," she acknowledged frostily.

"Yeah. Hi," he said, in uncertain English. He scratched at his neck with an air of awkwardness. "Do you…do you have a second? I need to talk to you," he said.

Lyra nodded slowly, brushing an errant tress behind her ear. She felt herself burning; why was this so awkward? Why was his being here so awkward when there were two possible outcomes that she was ready for? "Um, yeah. Somewhere more private, though?"

She led him through the shop. Her aunt made a bizarre face when she Silver and mouthed, "Is that him?" Lyra shot her a quick nod. She felt sweaty, her hands clammy, almost as though she was experiencing performance anxiety.

Up in the apartment, she unlocked the door to the balcony and stepped out. "Out here," she said to him, still unable to meet his gaze. The balcony was barely large enough to hold two café-style chairs. A planter box hung over the railing, full of trailing vines popping with colorful flowers. Lyra sat in one chair and watched Silver perch himself in the other. He seemed rigid, uncomfortable.

I think he knows he messed up, she thought, watching his pale, lightly freckled hands latch onto the arms of the chair with an iron grip. I can't tell what he's going to say.

Silver cleared his throat, which made Lyra jump a little bit. "Sorry," he said, and then sighed. "For a lot of things. Not just that."

Lyra looked at him. His face was creased deeply with some burden, his eyes dead. Silver continued, "I want you to hear me out before you say anything, okay? I hurt you. I know I hurt you. Your face said it. It still says it. And…I meant it, at that moment. I meant every word of it, and I hate that. I'm sorry I said what I said."

Lyra's stomach felt knotted, and she shuffled in her chair. She peered at him, unsure of what to say. He shifted his weight before continuing, "I don't know what to do."

"About what?" Lyra said, her throat dry.

"You," he admitted. He wasn't looking at her. Her heart hurt. "I never expected to see you again. I didn't think I should ever see you again. But knowing you were looking for me and worried about me made me think about a lot of things."

He sighed and swiped his hand across his jaw. Lyra saw dots of stubble along his jawline. "I'm sorry that I've never reached out. You said you searched for me, and it wasn't successful. I've looked you up before, too. Your Facebook is really public, just for your information," he added, his mouth quirking. "You were doing okay, and I've…I've been through Hell, honestly. I don't know what else to call it. Even if I reached out, what did we have in common anymore? What were we?"

Lyra felt anger stirring within her. He had looked her up and had never tried to message her? To let her know he was okay? She gritted her teeth, which Silver noticed. He sighed. "I can tell you're pissed, and you should be. I just…thought it was the best."

"I definitely don't think so," Lyra growled. Noticing his expression, she sighed. "Okay, I said I'd hear you out. So keep talking if you have something to say."

He sighed. "Last time I looked you up, I was…at a library. I wasn't at home, because I didn't have a home then."

"Are you saying you were homeless?" Lyra interrupted, frowning.

He nodded, the motion slow. "Yeah. It was two years ago."

"I'm sorry I keep interrupting, but why were you homeless? What did your father do?" she questioned.

Silver's eyes flashed. "Stop interrupting or I won't keep talking."

"I apologized for it," she muttered.

He settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. Silver peered over the balcony as he said, "In your pictures, you looked happy. Your posts were happy. I wasn't happy. I'm still not happy. I didn't want to intrude on your happiness. I was homeless and angry. I prayed that you had forgotten about me, but I guess that wasn't the case."

He sighed and dropped his head into his hands. "I'm so sorry. I shouldn't even be saying this. This is too much to tell other people. It's lame."

Lyra regarded him. What was she to do? Embrace him? Slap him and kick him out? Lyra's emotions were a confusing swirl. She looked at the palms of her hands, as though she had written notes on how to deal with this situation, and sighed. "I don't know what to say. I came into this ready to say a lot of things, but I don't think I was expecting any of that. If anything, I don't think I expected to see you here at all."

"I didn't know if I was going to even say anything. I walked up to the shop, and you were already there. Your back was to me. I could've kept walking," he said, into his hands, "but I didn't."

"No, you didn't," she agreed. Lyra sighed and gazed out over the street. At least people were out and about it again, after the rain. "Silver, what are you trying to accomplish here? I don't know why you're here."

He finally looked up out of his hands. His eyes were dry, but his face was contorted with dull pain, a hopelessness that pervaded his features. "I don't know. I just…" he sighed and shook his head. "Fuck it. I missed you. I missed you every day since Giovanni dragged me out of that apartment without warning. I wished I was in your apartment with you and your mom, with her worrying about how skinny I am and you telling me I was really bad at violin. Because I was. I'm still not that great," he paused, and he finally met her gaze. "I know you've missed me, but I don't know if you want to know me now. I don't know that you want to know who I am these days. I'm a loser."

Lyra felt her throat tighten. For the second time in a week, her eyes started tearing up. She rubbed at them with the heels of her palm, groaning. "You're still like the dumbest person I know, you know that?"

"Why are you crying? I'm sorry—" he started to say, but Lyra waved her hand.

"You better not be lying, because I feel really bad about everything right now," she explained. "You don't have to explain everything to me now, but be honest with me about two things."

"What?" he asked.

Lyra lifted one finger. "Are you homeless right now?"

Silver shook his head. "No."

"Okay. Good." She lifted another finger. "Will you try to be my friend again? Because I really missed you, too, dammit."

His mouth twitched slightly. "Yeah," he replied, some of the tension in his face releasing.

She folded both fingers down and set her hands in her lap. A smile touched her lips. "That makes me happy to hear. I won't push anything. You…you tell me what you want to tell me. On your own terms. We don't even have to talk about the past if you don't want to. We can just pretend we're two strangers who somehow ran into each other in Venice and had a spark of friendship or whatever," she said, extending her hand.

Silver gazed at her hand, hesitant. "I agree to all of that, but on one condition."

"Which is?" Lyra prompted.

His eyes flicked up to her. "I'm still Silver. We're not using my birth name. Ever."

"No problem to me. Calling you your dad's name is weird, anyway," she said.

He rolled his eyes and took her hand, giving it a shake. His palms felt clammy, as though he'd been sweating for hours before this conversation. "Hey, he at least called me Gianni."

Lyra gave him a lop-sided, shit-eating grin. "Which is super lame."

"It's considered a very masculine name around these parts," he retorted. "What kind of name is Lyra?"

"Not sure, but it sounds British or something," she retorted. After a moment, she frowned. "What motivated you to come here? "

Silver's faint smile became a grimace. He covered his face with his arm and made an unconvincing coughing noise. Lyra realized he was covering up the red spreading across his features. "It was all me. Don't even suggest that someone could have said something—"

"Oh, so it was somebody!" Lyra remarked, voice snide with triumph. She leaned forward. "A friend?"

He waved a hand around. "Why the fuck are you so nosy?!" Unable to deter suspicion, Silver groaned. "Okay, it was my boss. The guy who owns the café I work at."

"I guess I'll have to thank him if I ever meet him," Lyra remarked with a grin. She settled back in her chair, feeling relief flood through her veins. It almost felt like well-earned exhaustion after a long shift or an intense performance, heavy but somehow satisfying. "So, what are you up to the rest of today?"

"Well, I was going to go play for a while," Silver said. "You know, for cash."

Lyra drummed her fingers against the arm of her chair. "Can I come with? I want to hear you play."

His face started growing red, covered up with yet another fake cough. "Uh. I'm probably not as good a violin player as you are a piano player."

"I'll play for you afterwards, back here in the shop. I'll show you what I'm working on. I'll…" she trailed off. "I'll even throw in…I don't know, are you still a really big gelato fan?"

His eyes flashed, but he looked off. "Maybe."

"Okay, two scoops wherever. Your pick of place," she said.

"Fine, okay. But don't make fun of my playing! I'm not the best, but I wish I was," he commented as he stood up. Lyra followed suit. "Come on. Prime violin hours are soon and I don't want my spot to get taken by that fucking juggler."

"Juggler?" she asked as she led him out of the shop. She waved to her aunt, who seemed bemused by the dialogue between her niece and the redheaded boy leaving her shop. She mouthed "back in a bit!" to her aunt before trotting to catch up with Silver.

"He's some English guy named Irwin. Hate him. He creeps on the girls and scares away listeners."

Lyra listened to him talk with a smile. This feels like how things should be. He's opening up to me again. It made the awkwardness worth it, even if it was only for a moment. Silver still looked tired. His body was filled with tension and sadness, but Lyra was hopeful. Maybe we'll be friends like before. But different this time, she reminded herself. We're different people.

She prayed it would work out, somehow.

A/N: aaaaand part two of the double update. I have no new written material for this fic now. I have no idea when I'll update this again, and I'll make no guarantees about when/where/how.

Anyway, can't help but drag Irwin a lil bit. I was replaying SoulSilver over the summer (long time ago now lol) and was so sick of his constant phone calls. He's honestly worse than Joey. At least Joey's a good meme.

Writing for this ship kind of makes me feel like I'm 15 again. I'm turning 21 in a little over two months, which...is a big difference from 15. It's kind of a nice feeling, kind of bittersweet. Especially seeing how much the fandom has dwindled for this pairing, really.

I don't have much more to say. I've also been writing for Fire Emblem and have a fic with no shipping involved in it outlined and a quick Shurrin ficlet that I really should update as well. It's been a while. I also have novel drafts that haven't gotten much attention. College is...a lot. I have a lot of ideas but not all that much time to pursue them.

Until next update, take care. I'm hoping I'll have another one before the year is out, but we'll see.

Sincerely,

Mars