My voice came out almost as a whisper.
“…then why…”
I gestured toward the hundreds of photographs covering every wall.
“…did you turn all of this…”
“…into this?”
Ethan closed his eyes for one brief moment.
When he opened them again…
I saw equal parts regret…
And fear.
He took a slow breath.
“Because after months of organizing Rose’s archives…”
His eyes met mine.
“…I noticed something that I couldn’t explain.”
Part 3
The shed fell completely silent.
Even Victor stopped talking.
Ethan stood beside the desk, one hand resting on the worn wooden surface, as though he needed its support.
He looked at me.
“After months of sorting through my grandmother’s archives,” he said quietly, “I started noticing something I couldn’t ignore.”
I folded my arms, still trying to steady my breathing.
“What?”
“You kept appearing.”
I frowned.
“I know that.”
“No.” He shook his head. “Not just in the photographs. In the pattern.”
He walked toward one of the walls covered with maps.
“I wasn’t searching for you.”
His finger traced a series of red circles.
“I was cataloging Rose’s work by date and location.”
He tapped the first circle.
“County Fair. Summer of 2001.”
Then another.
“Harvest Festival.”
Another.
“Christmas Parade.”
Another.
“Scholarship luncheon.”
He looked back at me.
“You were in the background of so many public events that I thought it was coincidence.”
Victor gave a dry laugh.
“So naturally you decorated an entire building with her face.”
Ethan ignored him.
“Then I found something else.”
He reached for a framed county map.
Thin strands of red thread connected dozens of locations.
“It wasn’t about you.”
He paused.
“It was about us.”
I stared at him.
“What do you mean?”
He pointed to one red pin.
“You were here.”
Then another.
“I was here.”
The two pins sat barely twenty feet apart.
“We were both children.”
He moved farther down the map.
“You attended the Fourth of July parade.”
His finger slid to another mark.
“I was helping my grandfather unload produce two streets away.”
Another location.
“Your high school graduation banquet.”
Another.
“I delivered flowers to the community center that same afternoon.”
He slowly turned toward me.
“Our lives kept crossing without either of us knowing.”
I looked from the map to the photographs.
My heartbeat had finally begun to slow.
Victor, however, wasn’t finished.
“You’re seriously expecting her to find this romantic?”
“No.”
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