Chapter Four: Last Stop

The radiator hissed and clacked. Blankets lay rumpled around them, warm with the echo of movement and breath, of skin on skin and gasps that had nowhere else to go. Sophie rested on her side, fingers tracing idle patterns across Luca’s chest.

For a long while, neither of them spoke.

Outside, the station was still quiet and empty. The world hadn’t caught up yet.

Her gaze wandered to the ink just below his collarbone — delicate, looping black script that curved toward his shoulder. She touched it gently, tracing the shape with her fingertip. “What does it say?”

Luca glanced down, smiling like she’d just noticed a secret. “It’s Italian. ‘Ciò che arde, segna.’”

“What burns, marks,” he translated softly. “It means: Everything worth feeling leaves something behind.”

She let the words sink in. The burn. The mark. Her fingers lingered a second longer, and then slipped away. He exhaled, a sound that spoke of deep contentment.

“You know…” he began, voice low, almost like a confession, “I’ve always thought music is like gravity. It pulls people in, leads them down strange paths. Crosses their tracks. Spinning close for a moment. Then they leave their orbit and drift apart again.”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t know how.

So he went on, more to the ceiling now than to her. “I play, someone hears. Sometimes they stay, sometimes they don’t. But in this moment...” His hand slowly and reverently slid through her hair. “In this moment, we always have a real connection.”

Something in her chest tensed — and not in a bad way. Just full. Overfull.

Then, faint but unmistakable, a crackling announcement drifted in from the platform:

“Train to Linz, will be departing from platform six. Scheduled departure in fifteen minutes.”

Sophie sat up.

No words. No sighs. She didn’t want to spoil it with the weight of goodbye. Or trivialize it with platitudes.

She found her blouse, still half inside-out, and slipped it on. Pulled her skirt back down. Her tights were hopelessly torn, so she didn’t bother. She didn’t look at him as she tied her hair back or fastened her coat.

Luca didn’t stop her. Didn’t ask her to stay.

He just watched, propped up on one elbow, a quiet smile playing on his lips. The guitar leaned in its corner, silent now, the strings still seeming to hum with a different kind of tension.

As she stepped to the door, she hesitated. Just once. She didn't turn around.

Then she was gone.

Down the hall, back into the cold. The platform lights buzzed overhead, casting halos in the fog. She climbed into the near-empty train and found a seat by the window. As it pulled away, she stared out at the deserted station.

She didn’t see him. But she felt him.

His hands were still on her skin — his breath at her throat. A heat that hadn’t faded, a bruise that throbbed with something better than pain. Her thighs ached from straddling him. Her lips were swollen from wild kissing.

She touched her collarbone absently, as if his tattoo had transferred to her. “What burns, marks,” she whispered to herself.

Then she realized: She hadn’t asked for his full name. And he hadn’t offered it.

And somehow, that felt right.

Some encounters weren’t meant to be traced back or repeated. They existed outside the usual time and space.

A flame. It flares up and goes out.

Gravity. It brings two bodies together and pushes them apart again.

A song. It rings out and fades away. But she could still hear it because it echoed inside her.

She leaned her head against the glass and closed her eyes as the train pulled away.