Page 33 of One Last Encore

INGRID. PRESENT

"From the moment I saw you, you looked like the rest of my life. So beautiful, it seemed to crush something within me. And now that I've seen you, how can I possibly look away?"

Letter dated September 2nd, 3 years from the present

It had been two weeks since she had last seen Beck lurking in the hallway, and Ingrid was giving serious thanks to whatever higher power had finally decided to throw her a bone. Just to be safe, she was dodging sidewalk cracks, steering clear of ladders, and chucking salt over her shoulder like she was seasoning her life to taste.

Avoiding black cats was out of the question, though. Freddie would not tolerate that kind of slander.

Normally, she wasn’t superstitious. But lately, she couldn't risk it. Not when her life felt like one giant cosmic prank, and the punchline was named Beck.

If tossing salt could spare her another awkward run-in, or worse, another conversation where her heart did that stupid traitorous flutter, then she would gladly start carrying a salt shaker in her purse.

Her new strategy was simple: leave the apartment before sunrise like a socially awkward vampire, and return after dark like an even more exhausted one. Officially, she blamed the brutal Swan Lake rehearsal schedule. Unofficially, she was straight-up avoiding him. It was not a lifestyle change, it was self-imposed witness protection.

Unfortunately, her ballet instructor had the nerve to care about her health and insisted on mandatory rest days. Which meant she was trapped in her apartment for the next twenty-four hours, pacing, overanalyzing every noise from next door.

By mid-afternoon, she gave up pretending to be productive and attempted to read, but her brain was apparently co-sponsored by intrusive thoughts. No matter how hard she tried to focus, her mind kept rewinding to that hallway encounter.

The way he had looked at her. The way he had stood too close. The way her body had clearly decided to abandon all dignity and operate purely on bad instincts.

Frustrated, she climbed out onto the fire escape in search of some fresh, non-Beck-tainted air. The city below was its usual chaotic self, taxis honking, someone arguing in full volume about the price of a pizza slice, and, for some reason, a guy playing the flute like he was trying to summon a long-lost lover from a past life. For a brief, blissful moment, she thought she might actually be able to clear her head.

And then, jazz music floated through the air. Slow, sultry, the kind that curled around her like a whispered secret. She scowled. The universe clearly had a terrible sense of humor.

Everything, somehow, always circled back to him. Beck had become her private ghost story.

And on certain days, in certain lights, she could almost swear she saw him. Just for a moment, a flash–a familiar tilt of a head in a crowd, a crooked smile breaking across a stranger’s face, a voice behind her that made her spin far too quickly, heart leaping before reality pulled it back down.

But it was always just smoke and mirrors, fleeting silhouettes that vanished when she looked too hard.

It never really mattered, though, because whether he was three thousand miles away or standing close enough to touch, Beck had never stopped haunting her. Never stopped living in the silent in-betweens, in music, in the memories she could never quite scrub clean.

And then came the knock at the door. She froze. No one knocked. Not unless they were lost, selling something… or Beck.

Slowly, cautiously, she approached the door like it might explode. Peering through the peephole, she saw… nothing. Her brows furrowed. Weird.

Cracking the door open just enough to peek out, she looked down and promptly forgot how to breathe.

A small, white to-go cup sat just outside her door, the wordsLa Maison du Chocolatstamped on the side. Her favorite.

Her stomach twisted as she bent down, fingers brushing the cup. It was still warm.

A part of her wanted to believe it was just a strange coincidence, that maybe a neighbor had misplaced their order. But her name was written in slightly slanted handwriting, with the extra whipped cream she always used to ask for. And the scent alone transported her straight back to that crisp autumnafternoon in Central Park. Beck remembered. And just like that, he wasn’t a ghost from her past anymore. He was flesh and blood, standing in her present.

The warmth of the drink seeped into her fingers. Why? Why had he left it for her?

She stepped back inside, closing the door behind her, and brought the cup to her lips, bracing herself. The first sip was instant nostalgia. A taste wrapped in old memories, in laughter, in a time before things had fallen apart. She closed her eyes, exhaling slowly as the familiar richness settled on her tongue.

It was exactly the same. And that realization hit harder than she was prepared for.

She hadn’t touched hot chocolate in years. It was just another thing she had abandoned in the effort to forget, to separate herself from the life she had once imagined with him. The cozy café near his old apartment had become a reminder of everything she had lost. The quiet streets of the Upper East Side were no longer a refuge, but a shadow of what had been.

With the cup still in hand, she moved to her bed and knelt down, reaching beneath the frame. Her fingers found the edge of an old shoebox, the kind of box that should’ve been full of forgotten junk, not emotional landmines.

For a second, she considered leaving it there. But she didn’t. She lifted the lid and she was met with the remnants of a past she had tried so hard to put away. It was all Beck. It had always been Beck. No one else had ever carved out enough space in her life or her heart to leave something behind.

Right on top, a Polaroid stared up at her. Judging her. Mocking her. Practically whispering,Still not over it, huh?

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