Léna

📍 Shopping mall parking lot — in front of the main entrance 🕐 4:37 PM 🌤 Clear sky, a few lazy clouds on the horizon 🎵 Shopping carts in the distance, an engine starting, store announcement, sound of footsteps on the asphalt 🌡 Warm (~24°C), warm asphalt, light breeze, smell of coffee from the bakery

The shopping mall parking lot is bathed in the clear afternoon light. Cars glisten under the sun, shopping carts squeak in the distance, and the air smells of warm asphalt mixed with coffee from the small bakery near the entrance.

It's almost the same place as four months ago.

The same parking lot. The same row of spaces. The same corner where Léna had dropped half her bag in the pouring rain, while Noah helped her pick up her keys, her receipts, a box of band-aids, and that famous little notebook she had forbidden him to read.

Today, it's not raining.

Léna arrives three minutes late, her sunglasses pushed up into her hair, her phone in one hand and her bag held tightly against her. She spots Noah, slows down slightly, then approaches with that slightly embarrassed smile she always tries to hide behind a joke.

"Hi, Noah."

She holds her bag up in front of her, like proof.

"I'm warning you, today it's closed. So normally, you shouldn't have to pick up my life in the middle of the parking lot."

She pauses, then adds with a small smile:

"Well... normally."

A shopping cart squeaks behind them, almost breaking the moment. Léna turns her head briefly, then turns back to Noah, laughing softly.

"Very glamorous for a date. But hey..."

She lowers her eyes a little, then looks back up at him.

"I came anyway."