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The town was nestled between snow-capped mountains and waterfalls. It was a quiet and isolated place, as if it guarded a treasure, or some cherished secret.
Michael Wheeler, a traveling writer, found it accidentally. He had been driving the ring road north of nowhere, following a pencil-thin line on a paper map he’d bought at the airport. The place wasn’t even named on the map, just a handwritten note in the margin from some other traveler: twin waterfalls - worth stopping.
So he did. He took it as a sign, following the little (and sometimes very painfully obvious) nudges the universe liked to send his way. So far, it had not let him astray. After all, shortly after graduating college, Mike signed a book deal with a publishing house for a young adult fantasy series. At the time, he had not anticipated how popular Strange Tales would become; it became an overnight success and of course, that came with pressure to steadily produce story after story... So, Mike began to travel, sending postcards to his friends and family back in America from random towns every other month as proof of life. He gained inspiration from places he visited, from people he met, and often wrote it into his fiction.
What, he wondered, awaited him at Tvíburafoss?
The café was a wooden building with fogged windows. Mike ducked inside, shook rain from his jacket, and chose a table near the window out of habit. He always chose a window seat, always at the edge of a place if he could help it. His bulky laptop thunked onto the table beside a notebook full of crossed-out endings. Mike was about three chapters from finishing his new novel and was terrified of the last sentence: The mage was forever lost.
The bell above the door chimed.
Mike pushed up his glasses on his face, looking up without thinking, and immediately froze.
She came in with a dog. That was the first thing he noticed: a sandy-colored Icelandic Sheepdog with bright, intelligent eyes and a tail that wagged like punctuation. The second thing was her coat: green, oversized, worn soft at the elbows. The third thing was the way she held herself: careful, like someone who had learned long ago not to take up too much space.
She turned slightly, and the light from the window caught her face.
Mike’s chest tightened.
The woman spoke quietly to the cashier, her accent careful but practiced. “I brought cookies today,” she said, placing a small tin on the counter. “For bread?”
The barista laughed. “You always win that trade, LJ.”
LJ. The name landed somewhere deep and strange inside Mike.
Mike watched as the tin was opened: jam thumbprints, homemade and perfectly imperfect. She accepted a loaf wrapped in paper, nodded her thanks, and bent to scratch her dog behind the ears.
“Kal,” she murmured to the pet. “Patience.”
She turned, glanced briefly around the café and Mike found himself holding his breath. Her eyes passed over him, without any recognition, shock, or interest. No crack in the world.
The bell chimed again as she left, the rain outside swallowing her whole.
Mike sat there long after his coffee arrived, hands wrapped around the mug, heart doing something it hadn’t done in ten years. 'It can’t be her,' he told himself.
And yet...
He hiked to the waterfalls that afternoon, boots sinking into wet moss, the sound of water growing louder with every step. When he reached them, they split the mountain like a deliberate choice: two white ribbons falling side by side into a basin of mist.
Twin Falls.
Mike sat on a rock and opened his notebook. He tried to write. Instead, he drew the eyes of a person he still dreamed about.
He stayed longer than planned. A week turned into two, then quickly became four.
The town was small enough that patterns emerged quickly. LJ came to the café every few days, sometimes with Kal, sometimes alone, but always early, exchanging something she’d baked for bread or milk. She never lingered. She smiled, nodded, and left.
Mike learned her name from the barista.
“Leia Jean Hivers,” she said, wiping the counter. “But everyone calls her LJ. She works up at the farm past the birch grove. She likes to keep to herself. I mean, we all prefer that here.”
“Is she from here?” Mike asked, carefully.
The response came with a shrug. “Why does it matter?”
Their first words to each other happened towards the end of his first month’s stay. Mike was at the long table near the window, laptop open, fingers stalled above the keys. LJ stepped inside with a basket balanced on her hip, Kal shaking rain everywhere.
The dog beelined straight for Mike.
“Hey there, hi,” Mike laughed as Kal shoved a wet nose into his knee.
“I’m sorry,” LJ said quickly, hurrying over. “She likes writers.”
Mike blinked. “She does?”
She nodded, solemn. “She steals my notebooks. Likes to chew them up from time to time.”
Something loosened in his chest. “It’s okay,” Mike smiled. “I like dogs.”
Kal sat by Mike’s foot, victorious.
“I’m Mike,” he added, before he could stop himself, getting up from his seat to offer his hand. "Michael Wheeler. But call me Mike."
“LJ,” she said, accepting his handshake. A pause followed and they stood there, the air humming with all the things unsaid.
“So, you’re not from around here,” she said finally. Her smile was small. “What brings you to these parts?”
He swallowed, finding his voice to say, “I would say cosmic nudges from the universe.”
She tilted her head, considering him. Then, the cafe owner cleared her throat loudly, and LJ remembered the basket in her hands.
“Another trade today?” she said, turning towards the owner.
Mike watched her at the counter, the careful way she moved, the way she tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. It was the same gesture, exactly the same.
After that, they began to talk. Not about the past, never that. They spoke about the weather, surrounding trails, books, horticulture... Mike told her he wrote fantasy and science fiction for teenagers.
She liked that. “Stories where people survive impossible things,” she said once, handing him a still-warm muffin. “I like those. It’s… hopeful.”
They walked sometimes, short distances, with Kal between them like a living buffer. Mike learned she pressed flowers and kept them in thick books, labeling them by date instead of name.
“Names change,” she said. “Dates don’t.”
At night, Mike wrote like he was being chased. His ending began to form; it was not about monsters or worlds ending, but about choosing peace.
The truth came quietly, the way snow does. They were at the falls, mist clinging to their clothes while Kal rested nearby like a guardian.
“You know,” Mike said, staring at the water, “I used to know someone who looked like you.”
LJ went still.
“She was and is so important to me,” he continued. “Didn’t talk very much but she was caring... and stronger than anyone I’ve ever met.”
The space between them felt fragile as glass.
“She disappeared,” he said. “But I never stopped looking. Or hoping.”
LJ closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were wet but steady.
Mike turned to her, heart pounding. “El?” he whispered.
No one had said that name aloud in more than ten years.
She nodded slowly, as if scared of the consequence. She laughed then, a breathy, disbelieving sound, and cried into his chest like she’d been holding it in for a decade. Mike held her as they both cried, hanging on tightly to each other, and never wanting to let go.
The cottage smelled like bread and honey. She stood at the small wooden counter, sleeves pushed up, flour dusting her fingers. Outside, the late afternoon light turned the fields silver. Kal lay near the door, half-asleep, one ear twitching every time Mike shifted his weight.
Mike leaned against the table, watching her like he was afraid she might vanish if he blinked.
“Not much happens here,” she said quietly, not turning around. “You don’t have to stay. I -”
“I want to,” he said.
She nodded, as if she’d expected that answer but was still learning how to accept it. He knew she wondered if ten years was a safe enough distance, that she worried for his safety and happiness. She slid the loaf into the oven and wiped her hands on a towel. When she turned, she startled slightly and found Mike was closer than before.
It was tentative at first, her hand curling into his shirt, like she was checking whether he was solid, still in front of her, breathing, alive, and whole. Mike didn’t move, didn’t rush her. When she finally leaned in, the kiss was gentle and unsure, tasting like flour and patience.
When they pulled away, Mike said the words that were too painful to say when she disappeared all those years ago. "I love you."
In time, before the change of seasons, Mike finished his book. The last line felt right and profoundly happy.
He didn't leave because he chose the ending he had always wanted and wished for them: living in a home that was theirs and theirs alone. They baked together, wrote little love notes, read to each other in the still evenings, and discovered new trails in the area. LJ - formerly Jane, Eleven, El - learned that love isn't always a battle ending in destruction or separation… sometimes, love stays like a well-kept promise.
At night, Kal slumbers beside them, and the world blessedly quiet. No monsters, no labs, no running, only warmth and time, and a dog who loved them both through their new chapter together.
Twin falls, side by side.