For about a month, the same woman appeared every Friday at sunset, dressed in a full white wedding gown with a veil that brushed the pavement. She would sit on the bench, fold her hands in her lap, and stare at one exact spot across the street. Sometimes she cried, quietly, the kind of crying that didn’t move her shoulders.
People noticed. Of course they did.
“Did you see her again last night?” my upstairs neighbor, Marcus, asked me one morning in the hallway, smiling like we shared a private joke.
“The woman in the dress? Yeah.”
“Crazy bride downstairs,” he chuckled, adjusting the cuffs of his expensive shirt. “Every Friday like clockwork. I keep telling people, just ignore her. She’s not your problem, Daniel.”
I gave a small, uncomfortable laugh because that’s what I always did.
“Probably someone left her at the altar,” he added, shaking his head. “Tragic. But you can’t fix everyone.”
“Right,” I said, even though something inside me flinched.
Marcus clapped my shoulder and walked off, whistling. I stood there a moment longer than I needed to.
Back in my apartment, I sat by the window with my coffee and watched her again. A teenager across the street pointed and laughed. An older couple crossed to the other sidewalk to avoid her. Nobody stopped.
