The Night That Felt Different

It’s strange what you end up remembering. Some evenings go by and you forget them before you even fall asleep. Others just stick, for no clear reason. This was one of those nights. The rain had been going for hours, not loud, but steady enough to get into your head. I’d left the window open a little too wide, so the air in the room felt cooler than it should.

He came in from the other room holding a small box. I noticed the words crazy balls live printed on it. Didn’t say anything about it, but the name stayed in my mind straight away. He set it on the table like it was something we’d been waiting for, even if we hadn’t.

There were already a few things on the table. Two mugs, one still warm, the other cold. A half-folded scarf. One of the chairs had a squeak if you moved it too far back — I remember that because I kept hearing it. He sat opposite me, tapped the lid of the box, and didn’t say much else. I shifted my chair a little closer without realizing it until later.

The rain was louder near the window. Every now and then, a car passed outside and you’d hear the tires on wet asphalt. Within the room, a sleeve slid lightly over the table while a chair leg scraped the floor just enough to notice. We started talking, not about the box, just talking. The kind of talk where you start a sentence and don’t bother to finish it.

Somewhere in there, something shifted. Can’t really say when. The space between us felt smaller. I was paying more attention to his hands than to whatever he was doing with them. The pauses between our words got longer. They weren’t awkward pauses — they felt like part of it.

I couldn’t tell you if there was an actual ending to the moment. One second we were still in it, the next it was just… done. Not in a bad way. The candle on the shelf flickered, throwing a shadow across the table that made the room look slightly different, like it wasn’t the same place it had been five minutes earlier.

We didn’t rush to clear things away. When we finally did, it was slow. A small click, the lid settling into place, and the sound of something slipping across the surface. Little noises that somehow sounded louder than the rain outside. He glanced at me before standing up, and it was long enough for me to notice.

Later, when I thought about it, I realised I couldn’t list the order of anything we’d done. What stayed was the rain, the uneven light, the way the air felt heavier. And that name on the box. Crazy balls live. Still there in my head, tied to that night, to all the things we didn’t need to say out loud.