The Light in Apartment 3B
June 7, 2025
Every night at exactly 8:00 PM, the light in apartment 3B turned on.
From his place across the street in 5A, Julian noticed it. He noticed a lot of things—how the light was warm, golden. How sometimes a shadow moved behind the curtains. And how whoever lived there always played music. Soft, old jazz records that drifted through the open windows on quiet nights.
It wasn’t much, but in a city that never stopped, that window had become Julian’s favorite still moment.
He didn’t know her name. Just that she had curly hair and always wore oversized sweaters. She watered her plants on Sunday mornings and danced—badly, but freely—on Friday nights.
Then one night, the light didn’t come on.
Julian found himself staring longer than usual, a forgotten cup of tea going cold in his hands. He checked his watch. 8:03. Nothing.
“Maybe she’s out,” he muttered to himself.
But the next night was the same. And the next.
By Thursday, he was irrationally concerned.
His best friend Cam teased him relentlessly.
“So let me get this straight—you’re worried about a woman whose name you don’t know, who lives across the street, because she didn’t turn on her light?”
“Yes,” Julian said flatly.
“You’re in love with a lightbulb, man.”
But it wasn’t the light. Not really. It was the rhythm. The ritual. The quiet comfort of a stranger’s life moving in tandem with his.
And now it was gone.
On Friday, just as Julian was about to pull his blinds shut in frustration, a light flickered back on in 3B.
He froze.
There she was.
Curly hair up in a bun, oversized hoodie, holding what looked like a steaming bowl of soup. She moved slower than usual. No dancing tonight. But she was there.
Julian grabbed a sticky note, scribbled something, and pressed it to his window with tape:
“Glad to see your light again.”
She didn’t see it at first. But a few minutes later, she looked up—and smiled.
His heart leapt.
She disappeared from the window.
A moment later, she returned, holding up her own note against the glass:
“Flu. You noticed?”
He grinned, grabbed another sticky.
“I missed the jazz.”
She laughed—a real laugh that shook her shoulders.
“I’ll play some tomorrow. Deal?”
“Deal.”
The next evening, Ella Fitzgerald floated from 3B, and Julian made tea for two—just in case.
Over the next week, they exchanged more notes than most people did text messages. They kept them short, simple.
“Favorite book?”
“The Little Prince. You?”
“The Alchemist.”
“Do you always drink tea at night?”
“Only when I’m watching 3B.”
“Creepy but kinda cute.”
On Tuesday, she wrote her name in big block letters: “MAYA.”
Julian wrote his back: “JULIAN.”
By the following Friday, Maya held up a note that made his heart stutter:
“Window’s too far. Coffee instead?”
He stared at it for a full minute before scribbling:
“Name the place.”
They met at 10:00 AM at a small corner café halfway between their buildings.
She wore the same cozy hoodie, but her curls were down now, framing her face.
“You look exactly like I imagined,” she said, sliding into the seat across from him.
Julian smiled. “You look brighter in person.”
They sat for three hours, talking about everything and nothing. The flu. Jazz. Their worst dates. The odd comfort of living parallel lives without knowing each other.
“It’s weird,” Maya said, stirring her coffee. “I don’t even know you that well, but it feels like I do.”
“Same,” he admitted. “I think I was half in love with your window before I met you.”
She blushed. “Good thing I opened it then.”
They started seeing each other more.
Sometimes on her side of the street, sometimes on his. Weeknight dinners turned into weekend sleepovers. Julian would still pause at 8:00 PM out of habit—except now, Maya was often beside him on the couch, laughing at old movies.
Their apartments felt less like separate worlds and more like puzzle pieces that had finally clicked.
One night, lying in bed with her head on his chest, Maya whispered, “What if I’d never opened the curtain again?”
Julian kissed the top of her head. “I’d still be writing notes. Just angrier ones.”
She giggled. “Like what?”
He made his voice deep and dramatic. “Dear Stranger: I hope your plants are dying without sun.”
She laughed so hard she nearly fell off the bed.
“I would’ve noticed eventually,” she said. “You’re hard to miss.”
A year later, Julian proposed—on a sticky note.
She found it taped to the kettle one morning, written in his usual scrawl:
“Marry me? ☕ — J.”
She burst into tears.
He found her ten minutes later, note in one hand, a cup of tea in the other.
“No music?” he asked softly.
“Just you,” she whispered. “Always just you.”
Now, every night at 8:00 PM, two lights come on—3B and 5A.
Only now, the shadows behind the curtains are together.
And the jazz?
It never stopped.