She tried to open the bottle, but the top slipped through her fingers without moving. He took the bottle from her hand and opened it with his thumb and index finger. There was nothing special in the gesture and yet she found it strangely fascinating like a small heroic feat performed specially for her.

but his eyes were too dark for her to make out any spark in them

Separating them were two layers of brick, a few inches of plaster, and nine years of silence.

People took what they wanted, they clutched at coincidences, the few there were, and made a life from them. . . . Choices are made in brief seconds and paid for in the time that remains.

It was strange to find them here, still alive, with their shared bits of past that suddenly counted for nothing.

Twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. If you go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers. You develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly.

Even though he was afraid to admit it, when he was with her it seemed it was worth doing all those normal things that normal people do.