I sat in the airport lounge, catching my reflection in the mirror across from me.
The scent of coffee lingered in the air. The tailored suit clung like a second skin,
its sharp lines echoing the click of my heels. A single piece of jewelry adorned me. 
A ring with a black diamond, glinting like a secret. On the phone, I commanded
my team with a blend of warmth and unrelenting precision, my voice steady, my mind racing.
When the flight was called, I rose with practiced grace, made my way to the gate,
and settled into my first-class seat. A glass of champagne already waiting in the quiet solitude of the cabin.

 

Across the aisle, a man took his seat. Our eyes met briefly; he nodded, and I returned the gesture.
No words passed between us. My fingers danced across the tablet - emails, charts, numbers.
My world of tech humming beneath them. I sighed, the weight of it all pressing in.
He glanced over, a faint smile curving his lips, but he remained silent.

 

Eventually, I set the tablet aside. From my bag, I drew a worn green leather book,
its golden letters faded - no author, no title. Poems, it simply read.
I’d found it years ago in a dusty London bookshop, tucked behind a shelf as if waiting for me.
I opened to the poem that always stirred something deep within.
The one that spoke to the fracture in my soul.

 

He stalks the seam where worlds fray thin,

Bleeds shadows where two skies have bled.

Eyes like wounds, they carve the dark,

each glance a spark, each truth a mark.

Both homes call; their echoes clash,

heart torn in two by starlight’s slash.

He grips the void, feels time’s teeth tear,

a name half-sung in shivering air.

Yet in the rift, where worlds burn bare,

an ember flares - his soul still there,

a light to chase, a vow to mend,

to weave the worlds where breaks don’t end.

 

The words sank into me, heavy with truth; I was also a wanderer, caught between two worlds. 
The corporate layer, sharp and unyielding, and the poet who wandered secret gardens in my dreams,
seeing beyond the veil I kept so carefully hidden.

 

The man’s voice broke the silence, a warm baritone. “You like poems.” It wasn’t a question.
I looked up, meeting his gaze, and nodded. Something in his eyes, deep, knowing,
held me a moment longer than I expected. He smiled, his face softening, almost boyish.
“You live them?” he asked.

 

The question startled me, but my lips moved before I could stop the words.
“Yes, in a way, I do,” I said, my voice warmer than I intended. He nodded, as if he’d known my answer all along.
“Good.” With a mischievous glint, he lifted his own book - black leather, identical to mine except for the color.
I chuckled, surprised. “We share the same taste.”

 

“I’m glad to hear that,” he said, his eyes flicking to my bag, where the tablet’s faint glow betrayed my other life.
“You’re quite the contradiction. I came across your interview once.
You spoke of building systems for connection. And here you are, reading poems.”
His smirk was playful, but his gaze carried weight.

 

I smiled, leaning into the warmth of his observation.
“You figured me out,” I said, my tone light but honest.
“Don’t believe the interviews - they’re all lies, a mask I wear.”

 

His eyes softened. “A mask… or armor?”
The question struck like a blade, piercing the fortress I’d built over years.
My breath caught, a tremor in my voice as I admitted, “Armor.”
For the first time, I felt it crack. No one had ever seen through me like this.

 

“You’re perceptive,” I said, studying him, his tailored coat, the quiet confidence in his posture.
He held my gaze, unflinching.
“I see you.”

Simple, devastating words. I looked away, my chest tight with turmoil.
The armor held, but a piece had fallen, leaving me raw.
Silence stretched between us, saying everything, and nothing.

“You live in the threshold:“ his words deliberate, “the space between.”
I blinked, the words resonating with the poem’s echo. “What do you mean?”
His gaze was steady, warm. “You’re an Antevasin - a wanderer between worlds.”
A smile curved his lips, as if he’d named something I’d always known. I couldn’t speak.
Two selves warred within me: the Warrior Queen, forged in steel, who’d clawed her way to the top.
Witty, cunning, untouchable, a fortress of will.
And within those walls, a quieter self, a lover of poems and roses, soft and caged,
dreaming of a mystical garden where rivers sang truth and words wove reality.
No one knew her. No one.

 

His eyes locked on mine. “You know where you truly live, don’t you?”
My breath hitched. I saw it, the garden, vast and wondrous, where stories bloomed and
truths shimmered like starlight.
“There she is,” he said, his smile radiant. His hand brushed my cheek, soft as a whisper.
“That’s where you wander, Antevasin - here, there, and in between.
Don’t be surprised. Make the threshold yours. I’ll wait on the other side.
I see you. Always.”

 

His voice was a gentle tide, pulling me under.
“Who are you?” I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.
His laugh was warm, resonant. “One who looks for an Antevasin.”
He pressed a kiss to my hand, and the world blurred.

 

I woke with a start, alone in my seat. A flicker of a silhouette in the corner of my eye.
The plane hummed; the cabin was empty. He was gone.
Only the book remained on the seat beside me - black leather,
Antevasin etched in gold, a rose laid across it.
I opened it. On the first page, in a hand both elegant and firm, I read:

 

She walks the seam where light leaks through,

a shadowed crown, a flame subdued.

Her voice is glass - it cuts, it sings,

it carries dawn on broken wings.

She hides her garden, locked in steel,

yet roses bloom where her feet kneel.

I watch, I wait, the threshold’s line,

until her gaze will turn to mine.

Not here, not there, but in between,

the Antevasin, the unseen queen.

 

My breath caught. Every word was me. He had known me all along.
When the plane touched down, I hesitated, then called my team.
“Build it like I said,” I told them, steady now.
“A platform for stories, for those who live between. Call it Antevasin.”

As I ended the call, a whisper brushed my ear, soft as silk over steel: “Always.”
I turned to the glass wall of the terminal. For a heartbeat his reflection stood beside mine.
Then the glass shimmered, no longer barrier, but passage.

I stepped forward. Breath held, the threshold opened.
The garden unfolded in light, rivers singing, roses climbing the air.
And there he was, waiting.