No one believed Elias when he said he could hear love.
Not the feeling—he meant the actual frequency of it, like a radio station humming low in his brain. Each person, he claimed, emitted a unique tone when they truly loved someone. Not when they said they loved someone, but when they actually did. Most people’s tones faded over time, or warped. Some never had one to begin with. He said it started after a lightning strike behind his apartment. Everyone figured that’s where his brain short-circuited.
Then one day, in the produce aisle, he heard a frequency he’d never heard before.
It came from a woman standing next to the nectarines. Sharp, constant, and clear. A perfect 432 Hz. It hit him like a chord he’d forgotten he knew. Not only was she in love—she was still in love, and not with an idea, but with someone real.
He watched her pick up a bruised apple, hesitate, and put it back.
“Excuse me,” he said. “You’re in love with someone, aren’t you?”
She blinked. “What?”
“I can hear it.”
She took a step back but didn’t leave. “You’re not wrong,” she said finally. “But he died seven years ago.”
That confused Elias. Frequencies usually faded with grief, like bad radio. But hers was sharp. Unshaken.
“I hear him,” she said, “in songs, mostly. But sometimes in silence too.”
That was when Elias realized it wasn’t her frequency he was hearing. It was his. Still echoing in her. Seven years after he’d gone.
He asked if he could walk her to her car. She said yes.
They didn’t fall in love. That’s not the point.
But for the first time in his life, Elias didn’t feel like a freak.
He felt like a receiver.
