Every story in the Garratyverse carries its own rhythm. Some sweep across decades, reckoning with inherited grief, generational wounds, and the long arc of forgiveness. Comings and Goings: The Art of Being Seen isn’t that kind of story.
It’s smaller. Quieter. But no less true.
This one lives in the hush between songs, the half-step between two people who don’t promise each other anything beyond now. A college party. A shared glance. A record played at midnight. And a choice—not to fall in love, but to stay long enough to matter.
You’ll meet Jim as he was before Reunion. Before he could name what he was afraid of. Before he understood the cost of silence. And you’ll meet Kelly—a character who doesn’t appear again in the timeline, but whose presence shapes him in ways that echo far beyond this night. She arrives gently, offers truth without demand, and leaves without apology. Some people are like that.
If the scenes of intimacy here feel more sensual than previous entries, that’s deliberate—but not gratuitous. I didn’t want to choreograph bodies. I wanted to honor trust. I wanted readers to feel the weight of a forehead kiss, the tremble of a first confession, the courage it takes to stay still and be seen. As Kelly says: “Then it was perfect. You were kind. You were here. That’s what matters.”
Music threads through the story the way memory threads through the soul. From Billy Joel’s “This Night” to Beethoven’s Adagio cantabile to a surprise return of West Side Story, the songs aren’t background—they’re emotional topography. Each note is a breadcrumb. Each melody, a mirror.
This isn’t a story that ends with grand gestures. It ends with a whisper. And maybe that’s why it lingers.
Thanks for listening,
Alex
A Certain Point of View, Too 
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