Veronica continued to sing at her favorite lounge place, but over time one face began to stand out. Even though she would look around and draw all of the bystanders into her performances , her eyes would inevitably end up on a sandy haired man who stared at her in away that made Jona jealous. Over a few months it became obvious that they were together and Jona spent days trying to accept it. She didn't even know he existed, she didn't know that she was sharing so much of herself with a stranger. There was no reason to think she would be alone forever,but in his own fantasies he had seen her together with himself. What followed was a period of time where all the reflective surfaces were moved into drawers in their respective rooms as he tried to deal with the reality around him. The thinly veiled fiction he wrote about the experience would end up the best seller lists for months after, and become a treasured book on many a book shelf. A story about realizing the person you love doesn't even know you exist resonated with millions of people, both young and old.
Jona took time after publishing his second novel to figure out how he was going to proceed with his own life. The main character of his most recent book had decided to go out and find people that would appreciate him rather than moping after their unrequited love and he thought it good advice to give himself. He spent a lot of time in bars and clubs, the loud noise drowning out any songs he didn't want to pay attention to. At home earplugs and headphones kept him from hearing things he did not want to hear and he was able to pretend for a little while that Ronnie did not exist.
During this time he met someone. Silvi worked at a small cafe down the road from his home. Once a week he would stop by after his run and they eventually became familiar with each other enough that she would take her break to talk to him while he drank his coffee. One thing led to another and they began to date, casually at first. Jona realized he was ready to make it something more serious on the day that he invited her in to see his painting studio. She noticed immediately that many of the canvases stacked against the walls had the same woman painted on them and asked about it. For the first time since he was a child he told someone about 'imagining' a girl in a mirror, how his parents had been worried that he was seeing things that didn't exist. He did not tell her that he still saw Veronica, or that he could hear her anytime she was singing. He left it as a person from his imagination. Silvi admitted that she had read his first book and knew immediately that this was Ronnie, the main character. Rather than being weirded out by it Silvi thought it was amazing and spent the whole visit asking about the different paintings and the inspirations behind them.
By the end of the year she moved in.