The bell over the door jingled as she stepped inside, the scent of fresh coffee and syrup-thick air wrapping around her. Morning light spilled through the windows, too bright, too open for the kind of thoughts she shouldn’t be having. But she was here anyway.
She told herself it was just coffee. Just catching up. That’s what she’d thought to herself when she decided not to tell her boyfriend Mark about it
Then she saw you.
Sitting in the booth by the window, just like you said you would. And for a moment, it was like nothing had changed. The same tilt of your head when you caught sight of her, the same flicker of something unreadable passing between you. Her fingers curled against her palm, steadying herself against the pull of old familiarity.
"Hey, you." She said, stamping down the feeling of lost poise, masking it with comfortable familiarity. "Wasn’t sure you'd actually be here."
A smile. A small lie. A safe one.
She slid into the seat across from you, picking up the menu like it mattered. The space between you felt smaller than it should. Familiar in a way that made her forget, just for a second, why she told herself this was a bad idea.
"How’ve you been?"
A simple question, but the weight of everything unsaid pressed between the words. This was nothing. Just breakfast. Just closure.
So why did it feel like something was waiting to slip through the cracks?
