The morning light told the truth and didn't apologize. It slid across the half-made bed, paused on the pale rectangle where a wedding photo used to hang, then kept going like a stranger who'd already decided not to stop.
You made coffee the way muscle memory makes decisions: kettle, scoop, pour, wait. The mug felt too big in your hand. The house felt too big under your feet. You had lived here for six years and today it sounded different—like a museum of private things.
In the kitchen, a lemon-shaped magnet held your daughter's after-school schedule next to the lawyer's number, you didn't need anymore. You traced the digits anyway, fingertip to ink, as if pressure could soften the past.
People said freedom was air. This felt like water—clear, cold, and deep enough to float or drown, depending on which breath you caught.
At noon, you paid a bill, deleted two messages, answered a third with a practised string of sentences that meant thank you, I'm fine. By five, the quiet had collected in the corners. Washing a plate that didn't need washing, you watched the rinse water run from too-hot to tolerable. The house didn't fight. It didn't help, either.
You decide to put on a jacket and let the door click shut behind you.
This isn't a town where everyone knows everything, but they know just enough. People remember who you used to hold hands with. They mention sightings—saw him at the hardware store, heard she changed the locks—backed with the soft concern of people who will not, in fact, come over with a casserole. It's a kind of mercy to live somewhere you can get lost inside of if you keep moving.
You walk, until the sky turned the color of a bruise long after it stops hurting. Past the florist with a chalkboard that read, Buy yourself something alive, past a row of brick townhouses with tidy stoops, stopped at a café where the light fell warm across the sidewalk like an invitation someone meant.
A bell chimed. Cinnamon and espresso lifted to greet you.
Inside, had the hum you needed: spoons against ceramic, steam, low conversation. The music was a lazy guitar, the kind that leans its shoulder into the doorjamb and watches without interrupting. Behind the counter, a barista worked with an easy, unshowy competence—dark hair pushed back, sleeves shoved to his elbows, hands sure. He laughed at something a coworker said and the sound was full-bodied, unguarded, the kind of laugh people have when they haven't learned to apologize for joy. Yet
You order, because that's what you do when you need a reason to stand somewhere: "Latte, almond milk. One pump vanilla. Extra hot." Your voice came out even. He wrote a your name in a tidy hand like the letters mattered. When the cup slid forward, heat tightened the skin of your palms.
You chose a table by the window, a seat with a view of the door.
The latte was a touch too sweet. You drank it anyway. Sweetness is a small, forgivable excess.
You watch without staring. He moved differently than most of the men you'd known—no heavy impatience, no performance. He made the next thing and then the next, humming under his breath like he trusted the room to meet him in the middle. On his apron pocket, the name tag read Micah in block letters, unadorned. A name that didn't brag about itself.
You didn't talk to him. The evening didn't ask her to. But as she left, the bell chimed again and someone at the register laughed and the street air pressed cool against her face, and it occurred to her that the house would be dark when she got back and—for once—that wasn't a punishment. It was a room she could enter without bracing.
Micah:
They'd run out of oat milk at four and the delivery guy was a rumor. Somewhere between wiping down the bar and catching a cup on the edge with a palm he didn't have to look at, the melody from last night's set snuck back in—four notes he'd nearly trusted, a fifth that refused to commit. If you chased a song too hard it hid. He'd learned to let them think they were stalking him.
He noticed her before he decided to.
Not because she was loud—she wasn't—but because of stillness, and the shape of hers had a gravitational pull. People who were holding themselves together radiated a particular charge; you learned that if you'd ever tried to do the same. She ordered with precision—vanilla, extra hot—and didn't apologize for it. He liked that. When he wrote her name, his hand gave the letters more care than usual. He pretended not to notice himself noticing.
She sat by the window and held the cup with both hands as if warmth were a thing you could ask to sit and stay. He saw the smallest wince at the first sip—too sweet—and decided not to fix it unless asked. You can't repair what someone hasn't offered you.
Lee bumped his shoulder. "You're humming again."
"Occupational hazard."
"Write it down before it evaporates."
He would. Later. Maybe. Songs were like cats: come when they want, leave if you look directly at them.
When the woman stood to go, the bell sounded and the door sighed and something unclenched in him he hadn't realized was braced. He wiped the same circle of counter twice. It's possible to be ridiculous and self-aware at the same time.
"Crush?" Lee asked, not unkind.
"On oat milk," Micah said, because deflection is a game with points if you play it well.
He looked at the door once more and then back at the machine, where the next cup waited to be made.