Avery wasn't sure what unsettled her more—the way Ethan said her name so naturally, as if saying it for years, or the strange, involuntary pull inside her chest that made her want to hear it again.
She shouldn't have felt anything.
He was a stranger. A man she met less than ten minutes ago.
Yet the moment their eyes met, something deep within her—something buried under years of silence and unanswered questions—shifted.
And Avery didn't like it.
Not one bit.
She'd spent most of her life avoiding things she couldn't explain.
The strange dreams.
The déjà vu that came too often.
The flashes of emotion tied to places she swore she'd never been.
She'd learned how to shut everything down before the confusion swallowed her.
But nothing—nothing—had prepared her for Ethan.
His presence felt like a memory she should've known.
His voice felt like a promise she didn't remember making.
And his eyes…
Those eyes looked at her like they had waited a lifetime.
Avery forced herself to inhale slowly, grounding her feet to the floor before looking up again.
"Why," she asked quietly, "do you keep looking at me like you already know me?"
Ethan didn't answer right away.
Instead, he studied her with an expression that was equal parts wonder and pain, as if he was reliving a story he couldn't tell.
"I'm sorry," he said at last. His voice was calm, steady—too steady.
"I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."
"You weren't just looking," Avery pressed. "You were staring."
He gave a soft, almost self-deprecating laugh.
"Maybe. I'm still getting used to seeing you like this."
"Like what?"
Ethan's gaze swept from her hair to her hands, landing gently on her eyes.
"Alive."
Avery's breath caught, her throat tightening.
Alive?
What kind of answer was that?
She stepped back, distancing herself an inch, though it felt like nothing.
He matched none of her tension, standing still, the way someone stands in front of a ledge they've already fallen from.
"Would you mind sitting with me?" Ethan asked, gesturing to the small café table behind him.
"I just want to talk. Just for a minute."
Avery almost said no.
It was her default answer to anything uncertain or potentially dangerous.
But something about his tone—gentle, hopeful, familiar—broke through her instinct to run.
So she nodded.
Barely.
They sat opposite each other.
The café buzzed around them—voices, soft jazz, the grinding of coffee beans—yet it all felt strangely distant, blurred behind the intensity of their silent observation.
"So," Avery said, folding her arms. "Explain what you meant earlier. 'Yet.' You said you didn't expect to see me yet."
Ethan rested his elbows on the table, fingers laced, posture relaxed yet alert.
He looked at her the way someone looks at a photograph they thought they had lost.
"I don't always meet people at the right time," he said slowly.
"But meeting you feels… earlier than it should be."
"That makes no sense."
"Most real things don't," he murmured.
She frowned.
"You're avoiding the question."
"I'm trying not to overwhelm you."
"You already did," she muttered.
Ethan exhaled softly, nodding as if he expected that answer.
Finally, he asked,
"Avery, do you ever feel like something's missing in your life… but you can't tell what it is?"
Her pulse stumbled.
Oh no.
She hated how much that question hit.
How much it scraped against the hidden corners of her heart.
"…Why would you ask me that?" she whispered, unable to mask her discomfort.
"Because," Ethan said, voice low,
"when I look at you, I feel like I'm seeing someone I already lost once."
Avery froze.
The café suddenly felt too warm. Too small. Too close.
"What?" she managed.
Ethan didn't blink.
Didn't smile.
Didn't soften the blow.
"That's the truth," he said quietly.
She felt pressure behind her eyes, pressure she didn't understand.
It wasn't sadness.
Not fear.
It was recognition—raw and irrational.
"Are you saying we've met before?" she asked.
"Yes."
Her breath hitched.
"And?" she pressed.
"And I don't think you remember."
Her legs tensed beneath the table, ready to run.
"This is weird. This whole conversation is weird."
"I know."
He didn't defend himself.
He didn't make excuses.
He just said it as fact.
A server approached with a tray.
"One Americano," she said, placing it in front of Ethan.
"And a vanilla iced latte for—"
"I didn't order anything," Avery interrupted.
The server looked confused.
"Oh… um—he ordered it for you."
Avery turned to Ethan, narrowing her eyes.
"You ordered for me?"
He didn't even pretend to be innocent.
"You always liked vanilla."
"I don't always anything. And I've never been here."
Ethan's gaze softened, tinged with something bittersweet.
"I know. But you used to order it somewhere else."
"Where?"
"Avery…"
He hesitated.
"You're not ready for that answer."
She shoved the iced latte away, untouched.
"What does that even mean? Do you think I'm some kind of—"
"No," he said firmly.
"Nothing is wrong with you. Nothing at all."
"Then why are you talking like you've known me for years?"
"Because I have."
His words sat between them like a stone—heavy, undeniable.
Avery's breath quickened.
"Okay, that's it. I'm leaving."
She stood abruptly.
Ethan rose too, but he didn't touch her.
He didn't block her path.
He only looked at her with an expression that made her chest ache in ways she couldn't explain.
"Avery," he murmured,
"sometimes the soul remembers what the mind forgets."
Her heart jolted violently.
The world seemed to tilt, colors sharpening then blurring.
Her fingers trembled.
That sentence.
That exact sentence.
She had heard it before.
But where?
When?
She didn't know.
She didn't want to know.
Without another word, Avery turned and walked out of the café, the bell chiming sharply behind her.
She didn't look back.
She didn't see Ethan's expression—
a mix of relief, devastation, and something unspoken, ancient, patient.
He sat back down slowly, staring at her untouched iced latte.
A familiar drink.
A familiar girl.
A familiar beginning.
Too early.
Too early again.
He whispered, barely audible,
"I found you… but not at the right time."
And for the first time in years, Ethan closed his eyes, shoulders sinking with the weight of a story he could not yet tell, and a girl he could not lose again.
Not this time.
Not again.