It was the kind of Wednesday that smelled like wet pavement and forgotten memories. The clouds outside hung heavy, as though the sky itself was reluctant to cry.
She was already there when I walked in. Corner seat. Same scarf. Same stillness.
I told myself I wasn’t looking for her. But I was. Every step toward the café felt like a pull I couldn’t ignore. There were other places for coffee—closer ones, quieter ones—but this had become a ritual. A silent agreement between two strangers to occupy the same air.
Her hands wrapped around the mug like it held something more than warmth. Maybe safety. Maybe sanity. She never drank it. Just held it like a lifeline.
I passed her table. “Bad weather for hot coffee,” I muttered, mostly to break my own silence.
Her eyes rose slowly. Quiet eyes. Watchful. Like she’d been listening to silence for years and still wasn’t sure if it was a gift or a warning.
“Bad weather is perfect for coffee,” she said. No smile. No invitation. Just fact.
She turned back toward the window, and I sat down two tables away—close enough to see her reflection in the glass, far enough not to scare it off.
He spoke without pressing. Without expectation.
That was strange. Most people wanted something. A reaction. A smile. An answer to questions they hadn’t earned the right to ask. But this one? He spoke just to exist near me.
The coffee had gone cold, but my fingers stayed wrapped around the cup. Not for heat—there was no heat anymore—but because it gave my hands something to do other than shake.
A man had once told me I looked most beautiful when I stayed quiet.
That same man had also taught me how to flinch before someone ever raised a hand.
I didn’t come here to meet anyone. I came here to disappear. And yet, here he was. Not forcing his way in, just… noticing me like a person instead of a puzzle.
That alone felt like a miracle.
She came again the next Wednesday. Same time. Same seat. Only this time, her scarf was blue, and her hair wasn’t tucked away like a secret.
I pretended to read, but I couldn’t stop looking up. She noticed. This time, she smiled. Briefly. Carefully. Like someone testing the air for poison.
She got up to leave, and as she passed, her voice was softer than I expected. “You come here often?”
“Not until you did.”
She tilted her head, a ghost of something behind her eyes. Amusement? Caution?
“I like the corner,” she said. “It feels like I’m not being watched.”
But she was being watched. I could see it. In the way her eyes scanned the room every five minutes. In the way her body always faced the door, even when she sat. In how her phone sat screen-down, as if to deny its power.
Someone had made her this way.
He noticed the way I scanned the street. I could tell.
I didn’t mean to let my guard down, not even a little. But he made it easy. His presence didn’t demand space; it offered it. I didn’t need to explain why I was afraid of eye contact or why I flinched at every doorbell.
He didn’t know that I used to come here with someone else. That the window seat used to be his favorite. That I only chose it now because if he ever came looking, I’d see him before he saw me.
He didn’t know I’d blocked five numbers this week alone. That I still answered every No Caller ID, just in case it was him using another phone.
I told myself I wasn’t running.
But running is exactly what I was doing.
The next time, she didn’t just sit at her table. She came to mine.
“Mind if I…?”
“Please.”
We didn’t speak at first. Just sipped coffee like it was a contract.
She smelled like lavender and rain. There was a faded mark near her collarbone, just under the scarf—too round to be natural. I didn’t ask. I wouldn’t.
Eventually, she said, “I’m Amahle.”
“Amahle,” I repeated. “That’s beautiful.”
“It means ‘the beautiful one,’” she said with a short laugh. “Bit ironic, isn’t it?”
She didn’t wait for an answer.
He didn’t flinch at my name. Most people asked if I was from somewhere else. Africa? South America? I hated that question.
He just said it back like he wanted to remember it.
That was enough.
I told him things I hadn’t told anyone in months.
That I used to be someone else—someone cheerful, trusting, stupid.
That I was engaged once. That I stayed too long. That when I finally left, it was with a bag of clothes and a police escort.
I didn’t tell him I still checked my locks three times a night.
I didn’t tell him I slept with a chair under the doorknob.
But I did tell him this:
“I’m still picking up the pieces.”
He didn’t say, “You’ll be okay.” He didn’t say, “He didn’t deserve you.”
He just looked at me and said, “You don’t have to be whole to be here.”
She said she was broken.
But she didn’t look broken.
She looked like someone who’d fought a war and came back not needing to prove anything anymore. Like someone who’d lived through the kind of love that doesn’t leave bruises you can photograph.
Every now and then, her smile would falter—just for a second, like her past tugged at the edges of her peace.
One night, I saw her phone screen light up.
Blocked Number.
She stared at it. Didn’t move.
Then she turned it off, slowly, and pushed it across the table toward me like it might bite her.
“Some ghosts don’t know they’re dead.”
I shouldn’t have come back.
But I did.
The café was quiet. Almost closing. I told myself I’d just sit. Just be near someone who didn’t look at me like I was damaged goods.
Then a car pulled up.
Black. Windows tinted. Same model. Same plate digits. Not exact—but close enough.
My lungs locked. My fingers fumbled for my bag. I left in a rush.
He followed me out. Didn’t ask questions. Just stood there, like a lighthouse waiting for the storm to pass.
I couldn’t look at him.
Not yet.
She left in a blur. No explanation.
I didn’t chase her.
But when I came in the next day, there was a folded napkin on my table.
“He might be watching. I needed to leave before he saw me with you. Please don’t follow me. I’m not ready for you to become a target too.”
That’s when I realized.
This wasn’t just about a bad breakup.
This was about survival.
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