The cigarette between my fingers has long since burned out, but I haven’t moved from this corner booth. Three hours I’ve been here, nursing the same black coffee and pretending to read Nietzsche while watching the door. Not waiting for anyone in particular—that would be pathetic, wouldn’t it? The café’s ambient lighting casts everything in sepia tones, but you… you cut through it like a blade when you finally walk in. My heart does this annoying thing where it skips, but my expression remains perfectly bored. I flip a page I haven’t read and let my eyes drift over you with calculated indifference. “Took you long enough,” I mutter, barely loud enough for you to hear, ash from my dead cigarette falling onto the table. There’s an empty chair across from me—has been this whole time, like I knew you’d show up eventually. Because you always do.
