“I know.”She winks.“Now please go change.We don’t want you scaring the customers.”
I change into my jeans and black v-neck sweater.Feeling gritty and rumpled, I freshen up in the staff washroom, feeling passably professional.I tie my hair back into a slick ponytail and plunge into the workday, grateful for the distraction of familiar tasks.
The café hums with its usual Monday rhythm.Commuters grabbing coffees to go.Regulars settling in with their laptops.I move through the motions.Take orders.Brew coffee.Steam milk.Wipe counter.
My hands work automatically.My mind is miles away.
Stuck in a loop.
Matthew’s face.
The way he flinched when I compared him to James.
The shutters slamming down in his eyes.
The tremor in his hand.
Don’t you ever compare me to him.
The pain in his voice.
His final, clipped dismissal.
You don’t have time for this.Neither do I.
Gone.
I nearly overflow a latte, catching it just in time.
I give a customer the wrong change, fumbling an apology while my cheeks burn under their patient gaze.
I’m functioning, but barely.
Every moment between orders, my thoughts snap back to him.
To our fight.
To the terrifying feeling that I’ve ruined the only good thing I had.That I took his unconditional kindness and threw it back in his face.
As the morning wears on, the need to reach out, to apologize, to gauge the damage, grows into a suffocating ache.
Calling Matthew feels impossible.
What would I even say?
Hearing his voice so dry and distant might just break me again.
But the silence is its own kind of torture.
Hours pass in a blur of forced normalcy.By the time a lull arrives in the middle of the afternoon, I find myself staring into nothingness.
My heart pounds against my ribs.
Now.
If I’m going to do it, it has to be now.
My hand trembles as I slide my phone from my back pocket, keeping it low behind the counter.I scroll quickly to his number, digits still unsaved, stark against the white background.My thumb hovers over the screen.
