Some patterns are hard to break.
The pattern was simple: I attracted men who left. Drew had left when I couldn't give him children. Miles had left fifteen years ago when his future didn't have room for me. The common denominator in both equations was me.
"Stop it," I said firmly to the empty room. "You're being ridiculous."
But the anxiety-fueled thoughts didn’t listen. They never did.
By Friday, I'd convinced myself of the worst theory of all: Miles was leaving. Packing up his parents' house, listing it with a realtor, driving out of Riverside without a backward glance. Our coffee date had been his goodbye, a final, cowardly farewell he hadn't had the decency to name.
He was abandoning me. Again.
Just like before. Just like always.
I hated myself for thinking it. For falling back into the same mental trap, for proving my mother right with every anxious glance at my phone. I was a competent ER nurse. I held lives in my hands and made split-second decisions that mattered. I comforted grieving families and steadied shaking hands.
And here I was, completely unraveled by a man who hadn't sent a text message.
"Pathetic," I muttered, dropping onto my couch. "Truly, genuinely pathetic."
The rational part of my brain was screaming at me to stop. To breathe. To consider other explanations.
But the irrational part, the part that had apparently been running the show for seven days now, just kept replaying that coffee date. The way he'd pulled his hand away when the phone rang. The shuttered look in his eyes when he came back inside.The deliberate step backward in the parking lot, like he was forcing distance between us.
I'll call you, he'd said.
He hadn't.
Saturday morning arrived gray and damp, matching my mood perfectly. I'd slept maybe four hours, my dreams full of ringing phones and doors closing. I couldn't stand my own company anymore. I needed intervention. I needed perspective.
I needed Beth.
The bell above the door of Montgomery's Books jingled its familiar welcome. The smell hit me immediately: Old paper, new ink, and Beth's perpetually brewing coffee. It was the scent of every good memory I had of this town.
Beth emerged from behind a towering stack of new arrivals, reading glasses perched on her head. She took one look at my face and set down her books with a decisive thump.
"Okay," she said. "You look like you've been fighting a ghost and losing. Back room. Now."
I followed her past the fantasy section, through the beaded curtain, into the cluttered sanctuary she called an office. Two worn armchairs, a desk buried in invoices, and a space heater that had seen better decades. She poured two mugs of coffee and pressed one into my hands.
"Sit," she commanded. "Spill."
I sank into the armchair, the familiar warmth seeping into my cold fingers. For a moment, I just stared into the dark liquid, gathering the scattered pieces of my humiliation.
"It's Miles," I finally said.
"I figured." Beth settled into the opposite chair, tucking her feet underneath her. "Start from the beginning. The reunion. Tell me everything."
So I did. I told her about every little detail; the way our eyes met across the gymnasium, the hours of conversation that feltlike minutes, the cold bleachers and warm memories. The coffee date that started perfectly and ended with walls.
"It felt like coming home," I said, my voice cracking slightly. "To a home I didn't know I was missing."
Beth nodded slowly. "I saw you two at the reunion. It was like the rest of the gym ceased to exist. Kind of beautiful, in a gross romantic way."
"Then why hasn't he called?" The question came out sharper than I intended. "It's been a week, Beth. A whole week. Nothing. Not even a text saying 'hey, busy, talk soon.' Just... silence."
"What do you think it means?"
"I think—" I stopped, swallowed. "I think he changed his mind. Realized I wasn't worth the complication. Or he met someone else. Or he's leaving town, and our coffee was his pathetic way of saying goodbye without actually saying it."
