Then I’m back. Alone, shivering, just another shape in the dark.
The world keeps going. A van delivers bagels to the university, a kid in a puffy jacket scuttles past on a scooter, eyes glued to his phone. I want to grab him, ask him who I am, but I just watch him zoom past.
A coffee shop on the corner is open, the windows fogged, the smell of roasted beans and yeast heavy in the air. I think about going in, just to thaw out, but my stomach turns at the thought of the light, the crowds, the noise.
Instead, I duck into an alley, lean against the brick, and let myself cry for a minute.
It’s not loud, not even messy. Just tears leaking down my frozen cheeks, the kind of crying you do when you know no one’s going to hear you.
I wipe my nose on my sleeve, stand up straight, and keep walking.
As the sky gets lighter,the city fills. More cars, more noise, more people. The sidewalks start to buzz with students, parents dragging half-awake kids, packs of men in high-visibility vests, smoking and laughing and yelling at each other over the whine of machinery.
It should make me feel less alone. It doesn’t.
The world feels like a zoo, every window and bus shelter a cage with some other animal behind the glass.
My head hurts. My teeth hurt. Every sound is too loud.
A bike messenger almost runs me down at an intersection.
I walk the city for hours, aimless, hungry for the ache of my own muscles and the cold that creeps under my borrowed sweatshirt. Who am I? Where am I going? I know that I’m Tara Monroe, but I don’t know who this woman is. Yet the world is different today—each face on the street another ghost, every window reflecting a stranger that could be me. I can’t go back to the penthouse, not now. I’m not sure I’d survive another confession, another hour of Hunter’s blue eyes flashing as his big body comforts me. It would only make things more confusing at this point because who is he making love to? Daisy or Tara?
So I keep moving, thinking if I walk long enough, I’ll find who I am.
It almost works.
The city hums, sidewalks are slick with last night’s rain. My feet take me places I don’t remember knowing—down Nicollet, past the library, across that weird pedestrian mall with the bronze statues of businessmen. Somewhere around the music hall, I lose the will to even count my steps. My body is empty, but my brain won’t shut up: Tara, Tara, Tara. The name rings in my skull, making everything else sound hollow.
After a while, my stomach grumbles for food. I ignore it. It’s just another voice in the din. Instead, I find myself at a crosswalk, waiting for the light, and see it: The Daisy Cafe.
It’s smaller than I imagined. Blue awning, a neon daisy in the window, the sidewalk black with old gum and cigarette scars. But it’s real. And I know—like, bone-deep know—that I’ve been here before. Didn’t Hunter say that I named myself after this cafe? That I used to work here, and that in a haze of confusion, I took its name as my own?
Across the street, I stop, balancing on the curb, and stare through the glass.
Inside, there are three baristas: one tall, one short, and one with pink hair pulled up in two buns, like mouse ears. Their green aprons look like a parody of Starbucks, but the vibe is way more chill. The tall one grinds beans, laughing with the short girl, while the pink-haired one wipes down a table, glancing up at the door every few seconds as if she’s waiting for someone important.
Customers drift in and out, city people clutching laptops and toddlers, a few suit-jackets, a flock of joggers in matching leggings. The hum of conversation makes the place look warmer than it probably is.
But it’s not the sight that hits me.
It’s the smell.
Even from across the street, I can taste the burnt coffee—rich, sweet, a little floral, a lot like the syrup in Hunter’s fridge. The aroma makes me dizzy, and I clutch a lamppost to stay upright.
A memory slams into me, all at once:
I’m behind the counter, wearing that same green apron. My name tag says “Tara” in puffy, blue bubble letters. There’s a line at the register and I’m laughing, actually laughing, because aguy in a beanie just tried to tip me with a scratch-off ticket and a half-eaten muffin. The pink-haired girl is there, too, but she looks different—younger, maybe, and her face is rounder. She bumps my hip, calls me “hustler,” and I giggle. I’m happy. I’m normal.
The memory is so sharp it makes my eyes water.
I press my forehead to the cold glass and will myself not to cry, not here.
But then something even weirder happens. The pink-haired girl inside looks up and spots me.
She freezes.
For a second, I think I’m invisible. But then she drops the rag and walks straight to the window. She’s looking right at me. Like she’s seen a ghost.
