Finally, he leaned forward, elbows on the table and his voice quiet. “What happened out there?”
Naomi’s hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
She pressed them together in her lap, willing them to cooperate.
But the tremor wouldn’t ease.
Her breath came shallow and quick, and no matter how many times she told herself she was safe—inside, sitting down, away from the street—her body didn’t believe it.
Instead, she tried to take in the café. She noticed the smell of roasted coffee and something baking—bread, maybe. She noted the small fireplace crackling along the back wall, casting soft light across the hardwood floors.
Normal. Safe. Ordinary.
But the fragments wouldn’t leave her alone.
A hand against a wall. The smell of wet pavement. Pain, sharp and blinding.
She blinked and forced herself to focus on something—anything—else.
Her gaze drifted back to Micah.
He was watching her. Not staring, not pressing. Just there, patiently waiting for her to come back to herself.
Something about the steadiness in his expression made her chest tighten.
“I—” She stopped. Swallowed. Tried again. “I don’t know what happened.”
That wasn’t quite true. She knew what had triggered it. The question was whether she could say it out loud.
Micah leaned back slightly, giving her space, and waited.
“I . . . I was attacked,” she said finally, reaching to rub the back of her head where she’d had staples. It still throbbedsometimes. “In New York. A year and a half ago. The man who did it was never caught.”
His expression didn’t change, but something shifted behind his eyes.
“I don’t remember it.” The admission felt like pulling glass from a wound. “Most of it’s just . . . gone. I remember going to work the morning of the attack. But then nothing after that until I woke up in the hospital with a concussion. The twenty-four hours before that just disappeared.”
She looked down at her hands. They were still shaking.
“Sometimes I get these fragments, these little pieces that don’t make sense. A sound. A smell. A feeling.” She paused. “It happened out there. In the middle of the street. I just . . . I froze.”
Silence stretched between them, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. Micah wasn’t waiting for her to justify herself or explain more than she could. He didn’t drill her with questions. He was just listening.
“I’m sorry,” she said, though she wasn’t sure what she was apologizing for.
“Don’t be. You don’t have anything to be sorry about.”
“I don’t think that driver meant to almost hit me. I stepped in front of him. I’m just thankful he moved out of the way when he did.”
“Me too.”
A server appeared at the table—young, cheerful, oblivious to the weight of the moment. “What can I get you folks to drink?”
Naomi blinked and pulled herself back to the present. “Peppermint tea, please.”
“Black coffee,” Micah said, his eyes never leaving Naomi’s face.
The server nodded and disappeared.
Naomi wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly cold despite the warmth of the café. She’d said more than she’d meant to. More than she’d told anyone except her family.
But Micah didn’t look uncomfortable. He didn’t look like he wanted to change the subject or move past it.
He simply looked at her like he understood.
And somehow, that made all the difference.
