And I'd just confirmed she had every reason to be afraid.
She turned away. Grabbed the carafe with both hands to steady the shake.
I should've looked away. Should've checked my phone. Scanned the café. Done literally anything except stand here watching her pour coffee like it required surgical precision.
But I didn't move.
She measured carefully. Overfilled slightly, corrected. Her bottom lip disappeared between her teeth—concentration or anxiety, impossible to tell. The fluorescent lights caught the side of her face, highlighted the tension in her jaw, the flutter of her pulse at her throat.
Too fragile. Too breakable.
And I couldn't stop cataloging every detail.
The way her hair escaped the ponytail in wisps at her nape. The slight tremor in her shoulders. How she positioned herself with the counter between us, like the barrier might protect her from whatever threat I represented.
Smart girl.
She should run. Should've run the second she recognized me.
She secured the lid. Turned.
Our eyes met.
The cup slipped from her fingers.
Time fractured.
I watched the trajectory—white ceramic tumbling through air, lid separating mid-fall, liquid arcing outward in a perfect dark spray. Physics I couldn't stop. Momentum already committed.
Scalding heat hit my stomach first. Soaked through the hoodie, the shirt beneath. Spread across my forearm where I'd moved too slow to block it. Coffee exploded across the counter, splattered the register, dripped onto the floor in heavy drops that sounded too loud in the sudden silence.
The entire café stopped breathing.
She stood frozen. Hand still suspended where the cup had been, lips parted on a gasp she hadn't released. Horror painted across every feature—eyes wide, face drained white, whole body locked in place like moving might make it worse.
"Oh my gosh," she breathed. "I—I'm so?—"
I looked at her.
Really looked.
Fierce eyes. Same ones from years ago, but older now. Haunted in ways that had nothing to do with childhood and everything to do with survival. Fear etched into the delicate lines around her mouth, the tension in her throat as she struggled for words that wouldn't come.
Beautiful.
The thought arrived unwanted. Unwelcome.
Wrong.
She was too young. Too damaged. Too tangled up in memories I'd buried for good reason.
And she looked at me like I might destroy her.
Maybe I would.
Maybe I already had.
Something hot and vicious coiled in my chest—recognition, yes, but underneath it lurked something darker. Attraction I had no right to feel. Guilt that sat like lead in my gut because I should've checked on her, should've made sure she landed somewhere safe, should've been better than the man who walked away and never looked back.
