Page 41 of Neap & Spring

After five years of silence and everything between us, he remembered how I take my coffee.

A fissure runs straight through the center of me.

I look up at him, my eyes burning, but he’s already turning away and pouring his own mug. Black, the way he’s always taken it.

He sits down across from me with his coffee cupped in both hands, and for a long moment, he just stares into it, watching the steam rise and dissipate.

I wait in silence.

I don’t drink my coffee even though I’m cold and the warmth would feel good. I don’t move. I barely breathe. I just wait.

“Her name was Sarah,” he says finally.

His voice is flat and factual, like he’s reading from a script he’s memorized but doesn’t want to perform.

I feel a stabbing sensation in my ribs that makes it hard to inhale.

Sarah.

“I knew her growing up,” he continues, still not looking at me. His eyes are fixed on the black surface of his coffee. “Not well. We went to the same school but ran in different circles. I just knew her the same way you know everyone in a town this size.”

He takes a sip of coffee then sets it down on the floor beside his chair.

“When I moved back, she was working at a restaurant in Crescent Bay. Front-of-house manager. We ended up on the same schedule for almost a year before anything happened.” His jaw tightens slightly. “She was smart. Organized. She knew the business side of restaurants way better than I did.”

He takes a deep breath and slowly blows it out.

“We started dating. Or we tried to, at least. It was never easy. We fought. A lot. We wanted different things, or we wanted the same things for different reasons. I could never tell which. We’d break up and then find our way back. Break up again. It went on like that for a while.” He drags a hand through his hair. “I kept thinking if we just had something real to build toward, it would work itself out. Something bigger than the two of us, you know?”

I grip my mug tighter, the ceramic warm against my palms. I want to look away, but I can’t. I force myself to watch him and hear everything he is saying even though every word feels like a deep cut.

“She wanted to open a place, and so did I. We had the same vision on paper. I had the culinary experience, and she had the business background. We were a good team.” His muscle ticks in his cheek. “Or I told myself we were, at least. We found this space about a year after that. It was perfect. Right on the water. Good bones. It just needed a lot of work. We took out loans — business loans, personal loans. Maxed out credit cards. We built the restaurant from the ground up. Literally. I was here every day doing the work myself.”

He turns to stare at the kitchen, taking a deep breath before continuing. “We’d been fighting more than usual that year. We were still on again, off again. I kept thinking we just needed something to commit to. Something solid.” He’s quiet for a moment. “So I proposed.”

He pauses, and I watch his hands curl into fists on his thighs, his knuckles going white from the pressure. Then he releases them slowly, finger by finger.

“She planned the whole thing. She told me which weekend and which restaurant. Some place in San Francisco with white tablecloths and live music. Said she wanted it done right.” He blows out a breath. “So I showed up with a ring and did what she wanted. And I told myself that was enough. That it had to be enough. That it would fix us.”

My throat is so tight I can barely swallow. I set my coffee down on the floor before I drop it. My hands are shaking too hard to hold it anymore.

He was engaged.

He was going to marry someone else.

And I had no idea.

“We opened Neap & Spring three years ago,” Callum continues, his voice still that same flat monotone. “And for a while, I thought I’d been right. That was what we needed. The restaurant was busy. The reviews were good. People were excited about what we were building.” He stops and drags a hand through his hair, tugging at the strands. “And we weren’t fighting anymore. Not like before. And I thought — okay. This actually worked. The thing I thought would fix it actually fixed it.”

He finally looks up at me, and his eyes are empty in a way that makes my heart break.

“I don’t know if I even loved her,” he says quietly. “I’ve thought about it a lot since, and I honestly don’t know. Maybe I just loved the idea of it. Building something with someone and not being alone. Having a partner who understood what I was trying to do.” He pauses. “Maybe I proposed because I was tired of things falling apart, and I thought a ring would hold it together.”

He looks away again, back down at his hands. They’re clasped together now, fingers laced, gripping so tight the tips are turning red.

“It doesn’t matter now. Love or not, I trusted her, at least.”

I want to say something. Anything. I want to reach out and touch his arm. Tell him I’m sorry. But I can’t move. My body won’t respond. I’m frozen in this chair, watching him unravel.