I wait for her, she’s late. I ache for her, for the drama that we’ve seen, for the heartbreak that we’ve been through together. I ache for her presence, her wake, through the Tuesdays, through the bodies we have buried in the ground. She’s been there, she’s seen it all, and she wears it like a halo, carries it better than I ever could.
I look around the café, a couple on a first date, wide eyes and smiles full of stories to tell. There’s an older couple, her in her magazine, he on his tablet. There's a man without his wife and child, drinking black coffee, looking free and lost and late for something else. Water stains on the hard-grain wood of the tables, the chair goes creaky as I take my cappuccino. The waitress makes sure I’m okay.
There are no bulbs burning in this coffee shop, just the light of the sun which has slid behind the cloud, leaving us in a dim, sipping our brew from mugs too big. The leaves are gone and the trees are naked, waiting for the holidays, waiting to say “I told you so.” The construction sound is loud across the street. The winter, I know. This winter is gonna leave us cold.
Paper napkins and an empty chair across from me. I can smell her perfume, only anticipation. She will be here soon, pulling out her chair, apologize with her eyes, making sense of the dark, making light of the season, making sane of my crazy, if just for twenty minutes. She will be here.
I will pay for her latte. I will smile as she sweetens with her spoon.
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