She walks in like the air’s been waiting for her.
It doesn’t matter what time it is, sometimes it’s early, when the café still smells like fresh grounds and mop water, other times it’s just before the late lunch rush, when laptops hum and espresso machines hiss like some kind of worship. Regardless, we always end up in the same space. Me in my usual corner by the bookshelf. Her near the window, where the light slides across her face like it knows better than to touch too much at once.
And we always speak.
“Hey, stranger,” she says, eyes half-lit, like she knows she’s interrupting something but does it anyway.
“You’re always in your zone,” I say, smiling without meaning to.
“Gotta get this degree somehow,” she smirks, slinging her backpack down and pulling out that same mechanical pencil.
Our conversations are like jazz, light, improvised, often starting mid-thought and ending with a shrug or a smile. A compliment on my hoodie. A passing comment about the playlist overhead. One time, we spent almost twenty minutes pretending to argue over who made better coffee: this place, or the one down the street that always burns the beans but has that ridiculous chocolate croissant.
Her voice has this rhythm, soft but not timid. Intentional. Like she’s never in a rush to explain herself. And even when she’s laughing, it sounds like something she keeps mostly to herself.
I tell myself I’m here to write, and technically, I am. But most days I’m just… present. Scribbling into journals, sipping something warm, pretending I’m not scanning the room every time the door swings open until I see her silhouette against the light. She always smells faintly herbal, maybe patchouli, maybe something citrusy. Or maybe it’s just how memory wants her to smell: clean, warm, alive.
She wears headphones. Large ones. They look vintage but probably cost a small fortune. Most days, she’s lost in whatever’s playing. I’ve imagined it all, lo-fi, Sade, Kendrick, even Coltrane on the right kind of afternoon. Sometimes she hums, just under her breath, as she reads and highlights and takes her notes like the fate of the universe depends on the margins of her notebook.
And the thing is, she doesn’t know what she does to this room.
Every guy that walks in clocked her before they even reached the register. You can see it, the casual posture shifts, the half-smiles, the unnecessary double-backs to the cream counter just to pass her table. She never seems to notice. Or maybe she’s mastered the art of indifference. She’s polite, kind even, but uninterested. Always returns to her notes, her screen, her world.
There’s something about that. Something magnetic in her unbothered focus. She’s not trying to be seen. Which is probably why I can’t stop seeing her.
And then, a few days ago, I had this moment. Someone, an older woman, probably in her sixties, wrapped in a scarf that looked like it had a story, stopped me outside the café and said, “You change the energy in there, you know. It’s like you bring stillness with you.”
I chuckled, thanked her, and chalked it up to the way strangers romanticize strangers. But the words hung in the back of my mind like vapor. Especially when I saw myself reflected in the glass just behind her table, the same way I sometimes see her—not looking up, just… centered.
It made me wonder: what if she’s a mirror?
What if the way I feel about her presence, the gravity, the ease, the mystery, is the same way others feel about mine?
What if we’ve both been sitting here all this time, unintentionally tethered, watching each other out of the corners of our eyes, holding back out of habit or fear or timing, and calling it coincidence?
What if we’re both just as oblivious?