The next morning, she wasn’t there.
No text. No note. No subtle entrance with her half-lidded eyes and oversized headphones. Just… nothing. Her usual seat by the window stayed empty, the chair still angled slightly outward as if it were holding space for her.
I told myself it meant nothing. Maybe she overslept. Maybe she had class across town. Maybe she was finally tired of oat milk lattes and the smell of burnt almond syrup that haunted this place like old perfume.
But something about the silence felt heavier.
I stayed longer than usual, hoping she might still come. Scribbled half-thoughts into my notebook. Let my drink go cold. Caught myself staring at the door every time it opened.
The barista, Jamir, the one with the faded tattoo and the easy laugh, looked over at me and grinned.
“Yo,” he said, “where’s your study buddy today?”
I shrugged.
“Probably somewhere with better tea.”
“Doubt it,” he said. “Y’all got a rhythm. Felt weird not seeing it.”
Yeah, I thought. It does.
It wasn’t until the third day she reappeared, stepping in like no time had passed, except something was different. Her coat was gone. Her hair was straightened and pulled into a low, elegant bun. No headphones. No backpack. Just a small leather journal tucked under her arm and a presence I didn’t know how to read.
She saw me instantly, smiled, same soft curl of the lips, but didn’t sit.
“Hey,” she said.
“Hey. You vanished.”
“I did.” Her voice held no apology. Just honesty. “Had to reset.”
I nodded like I understood. And in some ways, I did. We all disappear when we need to. But there was something in her posture that told me she hadn’t just reset her schedule, she had reset us.
“This place missed you.”
She tilted her head. “Did you?”
The question landed gently, but not lightly. She wasn’t teasing. It wasn’t flirtation. It was curiosity. Real, careful, human curiosity.
“Yeah,” I said, without blinking. “I did.”
She smiled at that. Something in her face softened, like I’d passed a test I didn’t know I was taking. Still, she didn’t sit.
“I’m heading somewhere else today. Thought I’d stop by. Just to see.”
“To see what?”
“If the air still felt different when you were here.”
There it was. That quiet acknowledgment. That unspoken confession we’d both been circling. Not desire, not yet, not explicitly. But something closer. The shared awareness of presence. Of gravity. Of that strange pull between people who aren’t quite strangers anymore.
I stood up before I even realized I had.
“Want company?”
She blinked, surprised. Then, slowly, nodded.
“Yeah. I think I do.”
And just like that, the pattern broke.
We walked out together, no destination named. Just two souls finally stepping beyond the boundary line they’d been tracing in silence for weeks. The café behind us kept buzzing, unaware that something sacred had just shifted inside it.
And me?
I couldn’t stop thinking:
If she is the mirror, and I am the mirror,
Then maybe this was the first time either of us decided to truly look.