Chapter 1: Espresso and Unspoken Promises
My hands are shaking again.
It's not the caffeine. I haven't even taken a sip yet. The mug is warm between my palms, ceramic painted with little sunflowers that have faded from too many washes, and the heat seeps into my fingers like it's trying to calm them down. It doesn't work. It never works.
Sarah is smiling at me from behind the counter. That smile. God, that smile. It's the kind of smile that makes you believe in things you stopped believing in years ago. Her wavy chestnut hair is pulled back today, a few rebellious strands escaping to frame her face, and there's a smudge of something—chocolate, maybe—on her left cheek. I want to reach across the counter and wipe it away with my thumb. I want to feel the warmth of her skin under my fingertips. I want to press my lips to that exact spot and taste the sweetness of whatever she's been eating.
I don't do any of that, obviously.
"Extra foam, just how you like it," she says, sliding the latte across the worn wooden counter. Her freckles stand out in the golden morning light streaming through the frosted windows, constellations across the bridge of her nose. "You're becoming a regular, huh? Three months now?"
Three months. She noticed. She actually noticed.
My heart stutters in my chest, a pathetic little flutter that I can't control. I nod, trying to look casual, trying to look like someone who just happens to like the coffee here. Like I haven't memorized the exact cadence of her laugh, the way she tucks her hair behind her ear when she's concentrating, the slight rasp in her voice when she's been talking for too long.
"Yeah," I manage. My voice comes out rough, too low. I clear my throat. "Best latte in town."
She beams. "You're sweet."
I'm not sweet. I'm not anything close to sweet. If she knew the things I think about her when I'm alone in my apartment, when I've had enough wine to quiet the screaming in my head—no. No, she can't ever know those things. She'd run. Everyone runs eventually.
But she doesn't have to know everything.
I take a sip of the latte. It's perfect, of course. Extra foam, extra hot, just the way I order it every single morning at exactly seven-fifteen. I know her schedule by heart. Mondays and Wednesdays she opens, Tuesdays and Thursdays she comes in at ten. Fridays she's off, and those days are the hardest, the days when I have to find other ways to fill the hours, when the apartment feels too small and my thoughts get too loud and the wine bottle calls to me from the kitchen counter.
I don't know who I am without her anymore.
"Are you okay?" Sarah asks, tilting her head. That concerned expression. She's so good, so genuinely good, and I think that's what kills me most about her. The way she actually cares. The way she looks at me like I matter.
"There's something about you," she continues. "You always seem... I don't know. Like you're carrying something heavy."
The words hit me square in the chest. She sees me. She actually sees me. Even through everything, even through the careful mask I wear every day, she sees the weight I carry.
I should tell her it's nothing. I should laugh it off, make some joke about work stress or a bad night's sleep. But my mouth opens and the truth slips out before I can stop it.
"I don't sleep much."
That's not the truth. Not the whole truth. The truth is I can't sleep unless I've had enough to drink to make the edges of the world go soft and blurry. The truth is the only thing that quiets my brain is the burn of alcohol sliding down my throat, and even then, my dreams are filled with her. With Sarah. With the impossible, consuming need to make her mine.
"That must be hard," she says softly.
I can't do this. I can't stand here and make small talk while my hands shake and my heart races and every fiber of my being screams at me to reach out and touch her. I take another sip of coffee, using the motion to steady myself.
"You have no idea," I say.
But you will. You will.
---
I don't go straight home after the café.
I should. I have papers to grade, lesson plans to finish, a stack of essays that I've been putting off for a week. But the thought of being alone in my apartment right now, in that quiet space where the walls press in and the silence gets so loud I can hear my own heartbeat, makes something in my chest tighten.
So I walk.
The streets are busy this time of morning, people rushing to work with their heads down and their headphones in, oblivious to everything around them. I pass a bakery, a bookstore, a small park where a dog is chasing its tail while its owner laughs. I could be any of them. I could be the dog chasing its tail, going in circles, never catching what it wants. Hell, maybe I already am.
My phone buzzes in my pocket. A text from Hana.
You okay? You seemed off yesterday.
Hana. Sweet, trusting Hana, who thinks I'm just a troubled girl who needs a friend. Who doesn't suspect anything, doesn't see the way my eyes follow her too, doesn't notice how jealous I get when she talks about her other friends, her family, her plans for the future.
She's not the one I want, though. She never was. But she's close to the one I want—they work together sometimes, have coffee together, share secrets and laughter that I'm not part of—and that makes her useful. That makes her something I can't discard.
I'm fine, I type back. Just tired.
You sure? You drank a lot last night.
Three glasses of wine. Not enough. Never enough. I needed more. I always need more.
Coffee now, I respond. Feeling better.
She sends back a thumbs up. I shove the phone back in my pocket and keep walking.
The truth is, Hana's right. I'm not okay. I haven't been okay in a very long time. Not since the first day I walked into that café and saw Sarah behind the counter, smiling like she had all the light in the world inside her. Not since the first time she asked me how my day was and actually waited for the answer.
Three months. I've been watching her for three months. I know the name of her cat—Butterscotch. I know she graduated from state school two years ago with a degree in business. I know she's saving up to open her own place, just like she told me she dreams about. I know she's single because Hana mentioned it in passing, and the relief I felt when I heard those words was so powerful it nearly knocked me to my knees.
I know her schedule. I know her favorite music—indie folk, the kind that sounds like springtime and heartbreak. I know she volunteers at the animal shelter on Saturday afternoons. I know she's allergic to peanuts and loves cinnamon rolls but hates frosting. I know she has a scar on her left wrist from a bike accident when she was nine.
I know more about her than I know about myself.
And the worst part—the part that keeps me up at night, the part that makes me need the wine—is that I don't feel bad about it. I don't feel guilty or ashamed or any of the things I should feel. I feel like a scavenger, collecting pieces of someone else's life, hoarding them like treasure. I feel like a predator, circling.
But mostly I just feel empty. Because all the pieces I've collected don't add up to the whole. They don't add up to holding her. They don't add up to hearing her say she loves me.
No one ever says that to me.
Or worse, it feels like a performance. She says things she doesn't mean because it makes her feel better about herself. She's a fixer, Sarah. She needs someone to save. I can be that. I can be the sad girl at the counter. I can be the one who needs her. I can be anything she wants if it means she keeps looking at me that way.
Not that it's bad. Maybe it's even good. Maybe the alcohol clears the noise, quieting the world so I can finally hear myself think. Maybe it makes the colors brighter, the music sweeter, the loneliness bearable.
Or maybe I'm just lying to myself again.
I stop at the convenience store on the corner of Fifth and Main. The cashier doesn't look up when I walk in, doesn't ask me if I need help, doesn't even register that I exist. I like it that way. I like being invisible. It feels safe.
I head straight for the wine aisle.
Two bottles. A red and a white. The red is for tonight, for the quiet hours when the apartment closes in and the thoughts get too loud. The white is for later—maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, depending on how things go. I know it's a lot. I know it's more than I should buy. But the thought of running out, of being stuck in that headspace without the ability to quiet it, makes my chest tighten.
The cashier finally looks up when I set the bottles on the counter. She's young, maybe twenty, with bright pink hair and a nose ring. She doesn't say anything about the wine. She just rings it up and tells me the total.
I pay in cash. I always do.
---
The apartment is quiet when I get home.
It's a small place, a one-bedroom on the third floor of an old building that's seen better days. The landlord keeps promising to fix the radiator, but it's been two winters and nothing has changed. I don't mind. The cold wakes me up, keeps me alert, reminds me that I'm still alive.
I put the wine in the cabinet above the fridge. The cabinet where I keep other things too—things I don't want to think about right now, things I'll need later. I close the door before those thoughts can escape.
Then I bury my feet in the carpet. Soft, beige, clean. The only nice thing in this apartment, and I chose it myself. It's the first thing I do when I get home, kick off my shoes—actually kick them, sending them flying across the room—and stand on the carpet barefoot. But that's enough—the carpet, the privacy. Not that I'd know what to do without it.
I grab my laptop and settle onto the couch. There's work to do. There's always work to do. But I don't open any documents. Instead, I open my browser and navigate to Sarah's Instagram.
It's public. She doesn't know I follow her—or at least, she's never mentioned it. I'm just another faceless username among hundreds, another heart on her posts. She has no idea that I've looked at every single photo, that I've memorized the captions, that I've scrolled back years, watching her grow up through the glow of a screen.
Today, she posted a photo of the café. Her café, the one I just left, bathed in that same golden morning light. "Ready for another beautiful day," the caption reads. "Come see me!"
Come see me.
I will. Tomorrow. And the day after. And the day after that.
I close the laptop and lean back against the couch, closing my eyes. I can stay home. I can rest. I can pretend I'm like everyone else for a little while. But tomorrow morning, I'll be back. I'll sit in my corner, watch Sarah move behind the counter, and pretend I'm not drowning.