Page 18 of Born to Run Back
They didn’t have to work so fucking hard to find things to talk about.
“This is weird, isn’t it?” I said finally, because pretending otherwise felt absolutely exhausting.
Theo’s shoulders relaxed slightly, the first genuine expression I’d witnessed from him since walking in. “Yeah. Really weird.”
“I mean, we barely know each other.” I laughed, but it came out bitter, strained. “I don’t even know how you take your coffee.”
“Black. Always black.” He gestured to my latte. “Chai?”
“Usually. Sometimes Vietnamese iced coffee if I’m feeling fancy.” Such mundane details. The building blocks of actual relationships, I supposed, rather than whatever fever dream we’d been living. “God, we really don’t know anything about each other, do we?”
“I know that you paint your rocks with nail polish so they catch the moonlight,” he said softly, and for a moment, something flickered between us. A shadow of the connection that had felt so real, so significant. But then the coffee shop’s fluorescent lights seemed to brighten, washing out whatever magic had briefly surfaced.
“Right.” I wrapped both hands around my latte, using the warmth to ground myself. “The rocks.”
We both stared into our respective drinks, the weight of four months of obsession settling between us like a tangible, physical thing. All those Tuesday nights, all those carefully arranged stones, all those dreams and fantasies and late night drives to our sacred memorial—it had all led to this. Two strangers in a coffee shop, realizing they’d fallen in love with ghosts.
"Maybe we just..." I started, then stopped, not sure how to finish the thought without sounding cruel.
"Needed last night," he completed, understanding immediately. "For closure."
"Yeah." The relief in my voice was unmistakable, and I saw it reflected in his sad blue eyes. "Maybe that's what it was. What we both needed to move on."
He nodded. "The trauma response thing. It makes sense."
"Perfect sense." I was already standing, suddenly desperate to escape this fluorescent purgatory, to get back to my car where I could process the massive disappointment in private. "Thank you for meeting me for coffee.”
"Thank you for... everything." He stood too, and for a moment we hovered there awkwardly, unsure of how to say goodbye. A handshake felt ridiculous. A hug felt like a lie.
"Take care of yourself, Theo."
"You too, Wendy."
I walked out of Brewed Awakening feeling somehow lighter and heavier at the same time. The fantasy was finally dead, the obsession broken by the harsh reality of daylight and small talk and the simple truth that shared trauma wasn't the same thing as compatibility.
But as I sat in my car, watching him through the coffee shop window as he stared down at his phone, I couldn't shake the feeling that we'd just made a hideous, horrible mistake.
That in our rush to be normal, we'd thrown away something that might have been worth fighting for.
Even if we didn't know what the hell it was.
Chapter Eight
A Fragile Orbit
Theo
Friday,11:30p.m.,oneweek later
The bourbon burned less on the fourth pour, which probably meant it was time to stop. But I reached for the bottle anyway, my hands steady enough despite everything else in my life falling completely apart.
The panic attack had hit during third period, right in the middle of explaining the causes of World War I, and I’d had to dismiss the class early, mumbling something about food poisoning while my chest seized up like a fist.
Jessica covered for me from next door. Again. She’d been doing it more often than I cared to admit.
I should have been grading papers right now. Should have been planning Monday’s lesson on the Russian Revolution. Instead, I sat at my kitchen table, staring at my phone, scrolling through the same three text messages Wendy and I had exchanged after that coffee shop disaster of a—date? Fuck, I didn’t even know what to call it.
Thanks again for meeting me for coffee, Theo.
