Chapter 22
Maya
I do not fall apart at the café, not when the bell over the door keeps chiming and people keep coming in from the cold with their scarves pulled high and their hands wrapped around themselves like they are trying to hold onto something steady, because I have learned how to keep moving even when something inside me has already started to give way, and there is a kind of discipline in that, a quiet control that feels less like strength and more like necessity, but it serves the same purpose in the moment, and so I take orders, refill coffee, wipe down tables that do not need wiping, and answer questions I barely hear, all while carrying the weight of a silence that has settled too deeply to ignore and too stubbornly to dismiss.
It is only when the last customer leaves and the café finally exhales into that familiar end-of-day stillness, the kind that always feels earned after hours of noise and motion, that I feel the edges of that control begin to loosen, because there is no longer anything external demanding my attention, no reason to stay contained except the one I have always carried for myself, and even that begins to feel thinner than it did a few hours ago.
Tess moves through closing the way she always does, efficient and unhurried at the same time, her presence steady enough that I do not have to think about what comes next, and I follow her lead without speaking, stacking chairs, counting the register, rinsing out the last of the coffee pots with a focus that borders on deliberate avoidance, because I know what is waiting for me the moment I stop, and I am not ready for it yet, not ready to stand still long enough for the truth to take shape in a way I cannot soften or redirect.
When we finish and the lights dim to their evening setting, Tess pauses near the counter, watching me in that quiet, perceptive way that has always made it difficult to hide anything for long, and I feel the question in her gaze before she asks it, the same question that has been building for days now, but she does not say it out loud, not right away, and I am grateful for that small mercy even as it makes everything else more inevitable.
“You want to sit for a minute?” she says eventually, her voice low and even, not pressing, not assuming, just offering something I could take or leave without consequence, and for a second I consider saying no, because saying no would mean I can keep pretending I am still in control of this, that I can go home and let the quiet take me there instead of here, in front of someone who might actually see what I have been trying to manage on my own, but the effort of holding it all in has already started to wear through whatever resistance I have left, and I nod before I can talk myself out of it, setting the dish towel down on the counter and moving toward the small table near the window where we sometimes sit after closing, when the world outside has gone dark and the inside of the café feels like its own contained space, separate from everything else.
I sit first, folding my hands together on the table as if that might keep them from betraying anything, and Tess takes the chair across from me, not saying anything for a moment, not filling the silence the way most people would, and that, more than anything, is what breaks whatever is left of my composure, because there is no distraction, no deflection, no easy way to move around what has been building inside me for days now.
The quiet stretches, and in that stretch I feel something shift, not sudden or dramatic, but steady and irreversible, like a door I have been holding closed with more force than I realized finally giving way.
“He didn’t call,” I say, and the words sound simple, almost insufficient for what they carry, but they are enough to open the rest of it, enough to let the truth move through me without the usual filters I rely on to keep things manageable. “Not once. Not even a message.”
Tess nods, her expression calm, attentive, not surprised, and that lack of surprise lands somewhere uncomfortable, because it suggests a possibility I have been trying not to fully acknowledge, a version of events that does not include excuses or misunderstandings or temporary lapses, and I feel the instinct to defend him rise up before I can stop it, the familiar reflex of offering context, of making space for reasons that might explain away what feels too personal to accept at face value.
“He’s dealing with a funeral,” I add, the words coming out quickly, almost rehearsed. “It’s probably been chaotic. He might not even have his phone on him half the time.”
Tess does not contradict me, which is exactly what I expect and exactly what I do not want, because agreement would at least give me something to push against, something to argue with, but her silence leaves the explanation hanging there on its own, and without anything to reinforce it, it begins to feel thinner, less convincing, like something I am holding up with nothing behind it.
“Maybe,” she says after a moment, her tone neutral in a way that neither supports nor dismisses what I have said, and that is when the anger starts to surface, not directed at her, not even fully directed at him yet, but at the space between what I am saying and what I am beginning to understand, the gap that has been widening with every day that passes without anything from him.
“I keep telling myself that,” I admit, my voice tightening slightly despite my effort to keep it even.
“I keep finding reasons why it makes sense. Why it doesn’t mean anything.
Why it’s not…” I stop there, because finishing that sentence would require naming something I have been trying very hard not to name, and the act of leaving it unfinished feels safer somehow, even if the meaning is already clear.
“Not what?” Tess asks gently, and there is no pressure in the question, no demand for an answer, just an opening, and I stare down at my hands for a second longer before I lift my gaze to meet hers, knowing that once I say it, I cannot take it back, cannot reshape it into something less definitive.
“Not him leaving again,” I say finally, and the word again lands heavier than anything else, because it carries the weight of the past with it, the memory of a version of myself who stood in this same kind of uncertainty years ago and tried to make sense of it in ways that protected him more than they protected me.
Tess holds my gaze for a moment, then reaches across the table, not to pull me in or to comfort me in any overt way, but to rest her hand lightly over mine, grounding rather than consoling, and there is something in that gesture that steadies me enough to keep going, enough to move past the part of this that is still trying to soften the edges.
“I trusted him,” I say, and the words come out quieter now, less defensive, more honest. “I let myself believe that this time would be different. That he wouldn’t…
” I shake my head slightly, because the rest of that thought feels too familiar, too close to something I have already lived through once before.
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Tess says, her voice firm in a way that cuts through the uncertainty I have been holding onto, and I know she means it, know she is offering me a version of this that does not place the weight on me, but something in me resists it, not because I think she is wrong, but because accepting that would mean acknowledging a different kind of truth, one that is harder to sit with than blame.
“It feels like I did,” I admit, and this time there is no attempt to disguise it, no effort to make it sound more reasonable than it is. “It feels like I saw all the signs and chose to ignore them. Like I knew who he was and decided to believe something else anyway.”
“That’s not the same as doing something wrong,” Tess replies, her hand still resting over mine, steady and warm. “That’s hoping. That’s taking a chance on someone you care about.”
I let that sit for a moment, because part of me understands what she is saying, understands the difference she is drawing, but another part of me is already moving past it, already shifting toward something else, something that feels less like analysis and more like decision, and I realize, sitting there in the quiet of the café with Tess’s hand grounding me and the reality of the past week finally settling into something I can no longer deny, that the question I have been asking myself is not the one that matters.
It is not why he didn’t call.
It is why I am still waiting for him to.
The shift is subtle, but it changes everything, because it pulls the focus back to me in a way that feels both uncomfortable and necessary, forcing me to look at my own part in this not as a source of blame, but as a point of control, something I can actually do something about instead of something I have to endure.
“I don’t want to do this again,” I say slowly, the words forming with more certainty than anything I have said so far.
“I don’t want to sit here and make excuses for him while he disappears.
I don’t want to keep telling myself that if I just wait a little longer, he’ll come back and explain everything and it will all make sense. ”
Tess nods, her expression softening slightly, not in pity, but in recognition, as if she can see the direction I am moving in and understands what it takes to get there.
“Then don’t,” she says simply.
The simplicity of that lands harder than anything else, because it strips away the complexity I have been wrapping around this, the layers of justification and patience and understanding I have been using to make the situation feel less like what it is, and in that stripped-down version, the choice becomes clear in a way it has not been before.
I pull my hand back gently, not because I do not need the contact anymore, but because I feel something settling into place inside me, something that does not require external support to hold, and I sit back slightly in my chair, taking a slow breath that feels different from the ones I have been taking all week, less reactive, more deliberate.
“I’m not waiting for him,” I say, and this time the words do not waver, do not shift under the weight of doubt or second-guessing. “If he calls, fine. If he shows up, we’ll deal with it then. But I’m not going to sit here and build my days around whether or not he decides to come back.”
Tess’s mouth curves into a small, approving smile, and she nods once, as if acknowledging something important without making it bigger than it needs to be.
“That sounds like you,” she says.
We finish closing after that, the rest of the tasks moving more easily now that the tension has shifted into something I can actually carry, and when I step outside into the cold night air, I feel a kind of clarity that has been missing for days, not because the situation has changed, but because my position within it has.
The walk home is quiet, the town settling into its usual evening stillness, and I move through it with a steadier pace than I have all week, my thoughts no longer circling the same unanswered questions, but moving forward in a more direct line, focused on what comes next rather than what might have been.
By the time I reach my apartment, the exhaustion has started to settle in, not overwhelming, but present in a way that feels slightly off, as if my body is reacting to something beyond the emotional weight of the past few days, and I pause just inside the door, pressing a hand briefly to my stomach as a faint wave of discomfort passes through me, unexpected and unfamiliar, but mild enough that I dismiss it almost immediately, attributing it to stress or lack of sleep or the fact that I have barely eaten properly since Marco left.
I kick off my shoes and move further inside, setting my keys down on the small table by the door, and for a moment I consider checking my phone again, the habit still there despite everything, but I stop myself before I reach for it, letting my hand fall back to my side instead, because I meant what I said, and this is the first real test of it, the first moment where I choose something different than I have been choosing all week.
The phone stays where it is.
The silence remains.
But it no longer feels like something I am waiting to break.
I move through the apartment with a quieter kind of focus, changing into comfortable clothes, pouring a glass of water, sitting down on the couch with a sense of intention that has been missing until now, and as I settle into that space, I feel the last of the uncertainty give way to something more solid, something I can stand on without needing anything from him to hold it in place.
He may call. He may not. He may come back with explanations and apologies and reasons that make sense in ways I cannot see right now. Or he may stay exactly where he is, wherever that is, choosing distance over whatever we had been building here.
For the first time since he left, I realize that the answer to that is no longer something I need in order to move forward.
I lean back against the couch, closing my eyes for a moment as the quiet settles around me, and when I open them again, the decision is still there, steady and clear, not dependent on anything outside of me.
I am not waiting for him this time.