Chapter 3
Sitting at the bar, laptop open and coffee cooling in front of me, I watched the world blur past through watery eyes. An old man took the seat across from me. Our eyes met—his holding a small, knowing smile and a lifetime of stories.
He opened his mouth and asked, ever so gently, “Why does it look like you’ve got a broken heart?”
“How did you know?” I asked, blinking fast. “Is it really that obvious?”
He touched my hand, his voice soft but steady. “You’re not the first to take your coffee with tears, my love.”
So, I told him. I told him about the boy who stole my heart all those years ago. The keeper of my soul. The light to my dark.
The boy who now watches me while wiping down the bar.
The boy who never really left me, even when he vanished.
Who stopped answering my calls, maybe scared he’d find tears waiting on the other end.
I glanced at Blake. He looked tired. Not sad, just… worn. Not as sad as the woman I saw staring back at me in the reflection of my coffee cup.
The old man’s thumb rubbed over the back of my hand, coaxing my eyes back to his. I took a deep breath.
“What should I do?” I whispered. “Should I leave, just get in my car and drive far away? Let him go? Or should I fight?”
His gaze burned into mine. So much wisdom buried in the deep, old-soul blue of his eyes.
He inhaled slowly and said, “I just read in the papers they’re sending people to the stars now lass.
Maybe you should take his hand, fly past the moon…
Forget the pain. Wipe your tears. Let Mars mend your broken heart. ”
A breathless kind of silence filled the space between us.
I stole a glance at Blake again as the old man’s hand slipped from mine. The warmth of his touch faded fast, replaced by a cold ache.
“Love isn’t for the weak, my love. You have to fight for it.”
He winked, folded his paper, and placed a hat over his thinning grey hair. He walked away humming a tune I hadn’t heard since I was a little girl.
My grandfather used to hum that same song to my grandmother as they sat hand in hand, watching the sun disappear behind the hills. A love story that stood the test of time. One my soul begged the writer in me to write.
I sent a message to Blake.
Even though he was only meters away.
Even though I could still smell him, still feel the heat of him.
He was my sun. I was his moon.
So why did he want to throw me away? Throw us away?
A question I asked with no answer ever given.
I still remember the look on your face the night I said ‘I love you’ for the first time.
You were lit by the full moon, your features soft and shadowed.
It was 12:58 a.m.
I whispered those words into the air between us, sitting on the cliff’s edge as whitewash waves crashed below.
The sky was grey, the sea stormy.
And you whispered back, “I’ve loved you since the first day you looked at me. I’ll love you forevermore.”
So why did you go? Why did you leave me?
I placed my phone face up on the bar in front of me, heart hammering, pulse wild. A cold sweat traced the length of my spine. Why was I so nervous?
He was my husband.
Yet… we felt like strangers.
His phone buzzed behind him.
He glanced over his shoulder, then turned to pick it up.
A sigh slipped from his lips. His shoulders sagged.
As if my name on the screen irritated him.
I held my breath.
He cleared his throat, flipped the dish rag over his shoulder, and placed the phone screen-down on the counter. Without reading it. Without responding.
He walked away.
From the bar. From me. From the message.
It was a slap in the face to the woman who knew all his secrets. All his dreams.
The same woman who helped him keep all his dreams safe in the worn-out back pocket of his favourite denim jeans.
My eyes burned.
My mind betrayed me, launching me into memories.
The rain on our skin.
The smell of late spring dancing in the air.
The pain in his eyes the night I told him I’d lost the baby—lost the life we had hoped for.
His arms wrapped around me on the same love seat my grandparents gifted us for our forever home.
Now, here I sat. In an empty bar. Heart bleeding. Tears falling. And a husband who wouldn’t even look at me.
“Company likes misery.”
My head snapped up. Carrie slid into the booth across from me, wearing her signature over-the-top, way-too-expensive perfume. It hit me like a solid wall of scent, and I sneezed.
Good god, here we go again, more water to my already overflowing eyes.
“I swear I’m allergic to you,” I muttered, trying to sound light. Not broken.
“You keep telling your jacked-up senses that,” she grinned. “This is the scent of success, baby.”
She looked around—probably for Blake. Who else?
“So,” she said, raising a perfectly arched brow, “you skipping out on work to moon over lover boy?”
My heart dropped fifty feet.
“No,” I replied, trying to shrug it off. “Just morning coffee. And a familiar place to sit and plot.”
“Mmhmm.” She didn’t buy it.
“Can I get you anything?”
A waitress appeared—long blonde hair, tight black skirt, white tee knotted at the front.
I blinked.
I didn’t know her. Had never seen her before.
I didn’t hire her.
Great. Another thing he did without me.
“Um, Blake. Where is Blake?” Carrie’s voice sliced through the awkward. “He always serves us.” Her eyes ping-ponged between the new girl and me, demanding answers. She leaned back; arms crossed and tapped her jet-black nails on her forearm with a rhythmic threat.
“Mr. Allen asked me to serve you ladies,” Blondie said as sweet and warm as peach tea on a winter’s night. Her tone grated down my spine.
I took a breath in.
Held it.
Counted to ten.
“Just a latte. Two shots. One pump salted caramel. And Carrie will have a white mocha latte—two pumps of mint,” I answered for her, nudging her shin beneath the table to hold her back from erupting.
The waitress nodded and walked off, hips swaying like a music video, her heels clicking across wood.
And then he appeared.
Blake.
He walked from the back, standing way too close to her, hand on her arm, then on the small of her back.
And my body?
It coiled.
Tight.
Pain bloomed sharp and angry under my skin.
I flipped open my journal and wrote in black ink:
Standing across the room from me I now see a stranger where I once saw my soulmate.
“You, little lady, will be telling me what the hell is going on—and you’ll do it now.” Carrie’s voice cracked like a whip across my thoughts.
I dragged my gaze away from Blake and the waitress—skinny, perfect, high ponytail bouncing with smugness.
“My—” I started.
“Penn.”
“Carrie,” I shot back, defensive.
“Penn,” she said again, her tone soft but solid, “you’ve got sad, poufy eyes, red rims, dishevelled hair, hiding behind those bangs.
You’re wearing more oversized shit than usual.
You’re late. Zoned out. And now you’re here instead of work.
You think I don’t see it? The way you shake when you look at him. At her. You’re not okay.”
She saw through me. She always did.
Better than I saw myself.
Like Blake used to before he walked out and left me hollow and unravelling.
I risked a glance at her. She looked at me, then we both turned toward him. Blondie balanced the tray of coffees like she belonged. A sexy smile sparkled from her lips like it had the right to exist here.
Blake’s eyes found mine.
I mouthed the words—soft, quiet, just for him.
I can’t pretend you don’t exist. You are my very existence.
A single tear slipped free. I swiped it fast.
“Is he cheating on you?” Carrie asked. “With that?”
Her venom was a slap to the room.
The waitress walked over, her cheeks red, her eyes wide.
Carrie’s words hung like barbed wire between us.
Blake moved toward her—closer, protective.
My eyes snapped to the ceiling. I would not cry. Not in front of her.
“Well?” Carrie snapped. “You going to say something?”
“I don’t know,” I whispered.
The truth was… I didn’t.
He hadn’t cheated.
He’d just left.
Ghosted me three nights ago like I was a stranger. A phase. A bad idea.
“Not cheating. No,” Blondie answered for me, her voice Arctic-cold. “But he did leave her.”
It was a knife to the chest.
Carrie’s hands slammed down on the table, making us all jump. Blondie flinched.
“Just leave the coffees,” I said through tight lips. “Go.”
My eyes clung to the ceiling lights, to the gold glow swaying slightly with the wind from the front windows. Our bar. His dream. My money. Our memories.
“I hate to be a buzzkill,” Blondie chirped, “but it’s kinda creepy the ex and bestie are hanging around. Like, Blakey would never say it—but I will. It’s weird.”
He walked toward us, long strides full of familiar weight. My skin reacted on instinct—his presence, his sound, his breath. I felt him like a storm brewing.
“Like fuck he did,” Carrie snarled.
I couldn’t take her rage. It was too loud, too much.
“It’s—” I tried, but Blake cut me off.
His hand slid over Blondie’s back again.
Her smile?
Smug.
Victory.
Like she’d already won.
Fuck. Her.
I was wearing glasses, messy hair, oversized sweatpants, and the woman who couldn’t keep his baby alive.
“She was the last straw, wasn’t she?” I whispered. “The baby died, and so did we.”
His face crumpled.
“No, Penn. No. It’s not her.” He stepped forward, voice trembling. “It’s the shit in my head. I’m drowning. I couldn’t keep pretending. I had to let go.”
I reeled.
“You let me go,” I breathed. “You let her go.”
My heart convulsed.
“Saying goodbye seems so forever,” he said, broken. “But pieces of me aren’t fair to you.”
The words twisted inside me.
A decade.
A life built thread by thread.
Now unravelling.
“Carrie, watch her for me,” he murmured.
Carrie stood, ready to kill.
“Watch her? You want me to watch her for what—her safety or yours? Because if I were her, I’d rip your goddamn face off. And Blondie? I’d feed her to the god damn fucking pigs.”
“Whoa, not on her,” he rushed to say.
Of course he did.
“She’s not the villain, Carrie. Let it go.”
I stood, legs shaky.
“I hope you know what you’re doing,” I whispered, leaning in close enough to kiss the memory of us off his neck. “Because it was always supposed to be us. In this lifetime and the next.”
My voice cracked.
“And we made promises not just to each other. But to her.”
Our daughter.
Our perfect, fleeting miracle.
“This pain?” I added. “It’ll eat you alive. And one day I’ll be a stranger. But my eyes? They’ll always be your home.”
He held his breath.
I kissed his neck, slow and final.
Breathed him in one last time.
Grabbed my bag.
Carrie’s hand.
And walked.
But as I left, I felt his eyes on my back—burning, bleeding.
And it hit me.
We weren’t quite done.
Because how the hell could one soul keep walking when it hadn’t been split clean in two yet?