*[ Please do not copy repost 🥺🙏]*

The coffee shop was called Grounded, which Viva thought was either very clever or very stupid depending on how tired she was. Today she was tired enough that everything seemed stupid. Her adjunct paycheck had bounced—no, not bounced, been delayed, which was different and somehow worse because it meant the money existed but someone had forgotten to click a button. She'd graded fourteen essays on symbolism in The Awakening and every single student had spelled Chopin wrong. Not Frédéric. Kate. They'd written Kate Choppin like she was someone who chopped things.

So Viva was not in a mood to meet anyone.

She was in a mood to get her chai latte, sit in the corner by the window, and scroll through her phone while pretending to read a book she'd already read twice. The book was in her bag. The phone was in her hand. The corner table was empty.

And then she walked in and he looked up.

He was sitting alone at a two-top near the pastry case, reading a physical paperback. Not a Kindle. Not a phone. An actual paperback with a creased spine and a coffee ring on the cover. She registered this the way she registered things she wanted to compliment but never would: That's attractive. I will never tell him that.

He looked up when the door chimed.

Just looked. Not a stare. Not a leer. Just... noticed her. Held her gaze for one second longer than strangers usually did. Long enough to say I see you and short enough to say I'm not a creep, I promise.

She smiled first. She didn't mean to. It just happened.

He smiled back.

She almost went to her corner table. She almost ordered her chai and disappeared into her phone like she'd planned. But the corner table was taken by a man with a laptop and three empty espresso cups, so she had to sit somewhere else, and somewhere else ended up being the table next to his.

"What are you reading?" she asked.

Not a line. Genuine curiosity. She'd never seen that book before.

He held it up. The cover was mostly black with a single red door on it. She didn't catch the title.

"It's about a man who loses his shadow," he said. "And then spends the whole book trying to find it. But when he finds it, the shadow doesn't want to come back."

"That sounds sad."

"It is." He said it like that was the point.

She ordered her chai. He went back to his book. And for twenty minutes, they sat in parallel silence, not talking, not ignoring each other, just existing in the same small radius of afternoon light.

When she stood to leave, he looked up again.

"I'm George," he said.

"Viva."

"That's a great name."

"It's a stage name. My real name is Margaret."

"Margaret is also a great name."

She laughed. She didn't mean to. It just happened.

He didn't ask for her number. Didn't try to shake her hand. Didn't stand up to block her exit. He just smiled and went back to his shadow book.

She thought about him for three days